I have another friend who is the most delightful and easy company
in the world when we are, alone together; but he is a sensitive and
highly-strung creature, much affected by personal influences, and
when I meet him in the company of other people he is often almost
unrecognisable. His mind becomes critical, combative, acrid; he
does not say what he means, he is touched by a vague excitement,
and there passes over him an unnatural sort of brilliance, of a
hard and futile kind, which makes him sacrifice consideration and
friendliness to the instinctive desire to produce an effect and to
score a point. I sometimes actually detest him when he is one of a
circle. I feel inclined to say to him, "If only you could let your
real self appear, and drop this tiresome posturing and fencing, you
would be as delightful as you are to me when I am alone with you;
but this hectic tittering and feverish jocosity is not only not
your real self, but it gives others an impression of a totally
unreal and not very agreeable person." But, alas, this is just the
sort of thing one cannot say to a friend!
As one goes on in life, this terrible and disconcerting shyness of
youth disappears.
Pages:
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78