gtr 
 
 Wm. SMITH & SON, 
 
 SOUTHERN COUNTIES LIBRARY, 
 
 37-39, LONDON ST., READING.

 
 FATHER PAYNE
 
 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 LONDON 
 
 SMITH, ELDER <Sr CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 
 
 19*5 
 
 [All rights reserved]
 
 Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & Co. 
 at tbe Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh
 
 PREFACE 
 
 OFTEN as I have thought of my old friend " Father 
 Payne," as we affectionately called him, I had some- 
 how never intended to write about him, or if I did, 
 it was " like as a dream when one awaketh," a vision 
 that melted away at the touch of common life. 
 Yet I always felt that his was one of those rich 
 personalities well worth depicting, if the attitude 
 and gesture with which he faced the world could 
 be caught and fixed. The difficulty was that he 
 was a man of ideas rather than of performance, 
 suggestive rather than active : and the whole history 
 of his experiment with life was evasive, and even 
 to ordinary views fantastic. 
 
 Besides, my own life has been a busy one, full 
 of hard ordinary work : it was not until the war 
 gave me, like many craftsmen, a most reluctant 
 and unwelcome space of leisure, that I ever had the 
 opportunity of considering the possibility of writing 
 this book. I am too old to be a combatant, and 
 too much of a specialist in literature to transmute 
 my activities. I lately found myself with my pro- 
 fessional occupations suddenly suspended, and 
 moreover, like many men who have followed a 
 wholly peaceful profession, plunged in a dark be- 
 wilderment as to the onset of the forces governing 
 the social life of Europe. In the sad inactivity 
 
 2066342
 
 VI 
 
 which followed, I set to work to look through my 
 old papers, for the sake of distraction and employ- 
 ment, and found much material almost ready for 
 use, careful notes of conversations, personal re- 
 miniscences, jottings of characteristic touches, 
 which seemed as if they could be easily shaped. 
 Moreover, the past suddenly revived, and became 
 eloquent and vivid. I found in the beautiful 
 memories of those glowing days that I spent with 
 Father Payne it was only three years some con- 
 solation and encouragement in my distress. 
 
 This little volume is the result. I am well aware 
 that the busy years which have intervened have 
 taken the edge off some of my recollections, while 
 the lapse of time has possibly touched others with 
 a sunset glow. That can hardly be avoided, and 
 I am not sure that I wish to avoid it. 
 
 I am not here concerned with either criticising 
 or endorsing Father Payne's views. I see both 
 inconsistencies and fallacies in them. I even detect 
 prejudices and misinterpretations of which I was 
 not conscious at the time. I have no wish to 
 idealise my subject unduly, but it is clear to me, 
 and I hope I have made it clear to others, that 
 Father Payne was a man who had a very definite 
 theory of life and faith, and who at all events lived 
 sincerely and even passionately in the light of his 
 beliefs. Moreover, when he came to put them 
 to the supreme test, the test of death, they did not 
 desert or betray him : he passed on his way re- 
 joicing. 
 
 He used, I remember, to warn us against at- 
 tempting too close an analysis of character. He 
 used to say that the consciousness of a man, the
 
 PREFACE vii 
 
 intuitive instinct which impelled him, his attack 
 upon experience, was a thing almost independent 
 both of his circumstances and of his reason. He 
 used to take his parable from the weaving of a 
 tapestry, and say that a box full of thread and a 
 loom made up a very small part of the process. 
 It was the inventive instinct of the craftsman, the 
 faculty of designing, that was all-important. 
 
 He himself was a man of large designs, but he 
 lacked perhaps the practical gift of embodiment. 
 I looked upon him as a man of high poetical powers, 
 with a great range of hopes and visions, but without 
 the technical accomplishment which lends these 
 their final coherence. He was fully aware of this 
 himself, but he neither regretted it nor disguised 
 it. The truth was that his interest in existence 
 was so intense, that he lacked the power of self- 
 limitation needed for an artistic success. What, 
 however, he gave to all who came in touch with him, 
 was a strong sense of the richness and greatness 
 of life and all its issues. He taught us to approach 
 it with no preconceived theories, no fears, no pre- 
 ferences. He had a great mistrust of conventional 
 interpretation and traditional explanations. At the 
 same time he abhorred controversy and wrangling. 
 He had no wish to expunge the ideals of others, 
 so long as they were sincerely formed rather than 
 meekly received. Though I have come myself to 
 somewhat different conclusions, he at least taught 
 me to draw my own inferences from my own ex- 
 periences, without either deferring to or despising 
 the conclusions of others. 
 
 The charm of his personality lay in his inde- 
 pendence, his sympathy, his eager freshness of view,
 
 viii FATHER PAYNE 
 
 his purity of motive, his perfect simplicity ; and 
 it is all this which I have attempted to depict, 
 rather than to trace his theories, or to present a 
 philosophy which was always concrete rather than 
 abstract, and passionate rather than deliberate. 
 To use a homely proverb, Father Payne was a man 
 who filled his chair ! 
 
 Of one thing I feel sure, and that is that wherever 
 Father Payne is, and whatever he may be doing 
 for I have as absolute a conviction of the con- 
 tinued existence of his fine spirit as I have of the 
 present existence of my own he will value my 
 attempt to depict him as he was. I remember 
 his telling me a story of Dr. Johnson, how in the 
 course of his last illness, when he could not open 
 his letters, he asked Boswell to read them for him. 
 Boswell opened a letter from some person in the 
 North of England, of a complimentary kind, and 
 thinking it would fatigue Dr. Johnson to have it 
 read aloud, merely observed that it was highly in 
 his praise. Dr. Johnson at once desired it to be 
 read to him, and said with great earnestness, " The 
 applause of a single human being is of great conse- 
 quence." Father Payne added that it was one of 
 Johnson's finest sayings, and had no touch of vanity 
 or self-satisfaction in it, but the vital stuff of 
 humanity. That I believe to be profoundly true : 
 and that is the spirit in which I have set all this 
 down. 
 
 September 30, 1915.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I. FATHER PAYNE . 
 II. AVELEY . 
 
 III. THE SOCIETY 
 
 IV. THE SUMMONS . 
 V. THE SYSTEM 
 
 VI. FATHER PAYNE . 
 VII. THE MEN . 
 VIII. THE METHOD 
 IX. FATHER PAYNE 
 X. CHARACTERISTICS 
 XI. CONVERSATION . 
 XII. OF GOING TO CHURCH 
 
 XIII. OF NEWSPAPERS 
 
 XIV. OF HATE . 
 XV. OF WRITING 
 
 XVI. OF MARRIAGE . 
 XVII. OF LOVING GOD 
 XVIII. OF FRIENDSHIP 
 XIX. OF PHYLLIS 
 XX. OF CERTAINTY . 
 XXI. OF BEAUTY 
 XXII. OF WAR 
 
 XXIII. OF CADS AND PHARISEES 
 ix
 
 x FATHER PAYNE 
 
 PACK 
 
 XXIV. OF CONTINUANCE .... 133 
 XXV. OF PHILANTHROPY . . . .138 
 
 XXVI. OF FEAR 140 
 
 XXVII. OF ARISTOCRACY .... 142 
 
 XXVIII. OF CRYSTALS 147 
 
 XXIX. EARLY LIFE 151 
 
 XXX. OF BLOODSUCKERS .... 157 
 
 XXXI. OF INSTINCTS l6l 
 
 XXXII. OF HUMILITY 163 
 
 XXXIII. OF MEEKNESS l66 
 
 XXXIV. OF CRITICISM 170 
 
 XXXV. OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY . . 175 
 
 XXXVI. OF BIOGRAPHY 182 
 
 XXXVII. OF POSSESSIONS .... 187 
 
 XXXVIII. OF LONELINESS .... IQI 
 
 xxxix. OF THE WRITER'S LIFE . . .196 
 
 XL. OF WASTE 2O2 
 
 XLI. OF EDUCATION . . . . . 207 
 
 XLII. OF RELIGION 213 
 
 XLIII. OF CRITICS 2l8 
 
 XLIV. OF WORSHIP 226 
 
 XLV. OF A CHANGE OF RELIGION . . 232 
 
 XLVI. OF AFFECTION 238 
 
 XLVII. OF RESPECT OF PERSONS . . . 244 
 
 XLVIII. OF AMBIGUITY 251 
 
 XLIX. OF BELIEF 255 
 
 L. OF HONOUR 260 
 
 LI. OF WORK 265 
 
 LII. OF COMPANIONSHIP .... 272 
 
 LIII. OF MONEY . . 277
 
 CONTENTS xi 
 
 PAGE 
 
 LIV. OF TEACHABLENESS .... 284 
 
 LV. OF LIFE-FORCE 289 
 
 LVI. OF CONSCIENCE .... 2Q3 
 
 LVII. OF RANK 2Q7 
 
 LVIII. OF BIOGRAPHY . . . . . 301 
 
 LIX. OF EXCLUSIVENESS .... 309 
 
 LX. OF TAKING LIFE .... 317 
 
 LXI. OF BOOKISHNESS .... 321 
 
 LXII. OF CONSISTENCY .... 328 
 
 LXIII. OF WRENS AND LILIES . . . 333 
 
 LXIV. OF POSE 339 
 
 LXV. OF REVENANTS 345 
 
 LXVI. OF DISCIPLINE 351 
 
 LXVII. OF INCREASE 357 
 
 LXVIII. OF PRAYER 362 
 
 LXIX. THE SHADOW 368 
 
 LXX. OF WEAKNESS 376 
 
 LXXI. THE BANK OF THE RIVER . . 380 
 
 LXXII. THE CROSSING .... 389 
 
 LXXIII. AFTER-THOUGHTS .... 392 
 
 LXXIV. DEPARTURE 395
 
 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 IT was a good many years ago, soon after I left 
 Oxford, when I was twenty-three years old, that 
 all this happened. I had taken a degree in Classics, 
 and I had not given much thought to my future 
 profession. There was no very obvious opening 
 for me, no family business, no influence in any 
 particular direction. My father had been in the 
 Army, but was long dead. My mother and only 
 sister lived quietly in the country. I had no 
 prosaic and practical uncles to push me into any 
 particular line ; while on coming of age I had 
 inherited a little capital which brought me in some 
 two hundred a year, so that I could afford to wait 
 and look round. My only real taste was for litera- 
 ture. I wanted to write, but I had no very pressing 
 aspirations or inspirations. I may confess that I 
 was indolent, fond of company, but not afraid of 
 comparative solitude, and I was moreover an 
 entire dilettante. I read a good many books, and 
 tried feverishly to write in the style of the authors 
 who most attracted me. I settled down at home, 
 more or less, in a country village where I knew 
 everyone ; I travelled a little ; and I paid occa- 
 
 A
 
 2 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 sional visits to London, where several of my under- 
 graduate and school friends lived, with a vague 
 idea of getting to know literary people ; but they 
 were not very easy to meet, and, when I did meet 
 them, they did not betray any very marked in- 
 terest in my designs and visions. 
 
 I was dining one night at a restaurant with a 
 College friend of mine, Jack Vincent, whose tastes 
 were much the same as my own, only more 
 strenuous ; his father and mother lived in London, 
 and when I went there I generally stayed with 
 them. They were well-to-do, good-natured people ; 
 but, beyond occasionally reminding Jack that he 
 ought to be thinking about a profession, they left 
 him very much to his own devices, and he had 
 begun to write a novel, and a play, and two or three 
 other masterpieces. 
 
 That particular night his father and mother were 
 dining out, so we determined to go to a restaurant. 
 And it was there that Vincent told me about 
 " Father" Payne, as he was called by his friends, 
 though he was a layman and an Anglican. He had 
 heard all about him from an Oxford man, Leonard 
 Barthrop, some years older than ourselves, who was 
 one of the circle of men whom Father Payne had 
 collected about him. Vincent was very full of the 
 subject. He said that Father Payne was an elderly 
 man, who had been for a good many years a rather 
 unsuccessful teacher in London, and that he had 
 unexpectedly inherited a little country estate in 
 Northamptonshire. He had gradually gathered 
 about him a small knot of men, mainly interested 
 in literature, who were lodged and boarded free, 
 and were a sort of informal community, bound by
 
 FATHER PAYNE 3 
 
 no very strict regulations, except that they were 
 pledged to produce a certain amount of work at 
 stated intervals for Father Payne's inspection. As 
 long as they did this, they were allowed to work 
 very much as they liked, and Father Payne was 
 always ready to give criticism and advice. Father 
 Payne reserved the right of dismissing them if they 
 were idle, quarrelsome, or troublesome in any way, 
 and exercised it decisively. But Barthrop had told 
 him that it was a most delightful life ; that Father 
 Payne was a very interesting, good-natured, and 
 amusing man ; and that the whole thing was both 
 pleasant and stimulating. There were certain rules 
 about work and hours, and members of the circle 
 were not allowed to absent themselves without 
 leave, while Father Payne sometimes sent them off 
 for a time, if he thought they required a change. 
 " I gather," said Vincent, "that he is an absolute 
 autocrat, and that you have to do what he tells 
 you ; but that he doesn't preach, and he doesn't 
 fuss. Barthrop says he has never been so happy 
 in his life." He went on to say that there were 
 at least two vacancies in the circle one of the 
 number had lately married, and another had ac- 
 cepted a journalistic post. " Now what do you 
 say," said Vincent, "to us two trying to go there 
 for a bit ? You can try it, I believe, without 
 pledging yourself, for two or three months ; and 
 then if Father Payne approves, and you want to 
 go on, you can regularly join." 
 
 I confess that it seemed to me a very attractive 
 affair, and all that Vincent told me of the place, 
 and particularly of Father Payne, attracted me. 
 Vincent said that he had mentioned me to Bar-
 
 4 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 throp, and that Barthrop had said that I might 
 have a chance of getting in. It appeared that we 
 should have to go down to the place to be inter- 
 viewed. 
 
 We made up our minds to apply, and that night 
 Vincent wrote to Barthrop. The answer was 
 favourable. Two days later Vincent received a 
 note from Father Payne, written in a big, finely- 
 formed hand, to the effect that he would be glad 
 to see Vincent any night that he could come down, 
 and that I might also arrange an interview, if I 
 wished, but that we were to come separately. 
 " Mind," said the letter, " I can make no promises 
 and can give no reasons ; but I will not keep 
 either of you waiting." 
 
 Vincent went first. He spent a night at Aveley 
 Hall, as the place was called. I continued my 
 visit to his people, and awaited his return with 
 great interest. 
 
