"He is the sort of man who is always losing his friends," said Pollard at
dinner to Father Payne, describing someone, "and I always think that's a
bad sign."
"And I, on the contrary," said Father Payne, "think that a man who always
keeps his friends is almost always an ass!" He opened his mouth and drew in
his breath.
"Or else it means," said Barthrop, "that he has never really made any
friends at all!"
"Quite right," said Father Payne. "People talk about friendship as if it
was a perfectly normal thing, like eating and drinking--it's not that! It's
a difficult thing, and it is a rare thing. I do not mean mere proximities
and easy comradeships and muddled alliances; there are plenty of frank and
pleasant companionships about of a solid kind. Still less do I mean the
sort of thing which is contained in such an expression as 'Dear old boy!'
which is always a half-contemptuous phrase."
"But isn't loyalty a fine quality?" said Lestrange.
"Loyalty!" said Father Payne. "Of course you must play fair, and be ready
to stick by a man, and do him a kindness, and help him up if he has a fall;
but that is not friendship--at least it isn't what I mean by friendship.
Friendship is a sort of passion, without anything sexual or reproductive
about it. There is a physical basis about it, of course. I mean there are
certain quite admirable, straightforward, pleasant people, whom you may
meet and like, and yet with whom you could never be friends, though they
may be quite capable of friendship, and have friends of their own. A man's
presence and his views and emotions must be in some sort of tune with your
own. There are certain people, not in the least repellent, genial, kindly,
handsome, excellent in every way, with whom you simply are not comfortable.
On the other hand, there are people of no great obvious attractiveness with
whom you feel instantaneously at ease. There is something mysterious about
it, some currents that don't mix, and some that do. A thousand years hence
we shall probably know something about it we don't now."
"I feel that very strongly about books," said Kaye. "There are certain
authors, who have skill, charm, fancy, invention, style--all the things you
value--who yet leave you absolutely cold. They have every qualification for
pleasing except the power to please. It is simply a case of Dr. Fell! You
can't give a single valid reason why you don't like them."
"Yes, indeed," said Father Payne. "and then, again, there are authors whom
you like at a certain age and under certain circumstances, and who end by
boring you; and again, authors whom you don't like when you are young, and
like better when you are old. Does your idea of loyalty apply also to
books, Lestrange, or to music?"
"No," said Lestrange, "to be frank, it does not; but I think that is
different--a lot of technical things come in, and then one's taste alters."
"And that is just the same with people," said Father Payne. "Why, what does
loyalty mean in such a connection? You have admired a book or a piece of
music; you cease to admire it. Are you to go on saying you admire it, or to
pretend to yourself that you admire it? Of course not--that is simply
hypocrisy--there is nothing real about that."
"But what are you to do," said Vincent, "about people? You can't treat them
like books or music. You need not go on reading a book which you have
ceased to admire. But what if you have made a friend, and then ceased to
care for him, and he goes on caring for you? Are you to throw him over?"
"I admit that there is a difficulty," said Father Payne; "I agree that you
must not disappoint people; but it is also somehow your duty to get out of
a relation that is no longer a real one. It can't be wholesome to simulate
emotions for the sake of loyalty. It must all depend upon which you think
the finer thing--the emotion or the tie. Personally, I think the emotion is
the more sacred of the two."
"But does it not mean that you have made a mistake somehow," said Vincent,
"if you have made a friend, and then cease to care about him?"
"Not a bit," said Father Payne. "Why, people change very much, and some
people change faster than others. A man may be exactly what you want at a
certain time of life; he may be ahead of you in ideas, in qualities, in
emotions; and what starts a friendship is the perception of something fine
and desirable in another, which you admire and want to imitate. But then
you may outstrip your friend. Take the case of an artist. He may have an
admiration for another artist, and gain much from him; but then he may go
right ahead of him. He can't go on admiring and deferring out of mere
loyalty."
"But must there not be in every real friendship a _purpose_ of
continuance?" said Vincent. "It surely is a very selfish sort of business,
if you say to yourself, 'I will make friends with this man because I admire
him now, but when, I have got all I can out of him, I will discard him.'"
"Of course, you must not think in that coldblooded way," said Father Payne,
"but it can never be more than a _hope_ of continuance. You may
_hope_ to find a friendship a continuous and far-reaching thing. It
may be quite right to get to know a man, believing him to have fine
qualities; but you can't pledge yourself to admire whatever you find in
him. We have to try experiments in friendship as in everything else. It is
purely sentimental to say, 'I am going to believe in this man blindfold,
whatever I find him to be,' That's a rash vow! You must not take rash vows;
and if you do, you must be prepared to break them. Besides, you can't
depend upon your friend not altering. He may lose some of the very things
you most admire. The mistake is to believe that anything can be consistent
or permanent."
