I had been longtime enthusiastic as to Hungary and the Hungarians, the land, the race, the magnificent military history, the complicated, troublous aspects of the present and future of the Magyar Kingdom. And though I cannot deny that I have met with more ardent Magyar patriots than Imre von N— (for somehow he took a conservative view of his birth-land and fellow-citizens) still, he was always interested in clarifying my ideas. Again, contrary-wise, Lieutenant Imre was zealous in informing himself on matters and things pertaining to my own country and to its system of social and military life, as well as concerning a great deal more; even to my native language, of which he could speak precisely seven words, four of them too forcible for use in general society …
And besides more general matters, there was … for so is it in friendship as in love … ever that quiet undercurrent of inexhaustible curiosity about each other as an Ego, as psychic facts not yet mutually explained. Therewith comes-in that kindly seeking to know better and better the Other, as a being not yet fully outlined, as one whom we would understand even from the farthest-away time when neither friend suspected the other's existence, when each was meeting the world alone—as one now looks back on those days … and was absorbed in so much else in life, before Time had been willing to say. "Now meet, you two! Have I not been preparing you for each other?" So met, the simple personal retrospect is an ever-new affair of detail for them, with its queries, its confessions, its comparisons. « I thought that, but now I think this. Once on a time I believed that, now I believe this. I did so and so, in those old days; but now, not so. I have desired, hoped, feared purposed such or such a matter then; now no longer. Such manner of man have I been, whereas nowadays my indentity before myself is thus and so. » Or, it is the presenting of what has been enduringly a part of ourselves, and is likely ever to abide such. Ah, these are the moods and tenses of the heart and the soul in friendship ! more and more willingly uttered and listened-to as intimacy and confidence thrive. Two natures are seeking to blend. Each is glad to be its own directory for the new comer; to treat him as an expected and welcomed guest to the Castle of Self, while yet something of a stranger to it; opening to him any doors and windows that will throw light on the labyrinth of rooms and corridors, wishing to keep none shut … perhaps not even some specially haunted, remote and even black-hung chamber. Guest? No, more than that; for is it not the tenant of all others, the Master, who at last, has arrived!The ensuing second fragment is from the dialogue between
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