 He told me what had happened. He had been 
 met at the station by an odd little trap, had driven 
 up to the house a biggish place, close to a small 
 church, on the outskirts of a tiny village. It was 
 dark when he arrived, and he had found Father 
 Payne at tea with four or five men, in a flagged 
 hall. There had been a good deal of talk and 
 laughter. " He is a big man, Father Payne, with 
 a beard, dressed rather badly, like a country squire, 
 very good-natured and talkative. Everyone seemed 
 to say pretty much what they liked, but he kept 
 them in order, too. I could see that ! " Then he 
 had been carried off to a little study and questioned. 
 " He simply turned me inside out," said Vincent, 
 " and I told him all my biography, and everything
 
 FATHER PAYNE 5 
 
 I had ever done and thought of. He didn't seem 
 to look at me much, but I felt he was overhauling 
 me somehow. Then I went and read in a sort of 
 library, and then we had dinner just the same 
 business. Then the men mostly disappeared, and 
 Barthrop carried me ofi for a talk, and told me a 
 lot about everything. Then I went to my room, 
 a big, ugly, comfortable bedroom ; and in the 
 morning there was breakfast, where people dropped 
 in, read papers or letters, did not talk, and went 
 off when they had done. Then I walked about in 
 a nice, rather wild garden. There seemed a lot of 
 fields and trees beyond, all belonging to the house, 
 but no park, and only a small stable, with a kitchen- 
 garden. There were very few servants that I saw 
 an old butler and some elderly maids and then I 
 came away. Father Payne just came out and shook 
 hands, and said he would write to me. It seemed 
 exactly the sort of thing I should like. I only 
 hope we shall both get in." 
 
 It certainly sounded attractive, and it was with 
 great curiosity that I went off on the following 
 day, as appointed, for my own interview. 
 
 II 
 
 AVELEY 
 
 THE train drew up at a little wayside station soon 
 after four o'clock on a November afternoon. It 
 was a bare, but rather an attractive landscape. 
 The line ran along a wide, shallow valley, with a 
 stream running at the bottom, with many willows, 
 and pools fringed with withered sedges. The fields
 
 6 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 were mostly pastures, with here and there a fallow. 
 There were a good many bits of woodland all about, 
 and a tall spire of pale stone, far to the south, 
 overtopped the roofs of a little town. I was met 
 by an old groom or coachman, with a little ancient 
 open cart, and we drove sedately along pleasant 
 lanes, among woods, till we entered a tiny village, 
 which he told me was Aveley, consisting of three 
 or four farmhouses, with barns and ricks, and some 
 rows of stone-built cottages. We turned out of the 
 village in the direction of a small and plain church 
 of some antiquity, behind which I saw a grove of 
 trees and the chimneys of a house surmounted by 
 a small cupola. The house stood close by the church, 
 having an open space of grass in front, with an old 
 sundial, and a low wall separating it from the church- 
 yard. We drove in at a big gate, standing open, 
 with stone gate-posts. The Hall was a long, stone- 
 built Georgian house, perhaps a hundred and fifty 
 years old, with two shallow wings and a stone-tiled 
 roof, and was obviously of considerable size. Some 
 withered creepers straggled over it, and it was 
 neatly kept, but with no sort of smartness. The 
 trees grew rather thickly to the east of the house, 
 and I could see to the right a stable-yard, and 
 beyond that the trees of the garden. We drew up 
 it was getting dark and an old manservant with a 
 paternal air came out, took possession of my bag, 
 and led me through a small vestibule into a long 
 hall, with a fire burning in a great open fireplace. 
 There was a gallery at one end, with a big organ 
 in it. The hall was paved with black and white 
 stone, and there were some comfortable chairs, a 
 cabinet or two, and some dim paintings on the
 
 AVELEY 7 
 
 walls. Tea was spread at a small table by the 
 fire, and four or five men, two of them quite young, 
 the others rather older, were sitting about on chairs 
 and sofas, or helping themselves to tea at the table. 
 On the hearth, with his back to the fire, stood a 
 great, burly man with a short, grizzled beard and 
 tumbled gray hair, rather bald, dressed in a rough 
 suit of light-brown homespun, with huge shooting 
 boots, whom I saw at once to be my host. The 
 talk stopped as I entered, and I was aware that 
 I was being scrutinised with some curiosity. Father 
 Payne did not move, but extended a hand, which 
 I advanced and shook, and said : " Very glad to 
 see you, Mr. Duncan you are just in time for 
 tea." He mentioned the names of the men present, 
 who came and shook hands very cordially. Bar- 
 throp gave me some tea, and I was inducted into 
 a chair by the fire. I thought for a moment that 
 I was taking Father Payne's place, and feebly 
 murmured something about taking his chair. 
 " They're all mine, thanks ! " he said with a smile, 
 " but I claim no privileges." Someone gave a 
 faint whistle at this, and Father Payne, turning 
 his eyes but not his head towards the young man 
 who had uttered the sound, said : " All right, 
 Pollard, if you are going to be mutinous, we shall 
 have a little business to transact together, as Mr. 
 Squeers said." "Oh, I'm not mutinous, sir," said 
 the young man "I'm quite submissive I was 
 just betrayed into it by amazement ! " " You 
 shouldn't get into the habit of thinking aloud," 
 said Father Payne ; "at least not among bachelors 
 when you are married you can do as you like ! 
 I hope you are polite ? " he went on, looking round
 
 8 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 at me. "I think so," I said, feeling rather shy. 
 " That's right/' he said. " It's the first and only 
 form of virtue ! If you are only polite, there is 
 nothing that you may not do. This is a school of 
 manners, you know ! " One of the men, Rose by 
 name, laughed a pleasant musical laugh. " I 
 remember," he said, "that when I was a boy at 
 Eton, my excellent but very bluff and rough old 
 tutor called upon us, and was so much taken up 
 with being hearty, that he knocked over the coal- 
 scuttle, and didn't let anyone get a word in ; and 
 when he went off in a sort of whirlwind, my old 
 aunt, who was an incisive lady, said in a medi- 
 tative tone : ' How strange it is that the only 
 thing that the Eton masters seem able to teach 
 their boys is the only thing they don't themselves 
 possess ! ' 
 
 Father Payne uttered a short, loud laugh at this, 
 and said : " Is there any chance of meeting your 
 aunt?" "No, sir, she is long since dead!" 
 "Blew off too much steam, perhaps," said Father 
 Payne. " That woman must have had the steam 
 up ! I should have liked to have known her a 
 remarkable woman ! Have you any more stories of 
 the same sort about her ? " 
 
 " Not to-day," said Rose, smiling. 
 
 " Quite right," said Father Payne. " You keep 
 them for an acceptable time. Never tell strings of 
 stories and, by the way, my young friends, that's 
 the art of writing. Don't cram in good things 
 space them out, Barthrop ! " 
 
 " I think I can spread the butter as thin as any- 
 one," said Barthrop, smiling. 
 
 "So you can, so you can ! " said Father Payne
 
 AVELEY 9 
 
 enthusiastically, " and very thin slices too ! I give 
 you full credit for that ! " 
 
 The men had begun to drift away, and I was 
 presently left alone with Father Payne. " Now you 
 come along of me ! " he said to me ; and when 1 
 got up, he took my arm in a pleasant fashion, led 
 me to a big curtained archway at the far end of 
 the hall, under the gallery, and along a nagged 
 passage to the right. As we went he pointed to 
 the doors "Smoking-room Library " and at the 
 end of the passage he opened a door, and led me 
 into a small panelled room with a big window, 
 closely curtained. It was a solid and stately place, 
 wholly bare of ornament. It had a writing-table, 
 a bookcase, two armchairs of leather, a fine fire- 
 place with marble pillars, and an old painting let 
 into the panelling above it. There was a bright, 
 unshaded lamp on the table. " This is my room," 
 he said, " and there's nothing in it that I don't 
 use, except those pillars ; and when I haul on 
 them, like Samson, the house comes down. Now 
 you sit down there, and we'll have a talk. Do you 
 mind the light ? No ? Well, that's all right, as 
 1 want to have a good look at you, you know ! 
 You can get a smoke afterwards this is business ! " 
 
 He sate down in the chair opposite me, and stirred 
 the fire. He had fine, large, solid hands, the soft- 
 ness of which, like silk, had struck me when I shook 
 hands with him ; and, though he was both elderly 
 and bulky, he moved with a certain grace and 
 alertness. " Tell me your tale from the beginning," 
 he said. " Don't leave out any details I like 
 details. Let's have your life and death and Christian 
 sufferings, as the tracts say."
 
 io FATHER PAYNE 
 
 He heard me with much patience, sometimes 
 smiling, sometimes nodding. When I had finished, 
 he said : " Now I must ask you a few questions 
 you don't mind if they are plain questions rather 
 unpleasant questions ? ' ' He bent his brows upon 
 me and smiled. "No," I said, "not at all." 
 "Well, then," he said, " where's the vocation in 
 all this ? This place, to be brief, is for men who 
 have a real vocation for writing, and yet never 
 would otherwise have the time or the leisure to 
 train for it. You see, in England, people think 
 that you needn't train for writing that you have 
 just got to begin, and there you are. Very few 
 people have the money to wait a few years they 
 have to write, not what they want to write, but 
 what other people want to read. And so it comes 
 about that by the time that they have earned the 
 money and the leisure, the spring is gone, the fresh- 
 ness is gone, there's no invention and no zest. 
 \Vriting can't be done in a little corner of life. 
 You have to give up your life to it and then that 
 means giving up your life to a great deal of what 
 looks like pure laziness loafing about, looking 
 about, travelling, talking, mooning ; that is the 
 only way to learn proportion ; and it is the only 
 way, too, of learning what not to write about a 
 great many things that are written about are not 
 really material for writing at all. And all this 
 can't be done in a drivelling mood you must pick 
 your way if you are going to write. That's a 
 long preface ; but I mean this place to be a place 
 to give men the right sort of start. I happen to 
 be able to teach people, more or less, how to write, 
 if they have got the stuff in them and to be frank,
 
 AVELEY ii 
 
 I'm not sure that you have ! You think this 
 would be a pleasant sort of experience so it can 
 be ; but it isn't done on slack and chattering lines. 
 It is just meant to save people from hanging about 
 at the start, a thing which spoils a lot of good 
 writers. But it's deadly serious, and it isn't a 
 dilettante life at all. Do you grasp all that ? " 
 
 " Yes," I said, " and I believe I can work ! I 
 know I have wasted my time, but it was not because 
 1 wanted to waste time, but because the sort of 
 things I have always had to do the classics 
 always seemed to me so absolutely pointless. No 
 one who taught me ever distinguished between 
 what was good and what was bad. Whatever it 
 was a Greek play, Homer, Livy, Tacitus it was 
 always supposed to be the best thing of the kind. 
 1 was always sure that much of it was rot, and some 
 of it was excellent ; but I didn't know why, and 
 no one ever told me why." 
 
 1 ' You thought all that ? ' said he. " Well, that's 
 more hopeful ! Have you ever done any essay 
 work ? ' ' 
 
 " Yes," I said, " and that was the worst of all 
 no one ever showed me how to do it in my own way, 
 but always in some one else's way." 
 
 He sate a little in silence. Then he said : " But 
 mind you, that's not all ! I don't think writing is 
 the end of life. The real point is to feel the things, 
 to understand the business, to have ideas about 
 life. I don't want people to learn how to write 
 interestingly about things in which they are not 
 interested but to be interested first, and then to 
 write if they can. I like to turn out a good writer, 
 who can say what he feels and believes. But I'm
 
 12 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 just as pleased when a man tells me that writing is 
 rubbish, and that he is going away to do something 
 real. The real that's what I care about ! I don't 
 want men to come and pick up grains of truth and 
 reality, and work them into their stuff. I have 
 turned out a few men like that, and those are my 
 worst failures. You have got to care about ideas, 
 if you come here, and to get the ideas into shape. 
 You have got to learn what is beautiful and what is 
 not, because the only business of a real writer is 
 with beauty not a sickly exotic sort of beauty, 
 but the beauty of health and strength and generous 
 feeling. I can't have any humbugs here, though I 
 have sent out some humbugs. It's a hard life this, 
 and a tiring life ; though if you are the right sort 
 of fellow, you will get plenty of fun out of it. But 
 we don't waste time here ; and if a man wastes 
 time, out he goes." 
 
 "I believe I can work as hard as anyone," I 
 said, " though I have shown no signs of it and 
 anyhow, I should like to try. And I do really 
 want to learn how to distinguish between things, 
 how to know what matters. No one has ever 
 shown me how to do that ! " 
 
 " That's all right ! " he said. " But are you sure 
 you don't want simply to make a bit of a name to 
 be known as a clever man ? It's very convenient, 
 you know, in England, to have a label. Because 
 I want you clearly to understand that this place of 
 mine has nothing whatever to do with that. I 
 take no stock in what is called success. This is a 
 sort of monastery, you know ; and the worst of 
 some monasteries is that they cultivate dreams. 
 That's a beautiful thing in its way, but it isn't what
 
 AVELEY 13 
 
 I aim at. I don't want men to drug themselves 
 with dreams. The great dreamers don't do that. 
 Shelley, for instance his dreams were all made 
 out of real feeling, real beauty. He wanted to put 
 things right in his own way. He was enraged with 
 life because he was fine, while Byron was enraged 
 with life because he was vulgar. Vulgarity that's 
 the one fatal complaint ; it goes down deep to the 
 bottom of the mind. And I may as well say plainly 
 that that is what I fight against here." 
 
 " I don't honestly think I am vulgar," I said. 
 
 "Not on the surface, perhaps," he said, "but 
 present-day education is a snare. We are a vulgar 
 nation, you know. That is what is really the 
 matter with us our ambitions are vulgar, our 
 pride is vulgar. We want to fit into the world and 
 get the most we can out of it ; we don't, most of 
 us, just want to give it our best. That's what I 
 mean by vulgarity, wanting to take and not want- 
 ing to give." 
 
 He was silent for a minute, and then he said : 
 " Do you believe in God ? " 
 
 " I hardly know," I said. "Not very much, I 
 am afraid, in the kind of God that I have heard 
 preached about." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " he said. 
 
 "Well," I said, "it's rather a large question 
 but I used to think, both at school and at Oxford, 
 that many of the men who were rather disapproved 
 of, that did quite bad things, and tried experiments, 
 and knocked up against nastiness of various kinds, 
 but who were brave in their way and kind, and not 
 mean or spiteful or fault-finding, were more the 
 sort of people that the force or whatever it is,
 
 14 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 behind the world was trying to produce than many 
 of the virtuous people. What was called virtue and 
 piety had something stifling and choking about it, 
 1 used to think. I had a tutor at school who was 
 a parson, and he was a good sort of man, too, in a 
 way. But I used to feel suddenly dreary with 
 him, as if there were a whole lot of real things and 
 interesting things which he was afraid of. I 
 couldn't say what I thought to him only what I 
 felt he wanted me to think. That's a bad answer," 
 I went on, " but I haven't really considered it." 
 
 " No, it isn't a bad answer," he said. " It's all 
 right ! The moment you feel stifled with anyone, 
 whatever the subject is art, books, religion, life 
 there is something wrong. Do you say any 
 prayers ? ' ' 
 
 " No," I said, " to be honest, I don't." 
 
 "You must take to it again," he said. " You 
 can't get on without prayer. And if you come 
 here," he said, "you may expect to hear about 
 God. I talk a good deal about God. I don't be- 
 lieve in things being too sacred to talk about it's 
 the bad things that ought not to be mentioned. I 
 am interested in God, more than I am interested 
 in anything else. I can't make Him out and yet 
 I believe that He needs me, in a way, as much as 
 I need Him. Does that sound profane to you ? " 
 
 "No," I said, "it's new to me. No one ever 
 spoke about God to me like that before." 
 
