Soon after I had left England he threw up journalism, travelled, then
did some political private-secretarial work and so forth, and as
relation after relation died and left him money he gradually became a
connoisseur of life and nothing else, and settled down in Gray's Inn,
permanently, with his floating population of fifty pairs of perfect
trousers, a profile glass, and an invaluable man.
In Buenos Ayres I had written to Trist now and then, and he to me:
enough to inform each other that the end was not yet, but little more.
I continued to put off the call as long as I could.  There is
something very perilous in the resumption of intercourse after many
years, especially when the man you are going to see was once your
hero.  Heroes do not wear well, and it is a question whether they are
less heroic to their valets who see them continually or to old
admirers who have acquired thirty years of experience since they saw
them last.  I was going, I felt, to see Trist with very clear eyes,
and I did not want to.  I am absurdly fond of the past.
Few friendships, I suppose, wear honestly through a long life.  The
friends do not progress equally; one matures quickly, the other
slowly.  One becomes pious, the other impious.  They marry (this is
the commonest interruption of all) antipathetic wives.  It is all as
it should be if they were really friends once, for friends, in fact,
belong to periods rather than to all time, although sentiment would
have it otherwise.  One is always changing a little, although of
radical change there is almost none, and new friends are found in
tune with each stage.  I could admit no longer any need for Trist,
and yet all the same I longed to see him and dreaded it too.
There was another obstacle in the way.  We were both bachelors.  In
every man, I take it, even the most married, there sleeps a bachelor;