“Indeed, yes,” said Father Payne, “and it is one of the great mysteries of all to me what we really want with company.  It does not actually take away from us our sense of loneliness at all.  You can’t look into my mind, nor can I look into yours; whatever we do or say to break down the veil between us, we can’t do it.  And I have often been happier when alone than I have ever been in any company.”

“Isn’t it a sense of security?” I said; “I suppose that it is an instinct derived from old savage days which makes us dread other human beings.  The further back you go, the more hatred and mistrust you find; and I suppose that the presence of a friend, or rather of someone with whom one has a kind of understanding, gives a feeling of comparative safety against attack.”

“That’s it, no doubt,” said Father Payne; “but if I had to choose between spending the rest of my life in solitude, or in spending it without a chance of solitude, I should be in a great difficulty.  I am afraid that I regard company rather as a wholesome medicine against the evils of solitude than I regard solitude as a relief from company.  After all, what is it that we want with each other?—­what do we expect to get from each other?  I remember,” he said, smiling, “a witty old lady saying to me once that eternity was a nightmare to her.—­’For instance,’ she said, ’I enjoy sitting here and talking to you very much; but if I thought it was going on to all eternity, I shouldn’t like it at all.’  Do we really want the company of any one for ever and ever?  And if so, why?  Do we want to agree or to disagree?  Is the point of it that we want similarity or difference?  Do we want to hear about other people’s experiences, or do we simply want to tell our own?  Is the desire, I mean, for congenial company anything more than the pleasure of seeing our own thoughts and ideas reflected in the minds of others; or is it a real desire to alter our own thoughts and ideas by comparing them with the experiences of others?  Why do we like books, for instance?  Isn’t it more because we recognise our own feelings than because we make acquaintance with unfamiliar feelings?  It comes to this?  Can we really ever gain an idea, or can we only recognise our own ideas?”

“It is very difficult,” I said; “if I answered hastily, I should say that I liked being with you because you give me many new ideas; but if I think about it, it seems to me that it is only because you make me recognise my own thoughts.”

“Yes,” said Father Payne, “I think that is so.  If I see another man behaving well where I should behave ill, I recognise that I have all the elements in my own mind for doing the same, but that I have given undue weight to some of them and not enough weight to others.  I don’t think, on the whole, that anyone can give one a new idea; he can only help one to a sense of proportion.  But I want to get deeper than that.  You and I are friends—­at least I think so; but what