 " We have to suffer with Him ! " he said in a 
 curious tone, his face lighting up. "That is the 
 point of Christianity, that God suffers, because He 
 wants to remake the world, and cannot do it all 
 at once. That is the secret of all life and hope,
 
 AVELEY 15 
 
 that if we believe in God, we must suffer with Him. 
 It's a fight, a hard fight ; and He needs us on His 
 side. But I won't talk about that now ; yet if 
 you don't want to believe in God, and to be friends 
 with Him, and to fight and suffer with Him, you 
 needn't think of coming here. That's behind all 
 I do. And to come here is simply that you may 
 find out where He needs you. Why writing is 
 important is, because the world needs freer and 
 plainer talk about God about beauty and health 
 and happiness and energy, and all the things which 
 He stands for. Half the evil comes from silence, 
 and the end of all my experiments is the word in 
 the New Testament, Ephphatha Be opened ! That 
 is what I try for, to give men the power of opening 
 their hearts and minds to others, without fear and 
 yet without offence. I don't want men to attack 
 things or to criticise things, but just to speak 
 plainly about what is beautiful and wholesome and 
 true. So you see this isn't a place for lazy and 
 fanciful people not a fortress of quiet, and still 
 less a place for asses to slake their thirst ! We 
 don't set out to amuse ourselves, but to perceive 
 things, and to say them if we can. My men must 
 be sound and serious, and they must be civil and 
 amusing too. They have got to learn how to get 
 on with each other, and with me, and with the 
 village people and with God ! If you want just 
 to dangle about, this isn't the place for you ; but 
 if you want to work hard and be knocked into 
 shape, I'll consider it." 
 
 There was something tremendous about Father 
 Payne ! I looked at him with a sense of terror. 
 His face dissolved in a smile. " You needn't look
 
 16 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 at me like that ! " he said. " I only want you to 
 know exactly what you are in for ! " 
 
 " I would like to try," I said. 
 
 "Well, well see!" he said. "And now you 
 must be off ! " he added. " We shall dine in an 
 hour you needn't dress. Here, you don't know 
 which your room is, I suppose ? " 
 
 He rang the bell, and I went off with the old 
 butler, who was amiable and communicative. " So, 
 you think of becoming one of the gentlemen, sir ? " 
 he said. "If you'll have me," I replied. "Oh, 
 that will be all right, sir," he said. "I could see 
 that the Father took to you at first sight ! " 
 
 He showed me my room a big bare place. It 
 had a small bed and accessories, but it was also 
 fitted as a sitting-room, with a writing-table, an 
 armchair, and a bookcase full of books. The house 
 was warmed, I saw, with hot water to a comfortable 
 temperature. "Would you like a fire ? " he said. 
 I declined, and he went on : " Now if you lived 
 here, sir, you would have to do that yourself ! " 
 He gave a little laugh. "Anyone may have a 
 fire, but they have to lay it, and fetch the coal, and 
 clean the grate. Very few of the gentlemen do it. 
 Anything else, sir ? I have put out your things, 
 and you will find hot water laid on." 
 
 He left me, and I flung myself into the chair. 
 I had a good deal to think about.
 
 THE SOCIETY 17 
 
 III 
 
 THE SOCIETY 
 
 A VERY quiet evening followed. A bell rang out 
 above the roof at 8.15. I went down to the hall, 
 where the men assembled. Father Payne came 
 in. He had changed his clothes, and was wearing 
 a dark, loose-fitting suit, which became him well 
 he always looked at home in his clothes. The 
 others wore similar suits or smoking jackets. 
 Father Payne appeared abstracted, and only gave 
 me a nod. A gong sounded, and he marched straight 
 out through a door by the fireplace into the dining- 
 room. 
 
 The dining-room was a rather grand place, 
 panelled in dark wood, and with a few portraits. 
 At each end of the room was a section cut off from 
 the central portion by an oak column on each side. 
 Three windows on one side looked into the garden. 
 It was lighted by candles only. We were seven in 
 all, and I sate by Father Payne. Dinner was very 
 plain. There was soup, a joint with vegetables, 
 and a great apple-tart. The things were mostly 
 passed about from hand to hand, but the old 
 butler kept a benignant eye upon the proceedings, 
 and saw that I was well supplied. There was a 
 good and simple claret in large flat-bottomed 
 decanters, which most of the men drank. There 
 was a good deal of talk of a lively kind. Father 
 Payne was rather silent, though he struck in now 
 and then, but his silence imposed no constraint on 
 the party. He was pressed to tell a story for my 
 
 B
 
 i8 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 benefit, which he did with much relish, but briefly. 
 I was pleased at the simplicity of it all. There was 
 only one man who seemed a little out of tune a 
 clerical-looking, handsome fellow of about thirty, 
 called Lestrange, with an air of some solemnity. 
 He made remarks of rather an earnest type, and 
 was ironically assailed once or twice. Father 
 Payne intervened once, and said : " Lestrange is 
 perfectly right, and you would think so too, if only 
 he could give what he said a more secular twist. 
 'Be soople in things immaterial/ Lestrange, as 
 the minister says in Kidnapped." " But who is to 
 judge if it is immaterial ? " said Lestrange rather 
 pertinaciously. " It mostly is," said Father Payne. 
 " Anything is better than being shocked ! It's 
 better to be ashamed afterwards of not speaking 
 up than to feel you have made a circle uncomfort- 
 able. You must not rebuke people unless you really 
 hate doing it. If you like doing it, you may be 
 pretty sure that it is vanity ; a Christian ought not 
 to feel out of place in a smoking-room ! ' ' 
 
 The whole thing did not take more than three- 
 quarters of an hour. Coffee was brought in, very 
 strong and good. Some of the party w r ent off, and 
 Father Payne disappeared. I went to the smoking- 
 room with two of the men, and we talked a little. 
 Finally I went away to my room, and tried to commit 
 my impressions of the whole thing to my diary 
 before I went to bed. It certainly seemed a happy 
 life, and I was struck with the curious mixture of 
 freedom, frankness, and yet courtesy about the 
 whole. There was no roughness or wrangling or 
 stupidity, nor had I any sense either of exclusion, 
 or of being elaborately included in the life of the
 
 THE SOCIETY 19 
 
 circle. I would call the atmosphere brotherly, if 
 brotherliness did not often mean the sort of frank- 
 ness which is so unpleasant to strangers. There 
 certainly was an atmosphere about it, and I felt 
 too that Father Payne, for all his easiness, had 
 somehow got the reins in his hands. 
 
 The next morning I went down to breakfast, 
 which was, I found, like breakfast at a club, as 
 Vincent had said. It was a plain meal cold 
 bacon, a vast dish of scrambled eggs kept hot by 
 a spirit lamp and a hot-water arrangement. You 
 could make toast for yourself if you wished, and 
 there was a big fresh loaf, with excellent butter, 
 marmalade, and jam not an ascetic breakfast at 
 all. There were daily papers on the table, and no 
 one talked. I did not see Father Payne, who must 
 have come in later. 
 
 After breakfast, Barthrop showed me the rooms 
 of the house. The library was fitted up with book- 
 shelves and easy-chairs for reading, with a big round 
 oak table in the centre. The floor was of stained 
 oak boards and covered with rugs. There was also 
 a capacious smoking-room, and I learned that 
 smoking was not allowed elsewhere. It was, in 
 fact, a solid old family mansion of some dignity. 
 There were three or four oil paintings in all the 
 rooms, portraits and landscapes. The general tone 
 of decoration was dark red wall-papers and fittings 
 stained brown. It was all clean and simple, and 
 there was a total absence of ornament. I went 
 and walked in the garden, which was of the same 
 very straightforward kind plain grass, shrubberies, 
 winding paths, with comfortable wooden seats in 
 sheltered places ; one or two big beds, evidently
 
 20 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 of old-fashioned perennials, and some trellises for 
 ramblers. The garden was adjoined by a sort of 
 wilderness, with big trees and ground-ivy, and open 
 spaces in which aconites and snowdrops were be- 
 ginning to show themselves. Father Payne, I 
 gathered, was fond of the garden and often worked 
 there ; but there were no curiosities it was all 
 very simple. Beyond that were pasture-fields, 
 with a good many clumps and hedgerow trees, run- 
 ning down to a stream, which had been enlarged 
 into a deep pool at one place, where there was a 
 timbered bathing-shed. The stream fed, through 
 little sluices, a big, square pond, full, I was told, 
 in summer of bulrushes and water-lilies. I noticed 
 a couple of lawn-tennis courts, and there was a 
 bowling-green by the house. Then there was a large 
 kitchen-garden, with standards and espaliers, and 
 box-edged beds. The stables, which were spacious, 
 contained only a pony and the little cart I had 
 driven up in, and a few bicycles. I liked the solid 
 air of the big house, which had two wings at the 
 back, corresponding to the wings in front ; the long 
 row of stone pedimented windows, with heavy 
 white casements, was plain and stately, and there 
 were some fine magnolias and wisterias trained 
 upon the walls. It all looked stately, and yet 
 home-like ; there was nothing neglected about it, 
 and yet it looked wholesomely left alone ; every- 
 thing was neat, but nothing was smart. 
 
 I was strolling about, enjoying the gleams of 
 bright sunshine and the cold air, when I saw Father 
 Payne coming down the garden towards me. He 
 gave me a pleasant nod : I said something about 
 the beauty of the place ; he smiled, and said
 
 THE SOCIETY 21 
 
 " Yes, it is the kind of thing I like but I am so 
 used to it that I can hardly even see it ! That's 
 the worst of habit ; but there is nothing about the 
 place to get on your nerves. It's a well-bred old 
 house, I think, and knows how to hold its tongue, 
 without making you uncomfortable." Then he 
 went on presently: "You know how I came by 
 it ? It's an odd story. It had been in my family, 
 till my grandfather left it to his second wife, and 
 cut my father out. There was a son by the second 
 wife, who was meant to have it ; but he died, and 
 it went to a brother of the second wife, and his 
 widow left it back to me. It was an entire surprise, 
 because I did not know her, and the only time I 
 had ever seen the house was once when I came down 
 on the sly, just to look at the old place, little thinking 
 I should ever come here. She had some super- 
 stition about it, I fancy ! Anyhow, while I was 
 grubbing away in town, fifteen years ago, and 
 hardly able to make two ends meet, I suddenly 
 found myself put in possession of it ; and though I 
 am poor, as squires go, the farms and cottages bring 
 me in quite enough to rub along. At any rate it 
 enabled me to try some experiments, and I have 
 been doing so ever since. Leisure and solitude ! 
 Those are the only two things worth having that 
 money can buy. Perhaps you don't think there's 
 much solitude about our life ? But solitude only 
 means the power to think your own thoughts, 
 without having other people's thoughts trailed 
 across the track. Loneliness is quite a different 
 thing, and that's not wholesome." 
 
 He strolled on, looking about him. " Do you 
 ever garden ? " he said. "It's the best fun in the
 
 22 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 world making plants do as you like, while all the 
 time they think they are doing as they like. That's 
 the secret of it ! You can't bully these wild things, 
 but they are very obedient, as long as they believe 
 they are free. They are like children ; they will 
 take any amount of trouble as long as you don't 
 call it work." 
 
 Presently we heard the clatter of hoofs in the 
 stable-yard. "That's for you!" he said. "Will 
 you go and see that they have brought your things 
 down? I'll meet you at the door." I went up 
 and found my things had been packed by the old 
 butler. I gave him a little tip, and he said confi- 
 dentially : "I daresay we shall be seeing you back 
 here, sir, one of these days." "I hope so," I said, 
 to which he replied with a mysterious wink and nod. 
 
 Father Payne shook hands. " Well, good-bye ! " 
 he said. " It's good of you to have come down, 
 and I'm glad to have made acquaintance, whatever 
 happens I'll drop you a line." I drove away, and 
 he stood at the door looking after me, till the little 
 cart drove out of the gate. 
 
 IV 
 
 THE SUMMONS 
 
 I MUST confess that I was much excited about my 
 visit ; the whole thing seemed to me to be almost 
 too good to be true, and I hardly dared hope that 
 I should be allowed to return. I went back to 
 town and rejoined Vincent, and we talked much 
 about the delights of Aveley.
 
 THE SUMMONS 23 
 
 The following morning we each received a letter 
 in Father Payne's firm hand. That to Vincent 
 was very short. It ran as follows : 
 
 DEAR VINCENT, I shall be glad to take you in if 
 you wish to join us, for three months. At the end of 
 that time, we shall both be entirely free to choose. I 
 hope you will be happy here. You can come as soon 
 as you like ; and if Duncan, after reading my letter, 
 decides to come too, you had better arrange to arrive 
 together. It will save me the trouble of describing our 
 way of life to each separately. Please let me have a 
 line, and I will see that your room is ready for you. 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 C. PAYNE. 
 
 " That's all right ! " said Vincent, with an air of 
 relief. " Now what does he say to you ? " 
 My letter was a longer one. It ran : 
 
 MY DEAR YOUNG MAN, / am going to be very 
 frank with you, and to say that, though I liked you 
 very much, I nearly decided that I could not ask you 
 to join us. I will tell you why. I am not sure that 
 you are not too easy-going and impulsive. We should 
 all find you agreeable, and I am sure you would find 
 the whole thing great fun at first ; but I rather think 
 you would get bored. It does not seem to me as if 
 you had ever had the smallest discipline, and I doubt 
 if you have ever disciplined yourself ; and discipline 
 is a tiresome thing, unless you like it. I think you are 
 quick, receptive, and polite all that is to the good. 
 But are you serious ? I found in you a very quick 
 perception, and you held up a flattering mirror with 
 great spontaneity to my mind and heart that was
 
 24 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 probably why I liked you so much. But I don't want 
 people here to reflect me or anyone else. The whole 
 point of my scheme is independence, with just enough 
 discipline to keep things together, like the hem on a 
 handkerchief. 
 
 But you may have a try, if you wish ; and in any 
 case, I think you will have a pleasant three months 
 here, and make us all sorry to lose you if you do not 
 return. I have told your friend Vincent he can come, 
 and I think he is more likely to stay than you are, 
 because he is more himself. I don't suppose that he 
 took in the whole place and the idea of it as quickly 
 as you did. I expect you could write a very in- 
 teresting description of it, and I don't expect he 
 could. 
 
 Still, I will say that I shall be truly sorry if, after 
 this letter, you decide not to come to us. I like your 
 company ; and I shall not get tired of it. But to 
 be more frank still, I think you are one of those charm- 
 ing and sympathetic people who is tough inside, with 
 a toughness which is based on the determination to 
 find things amusing and interesting and that is not 
 the sort of toughness I can do anything with. People 
 like yourself are incapable as a rule of suffering, 
 whatever happens to them. It's a very happy dis- 
 position, but it does not grow. You are sensitive 
 enough, but I don't want sensitiveness. I want men 
 who are not sensitive, and who yet can suffer at not 
 getting nearer and more quickly than they can to the 
 purpose ahead of them, whatever that may be. It is 
 a stiff sort of thing that I want. I can help to make 
 a stiff nature pliable ; I'm not very good at making 
 a pliable nature stiff. That's the truth. 
 
