rchange of sincere opinions
thereby!

XXXVIII

There are some people in the world, I am sure, who are born solitary,
who are not conscious of any closeness of relationship with others.
They are not necessarily ungenial people--indeed they sometimes have a
great deal of external geniality; but when it is a question of forming
a closer relationship, they are alarmed and depressed by the
responsibility which attaches to it, and become colder instead of
warmer, the deeper and more imperative that the claims upon them
become. Such people are not as a rule unhappy, because they are spared
the pain which arises from the strain of intimacy, and because loss and
bereavement do not rend and devastate their hearts. They miss perhaps
the best kind of happiness, but they do not suffer from the penalties
that dog the great affections of men.

I had an old friend, who was a boy at school with me, who was of this
type. He was essentially solitary in spirit, though he was amiable and
sociable enough. There can be no harm in my telling the story of his
life, as the actors in it are all long ago dead.

He was at the University with me, though not at the same College; I
think that owing to a certain similarity of tastes, and perhaps of
temperament, I was his nearest and most intimate friend. He confided in
me as far as he confided in any one; but I always felt that there was a
certain fence behind which I was never admitted; and probably it was
because I never showed any signs of desiring to claim more than he was
ready to give in the way of intimacy that he found himself very much at
his ease with me.

A year or two after he left the University I heard from him, to my
great surprise, that he was engaged to be married. I went up to see him
in town, where he was then living, and he took me to see his fiancee.
She was one of the most beautiful and charming creatures I have ever
seen, and the two were evidently, as the phrase goes, very much in
love. I must say that my friend was superficially a most attractive
fellow; he had a commanding presence, and great personal beauty, and
there was a certain air of mystery about him which must, I think, have
added to the charm. They were married, and for a time, to all
appearances, enjoyed great happiness. A child was born to them, a
daughter. I saw them at intervals, and my impression was that my friend
had found the one thing that he wanted, the companionship of a loving,
beautiful, an