deep attraction
of a peculiar type of character. He had great critical and literary
gifts, and seemed to Hugh to bring to the judgment of artistic work an
extraordinarily clear and fine criterion of values. But beside this,
he seemed to Hugh to have the power of entering into a very close and
emotional relationship with people; and out in the meadows where the
sun shone bright, the breeze blew soft, and the first daisies showed
their heads among the grass, Hugh asked him to explain what he felt
about his relationship with others. His friend said that it came to
this, that it was the only real and vital thing in the world; and when
Hugh pressed him further, and asked him what he felt about the artistic
life, his friend said that it was a great mystery, because art also
seemed to him a strong, entrancing, fascinating thing; but that it ran
counter to and cut across his relations with others, and seemed almost
like a violent and distracting temptation, that tore him away from the
more vital impulse. He added that the problem as to whether
individuality endured (of which they had spoken earlier) seemed to him
not to affect the question at all, any more than it affected one's
sleep or appetite. At this, for a moment, a mist seemed to roll away
from Hugh's eyes, though he knew that it would close in again, and for
an instant he understood; to himself relations with others were but one
class of beautiful experiences, like art, and music, and nature, and
hints of the unseen; not differing in quality, but only in kind, from
other experiences. Hugh saw too, in the same flash of insight, that
what kept him from emotional relationships was a certain timidity--a
dislike of anything painful or disturbing; and that the mistake he
made, if that can be called a mistake which was so purely instinctive,
was his desire to obliterate and annihilate all the unpleasing,
painful, and disagreeable elements from all circumstances and
situations. The reason why Hugh did not hunger and thirst after
friendship was, he saw, that inconveniences, humours,
misunderstandings, mannerisms, _entourage_, were all so many
disagreeable incidents which interfered with his tranquillity of
enjoyment. If he had really loved, these things would have weighed as
nothing in comparison with the need of satisfying the desire of
relationship; as it was, they weighed so much with Hugh that they
overpowered the other instinct. It was really a sort of luxuriousnes