 So I shall be delighted more than you think if
 
 THE SYSTEM 25 
 
 you say " Yes," but in a way more hopeful about 
 you if you say " No." 
 
 Come with Vincent, if you come ; and, as soon as 
 
 you like. Ever yours truly, 
 
 C. PAYNE. 
 
 " Does he want me to go, or does he not ? " I said. 
 " Is he letting me down with a compliment ? " 
 
 " Oh no," said Vincent, "it's all right. He only 
 thinks that you are a butterfly which will flutter 
 by, and he would rather like you to do a little 
 fluttering down there." 
 
 "But I'm not going to go there," I said, "to 
 wear a cap and bells for a bit, and then to be spun 
 when I have left my golden store, like the radiant 
 morn ; he puts me on my mettle. I will go, and 
 he shall keep me ! I don't want to fool about any 
 more." 
 
 "All right!" said Vincent. "It's a bargain, 
 then ! Will you be ready to go the day after to- 
 morrow ? There are some things I want to buy, 
 now that I'm going to school again. But I'm 
 awfully relieved it's just what I want. I was 
 getting into a mess with all my work, and becoming 
 a muddled loafer." 
 
 "And I an elegant trifler, it appears," I said. 
 
 V 
 
 THE SYSTEM 
 
 WE went off together on the Saturday, and I think 
 we were both decidedly nervous. What were we 
 in for ? I had a feeling that I had plunged head- 
 long into rather a foolish adventure.
 
 26 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 We did not talk much on the way down ; it was 
 all rather solemn. We were going to put the bit 
 in our mouths again, and Father Payne was an 
 unknown quantity. We both felt that there was 
 something decidedly big and strong there to be 
 reckoned with. 
 
 We arrived, as before, at tea-time, and we both 
 received a cordial greeting. After tea Father 
 Payne took us away, and told us the rules of the 
 house. They were simple enough ; he described 
 the day. Breakfast was from 8.30 to 9.15, and 
 was a silent meal. "It's a bad thing to begin the 
 day by chattering and arguing," said Father Payne. 
 Then we were supposed to work in our own rooms 
 or the library till one. We might stroll about, if 
 we wished, but there was to be no talking to anyone 
 else, unless he himself gave leave for any special 
 reason. Luncheon was a cold meal, quite informal, 
 and was on the table for an hour. There was to 
 be no talk then either. From two to five we could 
 do as we liked, and it was expected that we should 
 take at least an hour's exercise, and if possible 
 two. Tea at five, and work afterwards. At 8.15, 
 dinner, and we could do as we wished afterwards, 
 but we were not to congregate in anyone's room, 
 and it was understood that no one was to go to 
 another man's bedroom, which was also his study, 
 at any time, unless he was definitely invited, or 
 just to ask a question. The smoking-room was 
 always free for general talk, but Father Payne said 
 that on the whole he discouraged any gatherings 
 or cliques. The point of the whole was solitary 
 work, with enough company to keep things fresh 
 and comfortable.
 
 THE SYSTEM 27 
 
 He said that we were expected to valet ourselves 
 entirely, and that if we wanted a fire, we must lay 
 it and clean it up afterwards. If we wanted to 
 get anything, or have anything done, we could ask 
 him or the butler. " But I rather expect every- 
 one to look after himself," he said. We were not 
 to absent ourselves without his leave, and we were 
 to go away if he told us to do so. " Sometimes a 
 man wants a little change and does not know it," 
 he said. 
 
 Then he also said that he would ask us, from 
 time to time, what we were doing hear it read, and 
 criticise it ; and that one of the most definite con- 
 ditions of our remaining was that he must be satis- 
 fied that we really were at work. If we wanted 
 any special books, he said, we might ask him, and 
 he could generally get them from the London 
 Library ; but that we should find a good many 
 books of reference and standard works in the 
 library. 
 
 He told us, too, of certain conditions of which 
 we had not heard that we were to be away, either 
 at home, or travelling wherever he chose to send 
 us, for three months in the year, and that he sup- 
 plied the funds if necessary. Moreover, for one 
 month in the summer he kept open house. Half 
 of us were to go away for the first fortnight in July, 
 and the other half were to stay and entertain his 
 guests, or even our own, if we wished to invite 
 them ; then the other half of the men returned, 
 and had their guests to entertain, while the first 
 half went away ; and that during that time there 
 was to be very little work done. We were not to 
 be always writing, but there was to be reading,
 
 28 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 about which he would advise. Once a week there 
 was a meeting, on Saturday evening, when one of 
 the men had to read something aloud, and be 
 generally criticised. "You see the idea?" he 
 said. " It sounds complicated now, but it really 
 is very simple. It is just to get solid work done 
 regularly, with a certain amount of supervision and 
 criticism, and, what is more important still, real 
 intervals of travelling. I shall send you to a par- 
 ticular place for a particular purpose, and you will 
 have to write about it on lines which I shall indicate. 
 The danger of this sort of life is that of getting 
 stale. That's why I don't want you to see too much 
 of each other. And last of all," he said, rather 
 gravely, "you must do what I tell you to do. 
 There must be no mistake about that but with 
 all the apparent discipline of it, I believe you will 
 find it worth while." 
 
 Then he saw us each separately. He inquired 
 into our finances. Vincent had a small allowance 
 from his parents, about 50, which he was told to 
 keep for pocket-money, but Father Payne said he 
 would pay his travelling expenses. I gathered that 
 he gave an allowance to men who had nothing of 
 their own. He told me that I should have to travel 
 at my own expense, but he was careful first to 
 inquire whether my mother was in any way de- 
 pendent on me. Then he said to me with a smile : 
 " I am glad you decided to come I thought my 
 letter would have offended you. No ? That's all 
 right. Now, I don't expect heroic exertions just 
 hard work. Mind," he said, " I will add one thing 
 to my letter, and that is that I think you may 
 make a success of this if you do take to it, you
 
 THE SYSTEM 29 
 
 will do well ; but you will have to be patient, and 
 you may have a dreary time ; but I want you to 
 tell me exactly at any time how you are feeling 
 about it. You won't be driven, and I think your 
 danger is that you may try to make the pace too 
 much." 
 
 He further asked me exactly what I was writing. 
 It happened to be some essays on literary subjects. 
 He mentioned a few books, and told me it would 
 do very well to start with. He was very kind and 
 fatherly in his manner, and when I rose to go, he 
 put his arm through mine and said : " Come, it 
 will be strange if we can't hit it off together. I 
 like your presence and talk, and am glad to think 
 you are in the house. Don't be anxious ! The 
 difficulty with you is that you will foresee all your 
 troubles beforehand, and try to bolt them in a lump, 
 instead of swallowing them one by one as they come. 
 Live for the day ! " There was something magnetic 
 about him, for by these few words he established a 
 little special relation with me which was never 
 broken. 
 
 When he dismissed me, I went and changed my 
 things, and then came down. I found that it was 
 the custom for the men to go down to the hall 
 about eight. Father Payne said that it was a 
 great mistake to work to the last minute, and 
 then to rush in to dinner. He said it made people 
 nervous and dyspeptic. He generally strolled in 
 himself a few minutes before, and sate silent by the 
 fire. 
 
 Just as it struck eight, and the hum of the clock 
 in the hall died away, a little tune in harmony, like 
 a gavotte, was played by softly-tingling tiny bells.
 
 30 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 I could not tell where the music came from ; it 
 seemed to me like the Ariel music in The Tempest, 
 between earth and heaven, or the " chiming shower 
 of rare device " in The Beryl Stone. 
 
 Father Payne smiled at the little gesture I in- 
 voluntarily made. " You're right !" he said, when 
 it was over. " How can people talk through that ? 
 It's the clock in the gallery that does it they say 
 it belonged to George III. I hope, if so, that it 
 gave him a few happier moments ! It is an ingenious 
 little thing, with silver bells and hammers ; I'll 
 show it you some day. It rings every four 
 hours." 
 
 " I think I had rather not see the machinery," I 
 said. " I never heard anything so delicious." 
 
 " You're right again," said Father Payne ; 
 
 " ' The isle is full of noises, 
 Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.' 
 
 Let it stay at that ! " 
 
 I little thought how much I should grow to 
 connect that fairy gavotte with Aveley. It always 
 seemed to me like a choir of spirits. I would awake 
 sometimes on summer nights and hear it chiming 
 in the silent house, or at noon it would come faintly 
 through the passages. That, and the songs of the 
 birds in the shrubberies, always flash into my mind 
 when I think of the place ; because it was essentially 
 a silent house, more noiseless than any I have ever 
 lived in ; and I love the thought of its silence and 
 of its fragrance for that was another note of the 
 place. In the hall stood great china jars with 
 pierced covers, which were always full of pot-pourri ; 
 there was another in the library, and another in
 
 FATHER PAYNE 31 
 
 Father Payne's study, and two more in the passage 
 above, which looked out by the little gallery upon 
 the hall. Silence and fragrance always, in the back- 
 ground of all we did ; and outlining itself upon the 
 stillness, the little melody, jetting out like a fountain 
 of silver sound. 
 
 VI 
 
 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 THAT evening after dinner we two were left with 
 Barthrop in the smoking-room, and we talked 
 freely about Father Payne. Barthrop said that his 
 past was a little mysterious. " He was at Marl- 
 borough, you know, and Oxford ; and after that, 
 he lived in town, took pupils, and tried to write 
 but he was not successful, and had much difficulty 
 in getting along." "What is his line exactly? " 
 said Vincent. "That's just it," said Barthrop, 
 "he hasn't any line. He has a wide knowledge of 
 things, and is quicker at picking up the drift of a 
 subject than anyone I know ; and he has a rare 
 power of criticism. But he isn't anything in par- 
 ticular. He can't write a bit, he is not a speaker, 
 he isn't learned, he can teach able people, but he 
 couldn't teach stupid men he hasn't enough 
 patience. I can't imagine any line of life for 
 which he would be exactly fitted : and yet he's 
 the biggest person I have ever met ; he carries us 
 all along with him, like a river. You can't resist 
 him, you can't contradict him. That is the one 
 danger, that he exerts more influence than he knows,
 
 32 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 so that when you are with him, it is hard to be 
 quite yourself. But he puts the wind into your 
 sails ; and, my word, he can take it out of your 
 sails, if he likes ! I have only seen him really 
 angry about twice, and then it was really appalling. 
 Once was when a man lied to him, and once was 
 when a man was impertinent to him. He simply 
 blasted them with his displeasure that is the only 
 word. He hates getting angry I expect he had a 
 bad temper once and he apologises afterwards ; 
 but it's no use it's like a thunderstorm apologising 
 to a tree which has been struck. I don't think he 
 knows his strength. He believes himself to be 
 sensitive and weak-willed I have heard him say 
 so. The fact is that he dislikes doing an unpleasant 
 thing or speaking severely ; and he will take a 
 lot of trouble to avoid a scene, or to keep an irri- 
 table man in a good temper. But if he lets himself 
 loose ! I can't express to you the sort of terror I 
 have in thinking of those two occasions. He didn't 
 say very much, but he looked as if he were pos- 
 sessed by any number of devils." 
 
 " He was never married, I suppose ? " I said. 
 
 " No," said Barthrop, " and yet he seems to make 
 friends with women very easily in fact, they tend 
 to fall in love with him, if I may say so. He has 
 got a beautiful manner with them, and he is simply 
 devoted to children. You will see that they really 
 rather worship him in the village. He knows 
 everyone in the place, and never forgets a fact 
 about them." 
 
 ".What does he do mostly ? " I said. 
 
 "I really don't know," said Barthrop. "He is 
 rather a solitary man. He very often has one of
 
 FATHER PAYNE 33 
 
 us in for an hour in the evening or morning but 
 we don't see much of him in the afternoon ; he 
 gardens or walks about. He has a quick eye for 
 things, birds and plants, and so on ; and he can 
 find more nests in an hour than any man I ever 
 saw. Sometimes he will go and shut himself up 
 in the church he is rather fond of going to church ; 
 he always goes to the Communion." 
 
 " Does he expect us to go ? " I said. 
 
 "No," said Barthrop. "He rather likes us to 
 go, but he doesn't at all like us going to please him. 
 ' I want you to want to go,' I heard him say once, 
 'but I don't want you to go because I want you.' 
 And he has no particular views, I think, about the 
 whole thing at least not for other people." 
 
 " Tell me some more about him," I said. 
 
 "What is there to say ? " said Barthrop. "He 
 is just there the biggest fact on the horizon. Oh 
 yes, there is one thing ; he is tremendously devoted 
 to music. We have some music in the evenings 
 very often. You saw the organ in the gallery 
 it is rather a fine one, and he generally has someone 
 here who can play. Lestrange is a first-rate musi- 
 cian. Father Payne can't play himself, but he 
 knows all about it, and composes sometimes. But 
 I think he looks on music as rather a dangerous 
 indulgence, and does not allow himself very much 
 of it. You can see how it affects him. And you 
 mustn't be taken in by his manner. You might 
 think him heavy and unperceptive, with that quiet 
 and rather secret eye of his ; yet he notices every- 
 thing, always, and far quicker than anyone else. 
 But it is hard to describe him, because he can't do 
 anything much, and you might think he was in- 
 
 c
 
 34 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 dolent ; and yet he is the biggest person I have 
 ever seen, the one drawback being that he credits 
 other people with being big too." 
 
 "I notice that you call him 'Father Payne/' 
 said Vincent. " Does that mean anything in par- 
 ticular ? 
 
 "No," said Barthrop, smiling. "It began as a 
 sort of joke, I believe but it seemed to fit him ; 
 and it's rather convenient. We can't begin by 
 calling him 'Payne,' and 'Mr. Payne' is a little 
 formal. Some of the men call him 'sir,' but I 
 think he likes ' Father Payne ' best, or simply 
 ' Father.' You will find it exactly expresses him." 
 
 " Yes," I said, " I am sure it does ! " 
 
 I did not sleep much that night. The great change 
 in my life had all taken place with such rapidity 
 and ease that I felt bewildered, and the thought of 
 the time ahead was full of a vague excitement. But 
 most of all the thought of Father Payne ran in my 
 mind. I regarded him with a singular mixture of 
 interest, liking, admiration, and dread. Yet he had 
 contrived to kindle a curious flame in my mind. 
 It was not that I fully understood what he was 
 working for, but I was conscious of a great desire 
 to prove to him that I could do something, exhibit 
 some tenacity, approve myself to him. I wanted 
 to make him retract what he had said about me ; 
 and, further on, I had a dim sense of an initiation 
 into ideas, familiar enough, but which had only 
 been words to me hitherto power, purpose, seri- 
 ousness. They had been ideas which before this 
 had just vaguely troubled my peace, clouds hanging 
 in a bright sky. I had the sense that there were 
 some duties which I ought to perform, efforts to
 
 FATHER PAYNE 35 
 
 be made, ends to fulfil ; but they had seemed to 
 me expressed in rather priggish phrases, words 
 which oppressed me, and ruffled the surface of my 
 easy joy. Now they loomed up before me as big 
 realities which could not be escaped, hills to climb, 
 with no pleasant path round about their bases. I 
 seemed in sight of some inspiring secret. I could 
 not tell what it was, but Father Payne knew it, 
 might show it me ? 
 
