with whom I was accustomed to spend much time tete-a-tete. We used
to travel together and spend long periods, day after day, in close
conjunction, often indeed sharing the same bedroom. It became a
matter at first of amusement and interest, but afterwards an
accepted fact, that we could often realise, even after a long
silence, in what direction the other's thought was travelling. "How
did you guess I was thinking of that?" would be asked. To which the
reply was, "I did not guess--I knew." On the other hand I have an
old and familiar friend, whom I know well and regard with great
affection, but whose presence, and particularly a certain fixity of
glance, often, even now, causes me a curious subjective disturbance
which is not wholly pleasant, a sense of some odd psychical control
which is not entirely agreeable.

I have another friend who is the most delightful and easy company
in the world when we are, alone together; but he is a sensitive and
highly-strung creature, much affected by personal influences, and
when I meet him in the company of other people he is often almost
unrecognisable. His mind becomes critical, combative, acrid; he
does not say what he means, he is touched by a vague excitement,
and there passes over him an unnatural sort of brilliance, of a
hard and futile kind, which makes him sacrifice consideration and
friendliness to the instinctive desire to produce an effect and to
score a point. I sometimes actually detest him when he is one of a
circle. I feel inclined to say to him, "If only you could let your
real self appear, and drop this tiresome posturing and fencing, you
would be as delightful as you are to me when I am alone with you;
but this hectic tittering and feverish jocosity is not only not
your real self, but it gives others an impression of a totally
unreal and not very agreeable person." But, alas, this is just the