t. And this for the very good reason, that,
either the two friends will become friends with each other, leaving you
out of their soul-communion altogether, or else they will wonder in a
loud voice what on earth you can find in your other friend to make him
seem so attractive to you! In any case, a tiny thread or malignity is
woven into that fabric of an inner life in which there should be nothing
whatever malign.

Friendship resembles Love in the fact that there are usually three
stages. The first stage seems thrilling--but how thankful you are, when
you look back upon it, that it is over! The second stage is full of
disappointment--how different the friendship realised is from the
friendship anticipated! The third stage is philosophical, peaceful, and
so happy!--since the worst is known and the best is known, but how
immeasurably the best outweighs the worst! and how deliciously restful it
is to realise that you, too, are loved, as it were, in spite of yourself
and for those qualities in you which are the _real_ you, although you
need must hide them under so much dross. Thus you both find happiness
and peace. And surely friendship--true friendship--is the happiest and
most peaceful state in life? It is the happiest and most peaceful part
of Love: it is the one thing which, if you really find it, makes the
Everyday of life seem worth the while; seem worth the laughter and the
tears, the failures and the victories, the dull beginnings, and the even
more tedious beginnings-over-again, which are, alas! inevitable, except
in the Human Turnip, who, in parenthesis, is too pompously inert ever to
make a start.

A very well-known actress once confessed to me that, no matter how warm
had been her welcome, she invariably felt a feeling of hostility between
the audience and herself when she first walked on the stage. But I
rather think that everyone, except the Human Turnip, who feels nothing
except thirst and hunger and cold, has that feeling at the beginning. No
matter if your advent has been heralded by a fanfare of trumpets, you
invariably feel within yourself that your _debut_ has been accompanied by
the unuttered exclamation: "Oh, my dear! Is that all?" It wears off in
time, of course; but it only bears out my theory that beginnings are
always difficult--when they are not merely dull. I can quite imagine
that the first day in Heaven will be extremely uncomfortable. I know
there is no day so long as the first d