 Thus I drowsed and woke, a dozen times, till in 
 the glimmer of the early light I rose and drew back 
 my curtains. The dawn was struggling up fitfully 
 in the east, among cloudy bars, tipping and edging 
 them with smouldering flashes of light, and there 
 was a lustrous radiance in the air. Then, to my 
 surprise, looking down at the silent garden, pale 
 with dew, I saw the great figure of Father Payne, 
 bare-headed, wrapt in a cloak, pacing solidly and, 
 I thought, happily among the shrubberies, stopping 
 every now and then to watch the fiery light and to 
 breathe the invigorating air and I felt then that, 
 whatever he might be doing, he at all events was 
 something, in a sense which applied to but few 
 people I knew. He was not hard, unimaginative, 
 fenced in by stupidity and self-righteousness from 
 unhappiness and doubt, as were some of the men 
 accounted successful whom I knew. No, it was 
 something positive, some self-created light, some 
 stirring of hidden force, that emanated from him, 
 such as I had never encountered before.
 
 36 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 VII 
 
 THE MEN 
 
 I CAN attempt no sort of chronicle of our days, 
 which indeed were quiet and simple enough. I 
 have only preserved in my diary the record of a 
 few scenes and talks and incidents. I will, how- 
 ever, first indicate how our party, as I knew it, was 
 constituted, so that the record may be intelligible. 
 
 First of us came Leonard Barthrop, who was, 
 partly by his seniority and partly by his tempera- 
 ment, a sort of second-in-command in the house, 
 much consulted and trusted by Father Payne. He 
 was a man of about thirty-five, grave, humorous, 
 pleasant. If one was in a minor difficulty, too 
 trivial to take to Father Payne, it was natural to 
 consult Barthrop ; and he sometimes, too, would 
 say a word of warning to a man, if a storm seemed 
 to be brewing. It must not be denied that men 
 occasionally got on Father Payne's nerves, quite 
 unconsciously, through tactlessness or stupid man- 
 nerisms and Barthrop was able to smoothe the 
 situation out by a word in season. He had a power 
 of doing this without giving offence, from the 
 obvious goodwill which permeated all he did. 
 Barthrop was not very sociable or talkative, and 
 he was occupied, I think, in some sort of historical 
 research I believe he has since made his name as 
 a judicious and interesting historian ; but I knew 
 little of what he was doing, and indeed was hardly 
 intimate with him, though always at ease in his 
 company. He was not a man with strong pre-
 
 THE MEN 37 
 
 ferences or prejudices, nor was he in any sense a 
 brilliant or suggestive writer. I think he had 
 merged himself very much in the life of our little 
 society, and kept things together more than I was 
 at first aware. 
 
 Then came Kaye, one of the least conspicuous of 
 the whole group, though he has since become per- 
 haps the best known, by his poems and his beautiful 
 critical studies in both art and literature. Kaye 
 is known as one of those rare figures in literature, 
 a creative critic. His rich and elaborate style, his 
 exquisite side-lights, his poetical faculty of inter- 
 pretation, make his work famous, though hardly 
 popular. But I found that he worked very slowly 
 and even painfully, deliberately secreting his honey, 
 and depositing it cell by cell. He had a peculiar 
 intimacy with Father Payne, who treated him with 
 a marked respect. Kaye was by far the most 
 absorbed of the party, went and came like a great 
 moth, was the first to disappear, and generally the 
 last to arrive. Neither did he make any attempt 
 at friendship. He was a handsome and graceful 
 fellow, now about thirty, with a worn sort of beauty 
 in his striking features, curling hair, long languid 
 frame, and fine hands. His hands, I used to think, 
 were the most eloquent things about him, and he 
 was ever making silent little gestures with them, 
 as though they were accompanying unuttered 
 trains of thought ; but he had, too, a strained and 
 impatient air, as if he found the pursuit of phrases 
 a wearing and hazardous occupation. I used to 
 feel Kaye the most attractive and impressive of our 
 society ; but he neither made nor noticed any signals 
 of goodwill, though always courteous and kindly.
 
 38 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 Pollard was a totally different man : he was 
 about twenty-eight, and he was writing some work 
 of fiction. He was a small, sturdy, rubicund crea- 
 ture, with beady eyes and pink cheeks, cherubic in 
 aspect, entirely good-natured and lively, full of not 
 very exalted humour, and with a tendency to wild 
 and even hysterical giggling. I used to think that 
 Father Payne did not like him very much ; but he 
 was a quick and regular worker, and it was impos- 
 sible to find fault with him. He was extremely 
 sociable and appreciative, and I used to find his 
 company a relief from the strain which at times 
 made itself felt. Pollard had a way of getting 
 involved in absurd adventures, which he related 
 with immense gusto ; and he had a really wonderful 
 power of description more so in conversation than 
 in writing and of humorous exaggeration, which 
 made him a delightful companion. But he was 
 never able to put the best of himself into his books, 
 which tended to be sentimental and even conven- 
 tional. 
 
 Then there was Lestrange ; and I think he was 
 the least congenial of the lot. He was a handsome, 
 rather clerical-looking man of about twenty-eight, 
 who had been brought up to take Orders, and had 
 decided against doing so. He was very much in 
 earnest, in rather a tiresome way, and his phrases 
 were conventional and pietistic. I used to feel 
 that he jarred a good deal on Father Payne, but 
 much was forgiven him because of his musical 
 talents, which were really remarkable. His organ- 
 playing, with its verve, its delicacy, and its quiet 
 mastery, was delicious to hear. He was engaged 
 in writing music mainly, and had a piano all to
 
 THE MEN 39 
 
 himself in a little remote room beyond the dining- 
 room, which looked out to the stable-yard and had 
 formerly been an estate-office. We used to hear 
 faint sounds wafted down the garden when the 
 wind was in the west. He was friendly, but he 
 had the absorption of the musician in his art, 
 which is unlike all other artistic absorptions, because 
 it seems literally to check the growth of other 
 qualities and interests. In fact, in many ways 
 Lestrange was like a pious child. He was apt to 
 be snubbed by Father Payne, but he was wholly 
 indifferent to all irony. I used to listen to him 
 playing the organ in the evenings, and a language 
 of emotions and visions certainly streamed from his 
 fingers which he was never able to put into words. 
 Father Payne treated him as one might treat an 
 inspired fool, with a mixture of respect and sharp- 
 ness. 
 
 Then there was Rose, a man of twenty-five, a 
 curious mixture of knowledge, cynicism, energy, 
 and affectionateness. I found Rose a very con- 
 genial companion, though I never felt sure what 
 he thought, and never aired my enthusiasms in his 
 presence. He had great aplomb, and was troubled 
 by no shyness nor hesitation. There was a touch 
 of frostiness at times between him and Father 
 Payne. Rose was paradoxical and whimsical, and 
 was apt to support fantastic positions with apparent 
 earnestness. But he was an extremely capable and 
 sensible man, and had a knack of dropping his 
 contentiousness the moment it began to give offence. 
 He was by far the most mundane of us, and had 
 some command of money. I used to fancy that 
 Father Payne was a little afraid of him, when he
 
 40 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 displayed his very considerable knowledge of the 
 world. His father was a wealthy man, a member 
 of Parliament, and Rose really knew social per- 
 sonages of the day. I doubt if he was ever quite 
 in sympathy with the idea of the place, but I used 
 to feel that his presence was a wholesome sort of 
 corrective, like the vinegar in the salad. I believe 
 he was writing a play, but he has done nothing since 
 in literature, and was in many ways more like a 
 visitor than an inmate. 
 
 Then came my friend Vincent, a solid, good- 
 natured, hard-working man, with a real enthusiasm 
 for literature, not very critical or even imaginative, 
 but with a faculty for clear and careful writing. He 
 was at work on a realistic novel, which made some 
 little reputation ; but he has become since, what 
 I think he always was meant to be, an able journalist 
 and an excellent leader-writer on political and social 
 topics. Vincent was the most interested of all of 
 us in current affairs, but at the same time had a 
 quiet sort of enthusiasm, and a power of idealising 
 people, ardently but unsentimentally, which made 
 him the most loyal of friends. 
 
 The only other person of whom we saw anything 
 was the Vicar of the parish a safe, decorous, useful 
 man, a distant cousin of Father Payne's. His wife 
 was a good-humoured and conventional woman. 
 Their two daughters were pleasant, unaffected 
 girls, just come to womanhood. Lestrange after- 
 wards married one of them. 
 
 We were not much troubled by sociabilities. The 
 place was rather isolated, and Father Payne had 
 the reputation of being something of an eccentric. 
 Moreover, the big neighbouring domain, Whitbury
 
 THE MEN 4 
 
 Park, blocked all access to north and west. The 
 owner was an old and invalid peer, who lived a very 
 secluded life and entertained no one. To the south 
 there was nothing for miles but farms and hamlets, 
 while the only near neighbour in the east was a 
 hunting squire, who thought Father Payne kept a 
 sort of boarding-house, and ignored him entirely. 
 The result was that callers were absolutely unknown, 
 and the wildest form of dissipation was that Pol- 
 lard and Rose occasionally played lawn-tennis at 
 neighbouring vicarages. 
 
 We were not often all there together, because 
 Father Payne's scheme of travel was strictly ad- 
 hered to. He considered it a very integral part of 
 our life. I never quite knew what his plan was; 
 but he would send a man off, generally alone, with 
 a solid sum for travelling expenses. Thus Lestrange 
 was sent for a month to Berlin when Joachim held 
 court there, or to Dresden and Munich. I re- 
 member Pollard and Vincent being packed off to 
 Switzerland together to climb mountains, with stern 
 injunctions to be sociable. Rose went to Spain, 
 to Paris, to St. Petersburg. Kaye went more than 
 once to Italy ; but we often went to different 
 parts of England, and then we were generally 
 allowed to go together ; but Father Payne's theory 
 was that we should travel alone, learn to pick 
 up friends, and to fend for ourselves. He had 
 acquaintances in several parts of the Continent, 
 and we were generally provided with a letter of 
 introduction to some one. We had a fortnight in 
 June and a fortnight at Christmas to go home 
 so that we were always away for three months in 
 the year, while Father Payne was apt to send us
 
 42 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 off for a week at a time, if he thought we needed 
 a change. Barthrop, I think, made his own plans, 
 and it was all reasonable enough, as Father Payne 
 would always listen to objections. Some of us 
 paid for ourselves on those tours, but he was always 
 willing to supplement it generously. 
 
 It used to be a puzzle to me how Father Payne 
 had the command of so much money ; his estate 
 was not large ; but in the first place he spent very 
 little on himself, and our life was extremely simple. 
 Moreover, I became aware that some of his former 
 pupils and friends used to send him money at times 
 for this express purpose. 
 
 The staff consisted of the old butler, whose wife 
 was cook. There were three other maid-servants ; 
 the gardener was also coachman. The house was 
 certainly clean and well-kept ; we looked after our- 
 selves to a great extent ; but there was never any 
 apparent lack of money, though, on the other hand, 
 there was every sign of careful economy. Father 
 Payne never talked about money. "It's an in- 
 teresting thing, money," I have heard him say, 
 " and it's curious to see how people handle it 
 but we must not do it too much honour, and it 
 isn't a thing that can be spoken of in general con- 
 versation." 
 
 VIII 
 
 THE METHOD 
 
 I DO not propose to make any history of events, 
 or to say how, within a very short time, I fell into 
 the life of the place. I will only say what were the
 
 THE METHOD 43 
 
 features of the scheme, and how the rule, such as 
 it was, worked out. 
 
 First of all, and above all, came the personality of 
 Father Payne, which permeated and sustained the 
 whole affair. It was not that he made it his busi- 
 ness to drive us along. It was not a case of " the 
 guiding hand in front and the propelling foot be- 
 hind." He seldom interfered, and sometimes for a 
 considerable space one would have no very direct 
 contact with him. He was a man who was always 
 intent, but by no means always intent on shep- 
 herding. I should find it hard to say how he spent 
 his time. He was sometimes to all appearances 
 entirely indolent and good-natured, when he would 
 stroll about, talk to the people in the village, and 
 look after the little farm which he kept in his own 
 hands under a bailiff. At another time he would 
 be for long together in an abstracted mood, silent, 
 absent-minded, pursuing some train of thought. 
 At another time he would be very busy with what 
 we were doing, and hold long interviews with us, 
 making us read our work to him and giving us de- 
 tailed criticisms. On these occasions he was ex- 
 tremely stimulating, for the simple reason that he 
 always seemed to grasp what it was that one was 
 aiming at, and his criticisms were all directed to 
 the question of how far the original conception was 
 being worked out. He did not, as a rule, point out 
 a different conception, or indicate how the work 
 could be done on other lines. He always grasped 
 the plan and intention, and really seemed to be 
 inside the mind of the contriver. He would say : 
 " I think the scheme is weak here and you can't 
 make a weak place strong by filling it with details,
 
 44 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 however good in themselves. That is like trying 
 to mend the Slough of Despond with cartloads of 
 texts. The thing is not to fall in, or, if you fall 
 in, to get out." His three divisions of a subject 
 were " what you say, what you wanted to say, 
 what you ought to have wanted to say." Some- 
 times he would listen in silence, and then say : 
 " I can't criticise that it is all off the lines. You 
 had better destroy it and begin again." Or he 
 would say : " You had better revise that and 
 polish it up. It won't be any good when it is done 
 these patched-up things never are ; but it will be 
 good practice." He was encouraging, because he 
 never overlooked the good points of any piece of 
 writing. He would say : " The detail is good, but 
 it is all too big for its place, quite out of scale ; 
 it is like a huge ear on a small head." Or he would 
 say : " Those are all things worth saying and well 
 said, but they are much too diffuse." He used to 
 tell me that I was apt to stop the carriage when I 
 was bound on a rapid transit, and go for a saunter 
 among fields. " I don't object to your sauntering, 
 but you must intend to saunter you must not be 
 attracted by a pleasant footpath." Sometimes he 
 could be severe. " That's vulgar," he once said to 
 me, " and you can't make it attractive by throwing 
 scent about." Or he would say : " That's a plati- 
 tude which means that it may be worth thinking 
 and feeling, but not worth saying. You can depend 
 upon your reader feeling it without your help." 
 Or he would say : " You don't understand that 
 point. It is a case of the blind leading the blind. 
 Cut the whole passage, and think it out again." 
 Or he would say : " That is all too compressed.
 
