"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."