Father Payne by A.C. Benson

I was walking with Father Payne in the garden one day of spring. I think I liked him better when I was alone with him than I did when we were all together. His mind expanded more tenderly and simply -- less epigrammatically. He spoke of this once to me, saying: "I am at my best when alone; even one companion deflects me. I find myself wishing to please him, pinching off roughnesses, perfuming truth, diplomatising. This ought not to be, of course; and if one was not thorny, self-assertive, stupid, it would not be so; and every companion added makes me worse, because the strain of accommodation grows -- I become vulgar and rough and boisterous in a large circle. I often feel: 'How these young men must be hating this gibbering and giggling ape, which after all is not really me!" I tried to reassure him, but he shook his head, though with a smiling air. "Barthrop is not like that," he said, "the wise Barthrop!

He is never suspicious or hasty -- he does not think it necessary to affirm; yet you are never in any doubt what he thinks! He moves along like water, never anxious if he is held up or divided, creeping on as the land lies -- that is the right way."