 THE METHOD 45 
 
 You began by walking, and now you are jumping." 
 Or he would say : " There is a note of personal 
 irritation about that ; it sounds as if you had been 
 reading an unpleasant review. It is like the com- 
 plaint of the nightingale leaning her breast against 
 a thorn in order to get the sensation of pain. You 
 seem to be wiping your eyes all through you have 
 not got far enough away from your vexation. 
 Your attempt to give it a humorous turn reminds 
 me of Miss Squeers' titter you must never titter ! " 
 Once or twice in early times I used to ask him 
 how he would do it. " Don't ask me ! " he said. 
 " I haven't got to do it that's your business ; it's 
 no use your doing it in my way ; all I know is 
 that you are not doing it in your way." He 
 was very quick at noticing any mannerisms or 
 favourite words. " All good writers have man- 
 nerisms, of course," he would say, " but the moment 
 that the reader sees that it is a mannerism the 
 charm is gone." His praise was rarely given, and 
 when it came it was generous and rich. " That is 
 excellent," I can hear him say. " You have filled 
 your space exactly, and filled it well. There is not 
 a word to add or to take away." He was always 
 prepared to listen to argument or defence. " Very 
 well read it again." Then, at the end, he would 
 say : " Yes, there is something in that. You meant 
 to anticipate ? I don't mind that ! But you have 
 anticipated too much, made it too clear ; it should 
 just be a hint, no more, which will be explained 
 later. Don't blurt ! You have taken the wind out 
 of your sails by explaining it too fully." 
 
 Sometimes he would leave us alone for two or 
 three weeks together, and then say frankly that
 
 46 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 one had been wasting time, or the reverse. " You 
 must not depend upon me too much ; you must 
 learn to walk alone." 
 
 Every week we had a meeting, at which some one 
 read a fragment aloud. At these meetings he 
 criticised little himself, but devoted his attention 
 to our criticisms. He would not allow harshness 
 or abruptness in what we said. " We don't want 
 your conclusions or your impressions we want 
 your reasons." Or he would say : " That is a fair 
 criticism, but unsympathetic. It is in the spirit 
 of a reviewer who wants to smash a man. We 
 don't want Stephen to be stoned here, we want 
 him confuted." I remember once how he said 
 with indignation : " That is simply throwing a 
 rotten egg ! And its maturity shows that it was 
 kept for that purpose ! You are not criticising, 
 you are only paying off an old score ! ' ' 
 
 But I think that the two ways in which he most 
 impressed himself were by his conversation, when 
 we were all together, and by his tete-a-tete talks, 
 if one happened to be his companion. When we 
 were all together he was humorous, ironical, frank. 
 He did not mind what was said to him, so long as 
 it was courteously phrased ; but I have heard him 
 say : " We must remember we are fencing we must 
 not use bludgeons." Or : " You must not talk as 
 if you were scaring birds away we are all equal 
 here." He was very unguarded himself in what 
 he said, and always maintained that talkers ought 
 to contribute their own impressions freely and easily. 
 He used to quote with much approval Dr. Johnson's 
 remark about his garrulous old school-fellow, Ed- 
 wards. Boswell said, when Edwards had gone, that
 
 THE METHOD 47 
 
 he thought him a weak man. "Why, yes, sir," 
 said Johnson. " Here is a man who has passed 
 through life without experiences ; yet I would 
 rather have him with me than a more sensible man 
 who will not talk readily. This man is always 
 willing to say what he has to say." Father Payne 
 used to add : " The point is to talk ; you must not 
 consider your reputation ; say whatever comes into 
 your head, and when you have learnt to talk, you 
 can begin to select." I have heard him say : " Go 
 on, some one ! It is everybody's business here to 
 avoid a pause. Don't be sticky ! Pauses are for 
 a tete-a-tete." Or, again, I have heard him say : 
 " You mustn't examine witnesses here ! You should 
 never ask more than three questions running." 
 He did not by any means keep his own rules ; but 
 he would apologise sometimes for his shortcomings. 
 " I'm hopeless to-day. I can't attend, I can't think 
 of anything in particular. I'm diluted, I'm welter- 
 ing I'm coming down like a shower." 
 
 The result of this certainly was that we most of 
 us did learn to talk. He liked to thrash a subject 
 out, but he hated too protracted a discussion. 
 "Here, we've had enough of this. It's very im- 
 portant, but I'm getting bored. I feel priggish. 
 Help, help ! " 
 
 On the other hand, he was even more delightful 
 in a tete-a-tete. He would say profound and tender 
 things, let his emotions escape him. He had with 
 me, and I expect with others, a sort of indulgent 
 and paternal way with him. He never forgot a 
 confidence, and he used to listen delightedly to 
 stories of one's home circle. " Tell me some 
 stories about Aunt Jane," he would say to me.
 
 48 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 "There is something impotently fiery about that 
 good lady that I like. Tell me again what she said 
 when she found cousin Frank in a smoking-cap 
 reading Thomas- a-Kempis." He had a way of 
 quoting one's own stories which was subtly flatter- 
 ing, and he liked sidelights of a good-natured kind 
 on the character of other members. "Why won't 
 he say such things to me ? " he used to say. " He 
 thinks I should respect him less, when really I 
 should admire him more. He won't let me see when 
 his box is empty ! I suspect him of reading Bart- 
 lett's Familiar Quotations before he goes a walk 
 with me ! " Or he would say : " In a general talk 
 you must think about your companions ; in a 
 tete-a-tete you must only feel him." 
 
 But the most striking thing about Father Payne 
 was this. Though we were all very conscious of 
 his influence, and indeed of his authority ; though 
 we knew that he meant to have his own way, and 
 was quite prepared to speak frankly and act de- 
 cisively, we were never conscious of being watched 
 or censured or interfered with. In ninety-nine 
 cases out of a hundred it was a pure pleasure to 
 meet him and to be with him, and many a time have 
 I seen him, in a moment of leisure, strolling in the 
 garden, and hurried out just on the chance of get- 
 ting a word or a smile, or, if he was in an expansive 
 mood, having my arm taken by him for a little 
 turn. In the hundredth case, it happened that 
 one might have said or done something which one 
 knew that he would disapprove. But, as he never 
 stored things up or kept you waiting, you could be 
 sure he would speak soon or not at all. Often, too, 
 he would just say: "I don't think that your
 
 THE METHOD 49 
 
 remark to Kaye gave a fair impression of your- 
 self," or, "Why waste your powder as you did 
 to-night ? " I was only once or twice directly 
 rebuked by him, and that was for a prolonged 
 neglect. "You don't care," he once said to me 
 emphatically. " I can't do anything for you if 
 you don't care ! " But he was the most entirely 
 placable of men. A word of regret or apology, and 
 he would say : " Don't give it another thought, my 
 boy," or, "That's all right, then." 
 
 The real secret of his influence was that he took 
 not a critical or even a dispassionate view of each 
 of us, but an enthusiastic view. He took no 
 pleasure in our shortcomings ; they were rather of 
 the nature of an active personal disappointment. 
 The result was simply that you were natural with 
 him, but natural with the added sense that he liked 
 you and thought well of you, and expected friend- 
 ship and even brilliance from you. You felt that 
 he knew you well, and recognised your faults and 
 weaknesses, but that he knew your best side even 
 better, and enjoyed the presence of it. I never 
 knew anyone who was so appreciative, and though 
 I said foolish things to him sometimes, I felt that 
 he was glad that I should be my undisguised self. 
 It was thus delicately flattering to be with him, and 
 it gave confidence and self-respect. That was the 
 basis of our whole life, the goodwill and affection 
 of Father Payne, and the desire to please him.
 
 50 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 IX 
 
 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 FATHER PAYNE was a big solid man, as I have said, 
 but he contrived to give the impression of being 
 even bigger than he was. It was like the Irish 
 estate, of which its owner said that it had more 
 land to the acre than any place he knew. This 
 was the result, I suppose, of what Barthrop once 
 dryly called the "effortless expansion" of Father 
 Payne's personality. I suppose he was about six- 
 foot-two in height, and he must have weighed 
 fifteen stone or even more. He was not stout, but 
 all his limbs were solid, so that he filled his clothes. 
 His hands were big, his feet were big. He wore a 
 rather full beard : he was slightly bald when I 
 knew him, but his hair grew rather long and curly. 
 He always wore old clothes but you were never 
 conscious of what he wore : he never looked, as 
 some people do, like a suit of clothes with a person 
 inside them. Thinking it over, it seems to me that 
 the reason why you noticed his clothes so little, 
 when you were with him, was because you were 
 always observing his face, or his hands, which were 
 extremely characteristic of him, or his motions, 
 which had a lounging sort of grace about them. 
 Heavy men are apt on occasions to look lumbering, 
 but Father Payne never looked that. His whole 
 body was under his full control. When he walked, 
 he swung easily along ; when he moved, he moved 
 impetuously and eagerly. But his face was the 
 most remarkable thing about him. It had no great
 
 FATHER PAYNE 51 
 
 distinction of feature, and it was sanguine, often 
 sunburnt, in hue. But, solid as it was, it was all 
 alive. His big dark eyes were brimful of amuse- 
 ment and kindliness, and it was like coming into a 
 warm room on a cold day to have his friendly glance 
 directed upon you. As he talked, his eyebrows 
 moved swiftly, and he had a look, with his eyes 
 half-closed and his brows drawn up, as he waited 
 for an answer, of what the old books call " quiz- 
 zical " a sort of half -caressing irony, which was 
 very attractive. He had an impatient little frown 
 which passed over his face, like a ruffle of wind, if 
 things went too slowly or heavily for his taste ; 
 and he had, too, on occasions a deep, abstracted 
 look, as if he were following a thought far. There 
 was also another look, well known to his com- 
 panions, when he turned his eyes upwards with a 
 sort of resignation, generally accompanied by a 
 deprecating gesture of the hand. Altogether it was 
 a most expressive face, because, except in his ab- 
 stracted mood, he always seemed to be entirely 
 there, not concealing or repressing anything, but 
 bending his whole mind upon what was being said. 
 Moreover, if you said anything personal or intimate 
 to him, a word of gratitude or pleasure, he had a 
 quick, beautiful, affectionate look, so rewarding, 
 so embracing that I often tried to evoke it though 
 an attempt to evoke it deliberately often produced 
 no more than a half-smile, accompanied by a little 
 wink, as if he saw through the attempt. 
 
 His great soft white hands, always spotlessly 
 clean he was the cleanest-looking man I ever saw 
 were really rather extraordinary. They looked at 
 first sight clumsy, and even limp ; but he was un-
 
 52 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 usually deft and adroit with his fingers, and his 
 touch on plants, in gardening, his tying of strings 
 he liked doing up parcels was very quick and 
 delicate. He was fond of all sorts of little puzzles, 
 toys of wood and metal, which had to be fitted 
 together ; and the puzzles took shape or fell to 
 pieces under his fingers like magic. They were 
 extremely sensitive to pain, his hands, and a little 
 pinch or abrasion would cause him marked dis- 
 comfort. His handwriting was rapid and fine, and 
 he occasionally would draw a tiny sketch to illus- 
 trate something, which showed much artistic skill. 
 He often deplored his ignorance of handicraft, 
 which he said would have been a great relief to 
 him. 
 
 His voice, again, was remarkable. It was not in 
 ordinary talk either deep or profound, though it 
 could and did become both on occasions, especially 
 when he made a quotation, which he did with some 
 solemnity. I used at first to think that there was 
 a touch of rhetorical affectation about his quota- 
 tions. They were made in a high musical tone, 
 and as often as not ended with the tears coming 
 into his eyes. He spoke to me once about this. 
 He said that it was a mistake to think he was 
 deeply affected by a quotation. " In fact," he said, 
 "I am not easily affected by passionate or tragic 
 emotion what does affect me is a peculiar touch 
 of beauty, but it is a luxurious and superficial 
 thing. It would entirely prevent me," he added, 
 " from reading many poems or prose passages aloud 
 which I greatly admire. I simply could not com- 
 mand myself! In fact," he went on, smiling, "I 
 very often can only get to the end of a quotation
 
 FATHER PAYNE 53 
 
 by fixing my mind on something else. I add up 
 the digits giving the number of the page, or I 
 count the plates at the dinner-table. It's very 
 absurd but it takes me in just the same way when 
 I am alone. I could not read the last chapter of 
 the Book of Revelation aloud to myself, or the 
 chapter on ' The Wilderness ' in Isaiah, without 
 shedding tears. But it doesn't mean anything ; it 
 is just the hysterica passio, you know ! " 
 
 His voice, when he first joined in a talk, was 
 often low and even hesitating ; but when he became 
 interested and absorbed, it gathered volume and 
 emphasis. Barthrop once said to me that Father 
 Payne was the only person he knew who always 
 talked in italics. But he very seldom harangued, 
 though it is difficult to make that clear in recording 
 his talks, because he often spoke continuously. 
 Yet it was never a soliloquy : he always included 
 the listeners. He used to look round at them, 
 explore their faces, catch an eye and smile, indicate 
 the particular person addressed by a darted-out 
 finger ; and he had many little free gestures with 
 his hands as he talked. He would trace little 
 hieroglyphics with his finger, as if he were writing 
 a word, sweep an argument aside, bring his hands 
 together as though he were shaping something. 
 This was a little confusing at first, and used to 
 divert my attention, because of the great mobility 
 of his hands ; but after a little it seemed to me to 
 bring out and illustrate his points in a remarkably 
 salient way. 
 
