d is
to help people not to be taken in by what is bad. It is better to be like
Plato and Ruskin, to make mistakes, to have prejudices, to be unfair, even
to be silly, because at least you encourage people to think that life is
interesting--and that is about as much as any of us can do."

LII

OF COMPANIONSHIP

"Isn't it rather odd," said someone to Father Payne after dinner, "that
great men have as a rule rather preferred the company of their inferiors to
the company of their equals?"

"I don't know," said Father Payne; "I think it's rather natural! By Jove, I
know that a very little of the society of a really superior person goes a
very long way with me. No, I think it is what one would expect. When the
great man is at work, he is on the strain and doing the lofty business for
all he is worth; when he is at leisure, he doesn't want any more strain--he
has done his full share."

"But take the big groups," said someone, "like the Wordsworth set, or the
pre-Raphaelite set--or take any of the great biographies--the big men of
any time seem always to have been mutual friends and correspondents. You
have letters to and from Ruskin from and to all the great men of his day."

"Letters, yes!" said Father Payne; "of course the great men know each
other, and respect each other; but they don't tend to coagulate. They
relish an occasional meeting and an occasional letter, and they say how
deeply they regret not seeing more of each other--but they tend to seek the
repose of their own less exalted circle. The man who has fine ideas prefers
his own disciples to the men who have got a different set of fine ideas.
That is natural enough! You want to impart the ideas you believe in--you
don't want to argue about them, or to have them knocked out of your hand.
Depend upon it, the society of an intelligent person, who can understand
you enough to stimulate you, and who is grateful for your talk, is much
pleasanter, and indeed more fruitful, than the society of a man who is
fully as intelligent as yourself, and thinks some of your conclusions to be
rot!"

"But doesn't all that encourage people to be prophets?" Vincent said. "One
of the depressing things about great men is that they grow to consider
themselves a sort of special providence--the originators of great ideas
rather than the interpreters."

"Yes," said Father Payne, "of course the little coteries and courts of
great men are rather repulsive. But the best people don'