ty that
one values. The possibility of finding a man angry or pettish is unpleasant
to me. I feel 'so all this nonsense has to be cleared away again!' I don't
want to be questioned and scrutinised, with a sense that I am on my trial.
I don't mind an ironical letter, which shows that a friend is fully aware
of my faults and foibles; but it's an end of all friendship with me if I
feel a man is bent on improving me, especially if it is for his own
convenience. I'm sure that the fault-finding element is fatal to affection.
That may sound weak, but I can't be made to feel that I am responsible to
other people. I don't recognise anyone's right to censure me. A man may
criticise me if he likes, but he mustn't impose upon me the duty of living
up to his ideal. I don't believe that even God does that!"

"I don't understand," I said.

"Well," said Father Payne, "I don't believe that God says, 'This is my law,
and you must obey it because I choose," I believe He says, 'This is the
law, for Me as well as for you, and you will not be happy till you obey
it,'--Yes, I have got it, I believe--the essence of affection is
_equality_. I don't mean that you may not recognise superiorities in
your friend, and he in you; but they must not come into the question of
affection. Love makes equal, and when there is a real sense of equality,
love can begin."

"But," I said, "the passion of lovers--isn't that all based on the worship
of something infinitely superior to oneself?"

"Yes," said Father Payne, "but that means a sight of something beyond--of
the thing which we all love--beauty. I don't say that equality is the thing
we love--it's only the condition of loving. The lover can't love, if he
feels himself _really_ unworthy of love. He must believe that at worst
he _can_ be loved, though he may be astonished at being loved; it is
in love that it is possible to meet; it is love that brings beauty within
your reach, or down, to your level. It is beauty that you love in your
friend, not his right to improve you. He is what you want to be; and the
comfort of being loved is the comfort of feeling that there is some touch
of the same beauty in yourself. It is so easy to feel dreary, stupid,
commonplace--and then someone appears, and you see in his glance and talk
that there is, after all, some touch of the same thing in yourself which
you love in him, some touch of the beauty which you love in God. But the
glory of beauty is that it is concerned