“Why, then we should have no friends!” she exclaimed.
He smiled indulgently.
“Have we any friends anyhow?” he asked. “What are ‘friends’? Are they not dear sweet people who abuse you behind your back and take an inward deep pleasure in hearing of your faults and misfortunes? The friends of your youth for example? I’m not speaking personally of you, for you are still young—but if you have any so-called ‘friends’ now, and they and you live a few years longer, you’ll have these dear creatures coming along and saying, ‘Really, is it you? I shouldn’t have known you! Why it’s years and years since I saw you!—ages!’—despite the fact that it may be only five summers since you last met. But the expression ‘years and years’ and ‘ages’ is used to let you feel how old you have grown since then; I know the kind of thing I tell you! And I have always made it my business to forget schoolfellows and college companions,—drop them altogether. I don’t want their ‘reminiscences’ and I’m sure they don’t want mine. The secret of happiness in this world is to forget as you go along. Forget the past, live in the present, and don’t worry about the future.”
She was silent. And she kept silence so long that he had time to finish his pipe, knock out its ashes against a tree, and put it in his pocket. Then he looked sideways at her, and saw that the winsome face was sad. Without ceremony he took her arm, and walked on past all the roses to a smooth stretch of greensward beyond.
“You see,” he resumed gently, “we are only on this interesting planet for a short time, and it seems common sense—to me at least—that we should endeavour to make that time as pleasant as possible. If we hold on to friends who knew us as children we find them as changed as we ourselves are changed, and that isn’t pleasant. Therefore, why expose ourselves to the shock? No greater mistake was ever made by the human being—than to keep up his so-called ‘friends.’ It costs money and wastes time—”
She lifted her head quickly.
“Then if you think love a mistake and friendship a bore, can you tell what life is worth?” she asked.
“Dear elfin lady, I can! Life is worth living on account of the various agreeable sensations it provides. It is all ‘sensation’—not sentiment! Love is a ‘sensation’—a violent one—an attraction between two persons of opposite sex which is quite exhilarating and inspiring—for a short time. During that short time it has been known to move poets to their best efforts—though as a rule these individuals write their rhymes to the ‘sensation’—not to the person they imagine they adore. Friendship is also a ‘sensation,’—the feeling that one had found one’s ‘sympathy’—one’s alter ego—a most misleading idea as a rule. But any ‘sensation’ is for the moment agreeable, provided it is not physically painful—and these varying sensations are the sum bonum of life.”
She sighed.
“I do not like your outlook,” she said. “It makes everything seem so contemptible and worthless.”