a position to criticise him." I
laughed, and said: "Well, he is my friend, too, and _I_ esteem and love
him; and that is the very reason why I should like to discuss him.
Nothing that either you or I could say would make me love him less; but
I wish to understand him. I have a very clear impression of him, and I
have no doubt you have a very clear impression too; yet we should
probably differ about him in many points, and I should like to see what
light you could throw upon his character." My companion said: "No; it
is inconsistent with my idea of loyalty to criticise my friends.
Besides, you know I am an old-fashioned person, and I disapprove of
criticising people altogether. I think it is a violation of the ninth
commandment; I do not think we are justified in bearing false witness
against our neighbour."

"But you beg the question," I said, "by saying 'FALSE witness.' I quite
agree that to discuss people in a malicious spirit, or in a spirit of
mockery, with the intention of exaggerating their faults and making a
grotesque picture of their foibles, is wrong. But two just persons,
such as you and I are, may surely talk over our friends, in what Mr.
Chadband called a spirit of love?" My companion shook his head. "No,"
he said, "I think it is altogether wrong. Our business is to see the
good points of our friends, and to be blind to their faults." "Well," I
said, "then let us 'praise him soft and low, call him worthiest to be
loved,' like the people in 'The Princess.' You shall make a panegyric,
and I will say 'Hear, hear!'" "You are making a joke out of it," said
my companion, "and I shall stick to my principles--and you won't mind
my saying," he went on, "that I think your tendency is to criticise
people much too much. You are always discussing people's faults, and I
think it ends in your having a lower estimate of human nature than is
either kind or necessary. To-night, at dinner, it made me quite
melancholy to hear the way in which you spoke of several of our best
friends." "Not leaving Lancelot brave nor Galahad pure!" I said; "in
fact you think that I behaved like the ingenious demon in the Acts, who
always seems to me to have had a strong sense of humour. It was the
seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, was it not, who tried to exorcise an
evil spirit? But he 'leapt upon them and overcame them, so that they
fled out of the house naked and wounded.' You mean that I use my
friends like that, strip off their reputations,