 His habits were curious and a little mysterious. 
 They were by no means regular. Sonetimes for 
 days together we hardly saw him. He often rose
 
 54 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 early and walked in the garden. If he found a book 
 which interested him, he would read it with absorbed 
 attention, quite unconscious of the flight of time. 
 " I do love getting really buried in a book," he would 
 say ; " it's the best of tests." Sometimes he wrote, 
 sometimes he composed music, sometimes he would 
 have his table covered with bits of paper full of 
 unintelligible designs and patterns. He did not 
 mind being questioned, but he would not satisfy 
 one's curiosity. "It's only some nonsense of 
 mine," he would say. He did not write many 
 letters, and they were generally short. At times he 
 would be very busy on his farm, at times occupied 
 in the village, at times he took long walks alone ; 
 very occasionally he went away for a day or two. 
 He was both uncommunicative and communicative. 
 He would often talk with the utmost frankness and 
 abandon about his private affairs ; but, on the other 
 hand, I always had the sense of much that was 
 hidden in his life. And I have no doubt that he 
 spent much time in prayer and meditation. He 
 seldom spoke of this, but it played a large part 
 in his life. He gave the impression of great ease, 
 cheerfulness, and tranquillity, attained by some de- 
 liberate resolve, because he was both restless and 
 sensitive, took sorrows and troubles hardly, and 
 was deeply shocked and distressed by sad news of 
 any kind. I have heard him say that he often had 
 great difficulty in forcing himself to open a letter 
 which he thought likely to be distressing or un- 
 pleasant. He was naturally, I imagine, of an 
 almost neurotic tendency ; but he did not seem so 
 much to combat this by occupation and determina- 
 tion as to have arrived at some mechanical way of
 
 FATHER PAYNE 55 
 
 dealing with it. I remember that he said to me 
 once : "If you have a bad business on hand, an 
 unhappy or wounding affair, it is best to receive 
 it fully and quietly. Let it do its worst, realise it, 
 take it in don't resist it, don't try to distract ' 
 your mind : see the full misery of it, don't attempt 
 to minimise it. If you do that, you will suddenly 
 find something within you come to your rescue and 
 say, ' Well, I can bear that ! ' and then it is all 
 right. But if you try to dodge it, it's my experience 
 that there comes a kind of back-wash which hurts 
 very much indeed. Let the stream go over you, 
 and then emerge. To fight against it simply pro- 
 longs the agony." He certainly recovered himself 
 quicker than anyone I have ever known : indeed I 
 think his recuperation was the best sign of his enor- 
 mous vitality. " I'm sensitive, ' ' he said to me once, 
 "but I'm tough I have a fearful power of for- 
 getting it's much better than forgiving." But the 
 thing which remains most strongly in my mind 
 about him is the way in which he pervaded the 
 whole place. It was fancy, perhaps, but I used 
 to think I knew whether he was in the house or not. 
 Certainly, if I wanted to speak to him, I used to 
 go off to his study on occasions, quite sure that I 
 should find him ; while on other occasions and I 
 more than once put this to the test I have thought 
 to myself, "It's no use going the Father is out." 
 His presence at any sort of gathering was entirely 
 unmistakable. It was not that you felt hampered 
 or controlled : it was more like the flowing of some 
 clear stream. When he was away, the thing seemed 
 tame and spiritless ; when he was there, it was all 
 full of life. But his presence was not, at least to
 
 56 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 me, at all wearisome or straining. I have known 
 men of great vitality who were undeniably fatiguing, 
 because they overcame one like a whirlwind. But 
 with Father Payne it always seemed as though he 
 put wind into one's sails, but left one to steer one's 
 own course. He did not thwart or deflect, or even 
 direct : he simply multiplied one's own energy. I 
 never had the sensation with him of suppressing 
 any thought in my mind, or of saying to myself, 
 "The Father won't care about that." He always 
 did care, and I used to feel that he was glad to be 
 inquired of, glad to have his own thoughts diverted, 
 glad to be of use. He never nagged, or found petty 
 fault, or "chivied" you, as the boys say. If you 
 asked him a question, or asked him to stroll or walk, 
 you always felt that he was delighted, that it was 
 the one thing he enjoyed. He liked to have childish 
 secrets. He and I had several little caches in the 
 holes of trees, or the chinks of buildings, where 
 we concealed small coins or curious stones on our 
 walks, and at a later date revisited them. We were 
 frankly silly about certain things. He and I had 
 some imaginary personages Dr. Waddilove, sup- 
 posed to be a rich beneficed clergyman of Tory 
 views ; Mr. McTurk, a matter-of-fact Scotsman ; 
 Henry Bland, a retired schoolmaster with copious 
 stores of information ; and others and we used 
 often to discourse in character. But he always 
 knew when to stop. He would say to me suddenly : 
 " Dr. Waddilove said to me yesterday that he never 
 argued with atheists or radicals, because they 
 always came round in the end." Or he would say, 
 in Henry Eland's flute-like tones : " Your mention 
 of Robert Browning induces me to relate an anec-
 
 FATHER PAYNE 57 
 
 dote, which I think may prove not wholly unin- 
 teresting to you." At times we used to tell long 
 stories on our walks, stopping short in the middle 
 of a sentence, when the other had instantly to 
 continue the narrative. I do not mean that the 
 wit was very choice or the humour at all remark- 
 able it would not bear being written down but 
 it amused us both. " Come, what shall we do 
 to-day ? " I can hear him say. " Dr. Waddilove 
 and Mr. Bland might have a walk and discuss the 
 signs of the times ? " And then the ridiculous 
 dialogue would begin. 
 
 That was the delightful thing about him, that he 
 was always ready to fall in with a mood, always 
 light of touch and gay. He could be tender and 
 sympathetic, as well as incisive and sensible if it 
 was needed ; but he was never either contradictory 
 or severe or improving. He would sometimes pull 
 himself up and say : " Here, we must be business- 
 like/' but he was never reproachful or grieved or 
 shocked by what we said to him. He could be 
 decisive, stern, abrupt, if it was really needed. 
 But his most pungent reproofs were inflicted by 
 a blank silence, which was one of the most appal- 
 ling things to encounter. He generally began to 
 speak again a few moments later, on a totally dif- 
 ferent subject, while any such sign of displeasure 
 was extremely rare. He never under any circum- 
 stances reminded anyone of his generosity, or the 
 trouble he had taken, or the favours he had con- 
 ferred, while he would often remind one of some 
 trifling kindness done to him. "I often remember 
 how good you were about those accounts, old boy ! 
 I should never have got through without you ! "
 
 58 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 His demeanour was generally that of an indulgent 
 uncle, with that particular touch of nearness which 
 in England is apt to exist only among relations. 
 He would consult us about his own private worries 
 with entire frankness, and this more than anything 
 made us ready to confide in him. He used to hand 
 us cheques or money if required, with a little wink. 
 "That's your screw!" he used to say; and he 
 liked any thanks that seemed natural. 
 
 " Natural," that is the word that comes before 
 me all through. I can remember no one so un- 
 embarrassed, so easy, so transparent. His thought 
 flowed into his talk ; and his silences were not 
 reticences, but the busy silence of the child who 
 has "a plan." He gave himself away without 
 economy and without disguise, and he accepted 
 gratefully and simply whatever you cared to give 
 him of thought or love. I think oftenest of how I 
 sometimes went to see him in the evenings : if he 
 was busy, as he often was, he used just to murmur 
 half to himself, " Well, old man ? " indicate a chair, 
 put his finger on his lips, and go on with his work 
 or his book ; but at intervals he would just glance 
 at me with a little smile, and I knew that he was 
 glad to have me at hand in that simple companion- 
 ship when there is no need of speech or explanation. 
 And then the book or paper would be dropped, and 
 he would say : " Well, out with it." If one said, 
 "Nothing only company," he would give one of 
 his best and sweetest smiles.
 
 CHARACTERISTICS 59 
 
 X 
 
 CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 BUT whatever may have been Father Payne's effect 
 upon us individually or collectively, or however the 
 result may have been achieved, there was no ques- 
 tion of one thing, and that was the ardent and 
 beautiful happiness of the place. Joy deliberately 
 schemed for and planned is apt to evaporate. But 
 we were not hunting for happiness as men dig for 
 gold. We were looking for something quite different . 
 We were all doing work for which we cared, with 
 kind and yet incisive criticism to help us ; and then 
 the simplicity and regularity of the life, the total 
 absence of all indulgence, the exercise, the com- 
 panionship, the discipline, all generated a kind of 
 high spirits that I have known in no other place 
 and at no other time. I used to awake in the morn- 
 ing fresh and alert, free from all anxiety, all sense 
 of tiresome engagements, all possibility of boredom. 
 All staleness, weariness, all complications and con- 
 ventional duties, all jealousies and envyings, were 
 absent. We were not competing with each other, 
 we were not bent on asserting ourselves, we had 
 just each our own bit of work to do ; moreover our 
 spaces of travel had an invigorating effect, and sent 
 us back to Aveley with the zest of returning to a 
 beloved home. Of course there were little bicker- 
 ings at times, little complexities of friendship ; but 
 these never came to anything in Father Payne's 
 kindly presence. Sometimes a man would get 
 fretful or worried over his work ; if so, he was
 
 6o FATHER PAYNE 
 
 generally despatched on a brief holiday, with an 
 injunction to do no work at all ; and I am sure 
 that the prospect of even temporary banishment 
 was the strongest of all motives for the suppression 
 of strife. I remember spring mornings, when the 
 birds began to sing in the shrubberies, and the beds 
 were full of rising flower-blades, when one's whole 
 mind and heart used to expand in an ecstasy of 
 hope and delight ; I remember long rambles or 
 bicycle rides far into the quiet pastoral country, 
 in the summer heat, alone or with a single com- 
 panion, when life seemed almost too delicious to 
 continue ; then there would be the return, and a 
 plunge into the bathing-pool, and another quiet 
 hour or two at the work in hand, and the delight 
 of feeling that one was gaining skill and ease of 
 expression ; or again there would be the quick 
 tramp in winter along muddy roads, with the ragged 
 clouds hurrying across the sky, with the prospect 
 ahead of a fire-lit evening of study and talk ; and 
 best of all a walk and a conversation with Father 
 Payne himself, when all that he said seemed to 
 interpret life afresh and to put it in a new and 
 exciting aspect. I never met anyone with such a 
 power of linking the loose ends of life together, and 
 of giving one so joyful a sense of connection and 
 continuance. How it was done I cannot guess ; 
 but whereas other minds could cast light upon 
 problems, Father Payne somehow made light shine 
 through them, and gave them a soft translucence. 
 But while he managed to give one a great love of 
 life itself, it never rested there ; he made me feel 
 engaged in some sort of eternal business, and 
 though he used no conventional expressions, I had
 
 CHARACTERISTICS 61 
 
 in his presence a sense of vast horizons and shining 
 tracks passing into an infinite distance full of glory 
 and sweetness, and of death itself as a mystery of 
 surprise and wonder. He taught me to look for 
 beauty and harmony, not to waste time in mean 
 controversy or in futile regret, but to be always 
 moving forwards, and welcoming every sign of 
 confidence and goodwill. He had a way, too, of 
 making one realise the dignity and necessity of 
 work, without cherishing any self-absorbed illu- 
 sions about its impressiveness or its importance. 
 His creed was the recognition of all beauty and 
 vividness as an unquestionable sign of the presence 
 of God, the Power that made for order and health 
 and strength and peace ; and the deep necessity 
 of growing to understand one another with un- 
 suspicious trustfulness and sympathy the Father- 
 hood of God, and the Brotherhood of Man, these 
 were the doctrines by which he lived. 
 
 It used to be an extraordinary pleasure to me to 
 accompany him about the village ; he knew every- 
 one, and could talk with a simple directness and 
 a quiet humour that was inimitable. I never saw 
 so naturally pastoral a man. He carried good- 
 temper about with him, and yet he could rebuke 
 with a sharpness which surprised me, if there was 
 need. He was curiously tolerant, I used to think, 
 of sensual sins, but in the presence of cruelty or 
 meanness or deliberate deceit he used to explode 
 into the most violent language. I remember a 
 scene which it is almost a terror to me now to recol- 
 lect, when I was walking with him, and we met a 
 tipsy farmer of a neighbouring village flogging his 
 horse along a lane. He ran up beside the cart,
 
 62 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 he stopped the horse, he roared at the farmer, 
 " Get out of your cart, you d d brute, and lead it 
 home." The farmer descended in a state of stupe- 
 faction. Father Payne snatched the whip out of 
 his hand, broke it, threw it over the hedge, threat- 
 ened him with all the terrors of the law, and reduced 
 him to a state of abject submission. Presently he 
 recovered somewhat, and in drunken wrath began 
 to abuse Father Payne. " Very well," said Father 
 Payne, " you can take your choice : either you 
 lead the horse home quietly, and I'll see it done ; 
 or else I come with you to the village, and tell the 
 people what I think of you in the open street. And 
 if you put up your fist like that again, I'll run you 
 home myself and hand you over to the policeman. 
 I'll be d d if I won't do it now. Here, Duncan," 
 he said to me, " you go and fetch the policeman, and 
 we'll have a little procession back." The ruffian 
 thought better of it, and led the horse away mutter- 
 ing, while we walked behind until we were near the 
 farm. "Now get in, and behave yourself," said 
 Father Payne. " And if you choose to come over 
 to-morrow and beg my pardon, you may ; and if 
 you don't, I'll have you up before the magistrates 
 on Saturday next." 
 
 I had never seen such wrath ; but the tempest sub- 
 sided instantly, and he walked back with me in high 
 good-humour. The next day the man came over, and 
 Father Payne said to me in the evening : " We had 
 quite an affecting scene. I gave him a bit of my 
 mind, and he thanked me for speaking straight . He's 
 a low brute, but I don't think he'll do the same sort 
 of thing in a hurry. I'll give him six weeks to get 
 over his fright, and then I'll do a little patrolling ! "
 
 CHARACTERISTICS 63 
 
 His gentleness, on the other hand, with women 
 and children was beautiful to see. It was as 
 natural for Father Payne to hurry to a scene of 
 disaster or grief as it was for others to wish to stay 
 away. He used to speak to a sufferer or a mourner 
 with great directness. "Tell me all about it," he 
 would say, and he would listen with little nods and 
 gestures, raising his eyebrows or even shutting his 
 eyes, saying very little, except a word or two of 
 sympathy at the end. He knew all the children, 
 but he never petted them or made favourites, but 
 treated them with a serious kind of gravity which 
 he assured us they infinitely preferred. He used 
 to have a Christmas entertainment for them at the 
 Hall, as well as a summer feast. He encouraged 
 the boys and young men to botanise and observe 
 nature in all forms, and though he would never 
 allow nests to be taken, or even eggs if he could 
 help it, he would give little prizes for the noting 
 of any rare bird or butterfly. " If you want men 
 to live in the country, they must love the country," 
 he used to say. He kept a village club going, but 
 he never went there. " It's embarrassing," he used 
 to say. "They don't want me strolling in any 
 more than I want them strolling in. Philanthropists 
 have no sense of privacy." He did not call at the 
 villagers' houses, unless there was some special 
 event, and his talks were confined to chance meet- 
 ings. Neither was there any sense of duty about 
 it. "No one is taken in by formal visiting," he 
 said. "You must just do it if you like it, or else 
 stay away. ' To keep yourself to yourself ' is the 
 highest praise these people can give. No one likes 
 a fuss ! "
 
 64 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 The same sort of principles regulated our own 
 intercourse. "We are not monks," he used to 
 say ; "we are Carthusians, hermits, living together 
 for comfort or convenience." The solitude and 
 privacy of everyone was respected. We used to 
 do our talking when we took exercise ; but there 
 was very little sitting and gossiping together tete- 
 a-tete. " I don't want everyone to try to be inti- 
 mate with everyone else," he used to say. "The 
 point is just to get on amicably together ; we won't 
 have any cliques or coteries." He himself never 
 came to any of our rooms, but sent a message if 
 he wanted to see us. One small thing he strongly 
 objected to, the shouting up from the garden to 
 anyone's window: "Most offensive!" He dis- 
 liked all loud shouting and calling or singing aloud. 
 " You mustn't use the world as a private sitting- 
 room." And the one thing which used to fret him 
 was a voice stridently raised. " Don't rouse the 
 echoes!" he would say. "You have no more 
 right to make a row than you have to use a strong 
 scent or to blow a post-horn that's not liberty ! " 
 The result of this was that the house was a singu- 
 larly quiet one, and this sense of silence and subdued 
 sound lives in my memory as one of its most re- 
 freshing characteristics. " A row is only pleasant 
 if it is deliberate and organised," he used to say. 
 " Native woodnotes wild are all very well, but they 
 are not civilisation. To talk audibly and quietly 
 is the best proof of virtue and honour ! "
 
 CONVERSATION 65 
 
 XI 
 
 CONVERSATION 
 
 I AM going to try to give a few impressions of talks 
 with Father Payne both public and private talks. 
 It is, however, difficult to do this without giving, 
 perhaps, a wrong impression. I used to get into 
 the habit of jotting down the things he had said, 
 and I improved by practice. But he was a rapid 
 talker and somewhat discursive, and he was often 
 deflected from his main subject by a question or a 
 discussion. Yet I do not want it to be thought that 
 he was fond of monologue and soliloquy. He was 
 not, I should say, a very talkative man ; days would 
 sometimes pass without his doing more than just 
 taking a hand in conversation. He liked to follow 
 the flow of a talk, and to contribute a remark now 
 and then ; sometimes he was markedly silent ; but 
 in no case was he ever oppressive. Occasionally, 
 and more often in tete-d-tetc, he went ahead and 
 talked copiously, but this was rather the exception 
 than the rule. I have not thought it worth while 
 to try to give the effect of our own talk. We were 
 young, excitable, and argumentative, and, though 
 it was at the time often delightful and stimulating, 
 it was also often very crude and immature. Father 
 Payne was good at helping a talker out, and would 
 often do justice to a clumsily-expressed remark 
 which he thought was interesting. But he was by 
 far the most interesting member of the circle ; he 
 spoke easily and flowingly when he was moved, and 
 there always seemed to me a sense of form about his 
 
 E
 
 66 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 talk which was absent from ours. But under no 
 circumstance did he ever become tedious indeed 
 he was extremely sensitive to the smallest signs of 
 impatience. We often tried, so to speak, to draw 
 him out ; but if he had the smallest suspicion that 
 he was being drawn, he became instantly silent. 
 