"But if you _don't_ believe that," said Lestrange, "are you justified
in entering upon intimate relations at all?"
"Of course you are," said Father Payne; "you can't live life on prudent
lines. You can't say, 'I won't engage in life, or take a hand in it, or
believe in it, or love it, till I know more about it.' You can't foresee
all contingencies and risks. You must take risks."
"I expect," said Barthrop, "that we are meaning different things by
friendship. Let us define our terms. What do _you_ mean by friendship,
Father?"
"Well," said Father Payne, "I will tell you if I can. I mean a
consciousness, which generally comes rather suddenly, of the charm of a
particular person. You have a sudden curiosity about him. You want to know
what his ideas, motives, views of life are. It is not by any means always
that you think he feels about things as you do yourself. It is often the
difference in him which attracts you. But you like his manner, his
demeanour, his handling of life. What he says, his looks, his gestures, his
personality, affect you in a curious way. And at the same time you seem to
discern a corresponding curiosity in him about yourself. It is a
pleasurable surprise both to discover that he agrees with you, and also
that he disagrees with you. There is a beauty, a mystery, about it all.
Generally you think it rather surprising that he should find you
interesting. You wish to please him and to satisfy his expectations. That
is the dangerous part of friendship, that two people in this condition make
efforts, sacrifices, suppressions in order to be liked. Even if you
disagree, you both give hints that you are prepared to be converted. There
is a sudden increase of richness in life, the sense of a moving current
whose impulse you feel. You meet, you talk, you find a freshness of
feeling, light cast upon dark things, a new range of ideas vividly
present."
"But isn't all that rather intellectual?" said Vincent, who had been
growing restive. "The thing can surely be much simpler than that?"
"Yes, of course it can," said Father Payne, "among simple people--but we
are all complicated people here."
"Yes," said Vincent, "we are! But isn't it possible for an intellectual man
to feel a real friendship for a quite unintellectual man--not a desire to
discuss everything with him, but a simple admiration for fine frank
qualities?"
"Oh yes," said Father Payne, "there can be all sorts of alliances; but I am
not speaking of them. I am speaking of a sort of mutual understanding. In
friendship, as I understand it, the two must not speak different languages.
They must be able to put their minds fairly together--there can be a kind
of man-and-dog friendship, of course, but that is more a sort of love and
trust. Now in friendship people must be mutually intelligible. It need not
be equality--it is very often far removed from that; but there must not be
any condescension. There must be a _desire_ for equality, at all
events. Each must lament anything, whether it is superiority or
inferiority, which keeps the two apart. It must be a desire for unity above
everything. There must not be the smallest shadow of contempt on either
side--it must be a frank proffer of the best you have to give, and a
knowledge that the other can give you something--sympathy, support,
help--which you cannot do without. What breaks friendship, in my
experience, is the loss of that sense of equality; and the moment that
friends become critical--in the sense, I mean, that they want to alter or
improve each other--I think a friendship is in danger. If you have a
friend, you must be indulgent to his faults--like him, not in spite of
them, but almost because of them, I think."
"That's very difficult," said Vincent. "Mayn't you want a friend to
improve? If he has some patent and obvious fault, I mean?"
"You mustn't want to improve him," said Father Payne, smiling; "that's not
your business--unless he _wants_ you to help him to improve; and even
then you have to be very delicate-handed. It must _hurt_ you to have
to wish him different."
"But isn't that what you call sentimental?" said Vincent.
"No," said Father Payne, "it is sentiment to try to pretend to yourself and
others that the fault isn't there. But I am speaking of a tie which you
can't risk breaking for anything so trivial as a fault. The moment that the
fault stands out, naked and unpleasant, then you may know that the
friendship is over. There must be a glamour even about your friend's
faults. You must love them, as you love the dints and cracks in an old
building."
"That seems to me weak," said Vincent.
"You will find that it is true," said Father Payne. "We can't afford to sit
in judgment on each other. We must simply try to help each other along. We
must not say, 'You ought not to be tired.'"
"But surely we may pity people?" said Lestrange.
"Not your friends," said Father Payne. "Pity is _fatal_ to friendship.
There is always something complacent in pity--it means conscious strength.
You can't both pity and admire. You can't separate people up into
qualities--they all come out of the depth of a man; I am quite sure of
this, that the moment you begin to differentiate a friend's qualities, that
moment what I call friendship is over. It must simply be a case of you and
me--not my weakness and your virtue, and still less your weakness and my
virtue. And you must be content to lose friends and to be discarded by
friends. What is sentimental is to believe that it can be otherwise."