associated with Goethe whom as a poet I dislike, large sausages, and
theological doubts. Your description makes me feel that I may have
misjudged the country and the people; in fact, your little town sounds
a most attractive place to live in. No, I don't think I would expect
you to make friends easily. I think you are the sort of man to have
hosts of acquaintances and only one or two real friends. You know, you
rather scare people. I think it is partly your manner and greatly your
monocle; you have such a detached air, and often I have noticed you
very unresponsive when people were trying to be amusing. Oh, I don't
mean you are ever rude, but you are sometimes chilling. If I hadn't
known from Boggley that you were, as he puts it, a perfect jewel, I
think I should have shrunk away from before you that first day we met
and sat next each other at lunch. I remember I talked a great deal of
nonsense, partly, I think, because I was rather afraid of you; and
somehow or other we have always gone on talking nonsense to each other
since. It has become a habit.

But you don't really want to have a great crowd of friends, do you? It
is only weak-minded people like myself who flop on any stranger's neck
with protestations of undying affection. It is the easiest thing in
the world for any Douglas that ever was to make friends: I think
because we are always willing to laugh at the feeblest jest. Nothing
endears one so quickly to one's fellow-beings as laughing at their
jokes. We have a way, too, of making friends with any casual stranger
we may meet in trains, or coach, or steamer. You superior people,
who, ignoring your fellow-passengers, sit in a corner and read _The
Spectator_, don't know what you miss. The thrilling stories I have
listened to! Once I heard a circumstantial story of a wreck in the
South Seas told by the plucky little wife of the captain, who had
stayed by her husband's side--"Papa" she called him--while the ship