But there are
instances of men, like Newman and FitzGerald, who kept up a sort of
romantic quality of friendship to the end.
I remember the daughter of an old clergyman of my acquaintance
telling me a pathetic and yet typical story of the end of one of
these friendships. Her father and another elderly clergyman had
been devoted friends in boyhood and youth. Circumstances led to a
suspension of intercourse, but at last, after a gap of nearly
thirty years, during which the friends had not met, it was arranged
that the old comrade should come and stay at the vicarage. As the
time approached, her father grew visibly anxious, and coupled his
frequent expression of the exquisite pleasure which the visit was
going to bring him with elaborate arrangements as to which of his
family should be responsible for the entertainment of the old
comrade at every hour of the day: the daughters were to lead him
out walking in the morning, his wife was to take him out drives in
the afternoon, and he was to share the smoking-room with a son, who
was at home, in the evenings--the one object being that the old
gentleman should not have to interrupt his own routine, or bear the
burden of entertaining a guest; and he eventually contrived only to
meet him at meals, when the two old friends did not appear to have
anything particular to say to each other.
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