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--li