 There is more coherence about some of the talks 
 I have recorded than was actually the case. He 
 would diverge to tell a story, or he would call one's 
 attention to some sight or sound. 
 
 Moreover his face, his movements, his gestures, 
 all added much to his talk. He had a way of wrink- 
 ling up his brows, of shaking his head, of looking 
 round with an awestruck expression, his eyes wide 
 open, his mouth pursed up, especially when he had 
 reached some triumphantly absurd conclusion. He 
 had two little quick gestures of the hands as he 
 spoke, opening his fingers, waving a point aside, 
 emphasizing an argument by a quick downward 
 motion of his forefinger. He had, too, a quick, 
 loud, ebullient laugh, sometimes shrill, sometimes 
 deep ; and he abandoned himself to laughter at an 
 absurd story or jest as completely as anyone I 
 have ever seen. Rose was an excellent mimic, and 
 Father Payne used to fall into agonising paroxysms 
 of laughter at many of his representations. But 
 he always said that laughter was with him a social 
 mood, and that he had never any inclination to 
 laugh when he was alone. 
 
 So the record of his talks must be taken not as 
 typical of his everyday mood, but as instances of 
 the kind of things he said when he was moved to 
 speak at large ; and even so they give, I am aware, 
 too condensed an impression. He never talked as
 
 OF GOING TO CHURCH 67 
 
 if he were playing on a party or a companion with 
 a hose-pipe. There was never anyone who was 
 more easily silenced or diverted. But to anyone 
 who knew him they will give, I believe, a true 
 impression of his method of talk ; and perhaps 
 they may give to those who never saw him a faint 
 reflection of his lively and animated mind, the 
 energy with which he addressed himself to small 
 problems, and the firm belief which he always main- 
 tained, that any evidence of life, however elementary, 
 was more encouraging and inspiring than the most 
 elaborate logic or the profoundest intellectual grasp 
 of abstract subjects. 
 
 XII 
 
 OF GOING TO CHURCH 
 
 I HAD been to church one summer Sunday morning 
 a very simple affair it was, with nothing sung but 
 a couple of hymns ; but the Vicar read beauti- 
 fully, neither emphatically nor lifelessly, with a 
 little thrill in his voice at times that I liked to 
 hear. It did not compel you to listen so much as 
 invite you to join. Lestrange played the organ 
 most divinely ; he generally extemporised before 
 the service, and played a simple piece at the end ; 
 but he never strained the resources of the little 
 organ, and it was all simple and formal music, 
 principally Bach or Handel. 
 
 Father Payne himself was a regular attendant at 
 church, and Sunday was a decidedly leisurely day. 
 He advised us to put aside our writing work, to 
 write letters, read, make personal jottings, talk, 
 though there was no inquisition into such things.
 
 68 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 Father Payne was a somewhat irregular responder, 
 but it was a pleasure to sit near him, because his 
 deep, rapid voice gave a new quality to the words. 
 He seemed happy in church, and prayed with great 
 absorption, though I noticed that his Bible was 
 often open before him all through the service. The 
 Vicar's sermons were good of their kind, suggestive 
 rather than provocative, about very simple matters 
 of conduct rather than belief. I have heard Father 
 Payne speak of them with admiration as never 
 being discursive, and I gathered that the Vicar 
 was a great admirer of Newman's sermons. 
 
 We came away together, Father Payne and I, 
 and we strolled a little in the garden. I felt em- 
 boldened to ask him the plain question why he went 
 to church. "Oh, for a lot of reasons," he said, 
 " none of them very conclusive ! I like to meet 
 my friends in the first place ; and then a liturgy 
 has a charm for me. It has a beauty of its own, 
 and I like ceremony. It is not that I think it 
 sacred only beautiful. But I quite admit the 
 weakness of it, which is simply that it does not 
 appeal to everyone, and I don't think that our 
 Anglican service is an ideal service. It is too re- 
 fined and formal ; and many people would feel it 
 was more religious if it were more extempore 
 prayer and plain advice." 
 
 I told him something of my old childish experi- 
 ence, saying that I used to regard church as a sort 
 of calling-over, and that God would be vexed if 
 one did not appear. 
 
 He laughed at this. " Yes, I don't think we can 
 insist on it as being a levee," he said, "where one 
 is expected to come and make one's bow and pay
 
 OF GOING TO CHURCH 69 
 
 formal compliments. That idea is an old anthropo- 
 morphic one, of course. It is superstitious it is 
 almost debasing to think of God demanding praise 
 as a duty incumbent on us. 'To thee all angels 
 cry aloud ' I confess I don't like the idea of heaven 
 as a place of cheerful noise that isn't attractive ! 
 
 " And also I think that the attention demanded 
 in our service is a mistake it's a mixture of two 
 ideas ; the liturgical ceremony which touches the 
 eye and the emotion, rather than the reason ; and 
 the sermon and the prayer in which the reason is 
 supposed to be concerned. I think the Catholic 
 idea is a better one, a solemnity performed, in which 
 you don't take part, but receive impressions. 
 There's no greater strain on the mind than forcing 
 it to follow a rapid and exalted train of intellectual 
 and literary thought and expression. I confess I 
 don't attempt that. It seems to me just a joyful 
 and neighbourly business, where one puts the mind 
 in a certain expectant mood, and is lucky if one 
 carries a single thrill or aspiration away." 
 
 " What do you do, then ? " I said. 
 
 "Well, I meditate," said Father Payne. "I be- 
 lieve in meditation very much, and in solitude it is 
 very hard work. But the silent company of friends, 
 and the old arches and woodwork, some simple 
 music, a ceremony, and a little plan of thought 
 going on that seems to me a fruitful atmosphere. 
 Some verse, some phrase, which I have heard a 
 hundred times before, suddenly seems written in 
 letters of gold. I follow it a little way into the 
 dark, I turn it over, I wonder about it, I enjoy its 
 beauty. I don't say that my thoughts are generally 
 very startling or poignant or profound ; but I feel
 
 70 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 the sense of the Fatherly, tolerant, indulgent pre- 
 sence of God, and a brotherly affection for my 
 fellow-men. It's a great thing to be in the same 
 place with a number of people, all silent, and on 
 the whole thinking quiet, happy, and contented 
 thoughts. It all brings me into line with my village 
 friends, it gives me a social mood, and I feel for 
 once that we all want the same things from life 
 and that for once instead of having to work and 
 push for them, we are fed and comforted. ' Open 
 thy mouth wide, and I will fill it ' that's a whole- 
 some, childlike verse, you know. The whole thing 
 seems to me a simple device for producing a placid 
 and expectant mood I don't know anything else 
 that produces it so well." 
 
 " You mean it is something mystical almost 
 hypnotic ? " I said. 
 
 " Perhaps I should if I knew what those big words 
 meant," said Father Payne, smiling. " No ; church 
 seems to me a thing that has really grown up out 
 of human nature, not a thing imposed upon it. I 
 don't like what may be called ecclesiasticism, partly 
 because it emphasizes the intellectual side of belief, 
 partly because it tries to cast a slur on the people 
 who don't like ceremonial, and whom it does not 
 suit and most of all because ecclesiasticism aims 
 at making you believe that other people can transact 
 spiritual business on your account. In these demo- 
 cratic days, you can't have spiritual authority 
 you have got to find what people need, and help 
 them to find it for themselves. The plain truth is 
 that we don't want dogma. Of course it isn't to 
 be despised, because it once meant something, even 
 if it does not now. Dogmas are not unintelligible
 
 OF GOING TO CHURCH 71 
 
 intellectual propositions imposed on the world. 
 They are explanations, interpretations, attempts to 
 link facts together. They have the sacredness of 
 ideas which people lived by, and for which they 
 were prepared to die. But many of them are 
 scientific in form only, and the substance has gone 
 out of them. We know more in one sense about 
 life and God than we did, but we also know less, 
 because we realise there is so much more to know. 
 But now we want, I believe, two or three great 
 ideas which everyone can understand like Father- 
 hood and Brotherhood, like peace and orderliness 
 and beauty. I think that a church service means 
 all these things, or ought to. What people need is 
 simplicity and beauty of life joy and hope and 
 kindness. Anything which helps these things on 
 is fine ; anything which bewilders and puzzles and 
 gives a sense of dreariness is simply injurious. 1 
 want to be told to be quiet, to try again, not to be 
 disheartened by failures, not to be angry with other 
 people, to give up things, rather than to get them 
 with a sauce of envy and spite the feeling of a 
 happy and affectionate family, in fact. The sort 
 of thing I don't want is the Athanasian Creed. I 
 can't regard it simply as a picturesque monument 
 of ancient and ferocious piety. It seems to me an 
 overhanging cloud of menace and mystification ! 
 It doesn't hurt the unintelligent Christian, of 
 course he simply doesn't understand it ; but to 
 the moderately intelligent it is like a dog barking 
 furiously which may possibly get loose ; a little 
 more intelligence, and it is all right. You know 
 the dog is safely tied up ! Again, I don't mind the 
 cursing psalms, because they give the parson the
 
 72 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 power of saying : 4 We say this to remind ourselves 
 that it was what people used to feel, and which 
 Christ came to change.' I don't mind anything 
 that is human what I can't tolerate is anything 
 inhuman or unintelligible. No one can misunder- 
 stand the Beatitudes ; very few people can follow 
 the arguments of St. Paul ! You don't want only 
 elaborate reasons for clever people, you want still 
 more beautiful motives for simple people. It isn't 
 perfect, our service, I admit, but it does me good." 
 
 "Tell me," I said "to go back for a moment 
 something more about meditating I like that ! ' ' 
 
 "Well," said Father Payne, "it's like anchoring 
 to a thought. Thought is a fidgety thing, restless, 
 perverse. It anchors itself very easily on to a 
 grievance, or an unpleasant incident, or a squabble. 
 Don't you know the misery of being jerked back, 
 time after time, by an unpleasant thought ? I 
 think one ought to practise the opposite and I 
 know now by experience that it is possible. I will 
 make a confession. I don't care for many of the 
 Old Testament lessons myself. I think there's too 
 much fact, or let us say incident, in them, and not 
 enough poetry. Well, I take up my Bible, and I 
 look at Job, or Isaiah, or the Revelation, and I read 
 quietly on. Suddenly there's a gleam of gold in 
 the bed of the stream some splendid, deep, fine 
 thought. I follow it out ; I think how it has 
 appeared in my own life, or in the lives of other 
 people it bears me away on its wings. I pray 
 about it, I hope to be more like that and so on. 
 Sometimes it is a sharp revelation of something 
 ugly and perverse in my own nature I don't dwell 
 long on that, but I see in imagination how it is
 
 OF NEWSPAPERS 73 
 
 likely to trouble me, and I hope that it will not 
 delude me again ; because these evil things delude 
 one, they call noxious tricks by fine names. I say 
 to myself, ' What you pretend is self-respect, or 
 consistency, is really irritable vanity or stupid 
 unimaginativeness.' But it is a mistake, I think, 
 to dwell long on one's deficiencies : what one has 
 got to do is to fill one's life full of positive, active, 
 beautiful things, until there is no room for the ugly 
 intruders. And, to put it shortly, a service makes 
 me think about other people and about God ; I 
 fear it doesn't make me contrite or sorrowful. I 
 don't believe in any sort of self-pity, nor do I think 
 one ought to cultivate shame ; those things lie 
 close to death, and it is life that I am in search of 
 fulness of life. Don't let us bemoan ourselves, or 
 think that a sign of grace ! " 
 
 " But if you find yourself grubby, nasty, sus- 
 picious, irritable, isn't it a good thing to rub it in 
 sometimes ? " I said. 
 
 " No, no," said Father Payne, "life will do that 
 hard enough. Turn your back on it all, look at 
 the beautiful things, leave a thief to catch a thief, 
 and the dead to bury the dead. Don't sniff at the 
 evil thing ; go and get a breath of fresh air." 
 
 XIII 
 
 OF NEWSPAPERS 
 
 FATHER PAYNE was a very irregular reader of the 
 newspaper ; he was not greedy of news, and he 
 was incurious about events, while he disliked the 
 way in which they were professionally dished up
 
 74 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 for human consumption. At times, however, he 
 would pore long and earnestly over a daily paper 
 with knitted brows and sighs. " You seem to be 
 suffering a good deal over your paper to-day, 
 Father ! " said Barthrop once, regarding him with 
 amusement. Father Payne lifted up his head, and 
 then broke into a smile. " It's all right, my boy ! 
 he said. " I don't despair of the world itself, but 
 I feel that if the average newspaper represents the 
 mind of the average man, the human race is very 
 feeble not worth saving ! This sort of thing " 
 indicating the paper with a wave of his hand 
 " makes me realise how many things there are that 
 don't interest me and I can't get at them either 
 through the medium of these writers' minds. They 
 don't seem to want simply to describe the facts, 
 but to manipulate them ; they try to make you 
 uncomfortable about the future, and contented 
 with the past. It ought to be just, the other way ! 
 And then I ask myself, ' Ought I, as a normal 
 human being, to be as one-sided, as submissive, as 
 trivial, as sentimental as this ? ' These vast sum- 
 maries of public opinion, do they represent anyone's 
 opinion at all, or are they simply the sort of thing 
 you talk about in a railway-carriage with a man 
 you don't know ? Does anyone's mind really dwell 
 on such things and ponder them ? The newspapers 
 do not really know what is happening everything 
 takes them by surprise. The ordinary person is 
 interested in his work, his amusements, the people 
 he lives with in real things. There seems to be 
 nothing real here ; it is all shadowy. I want to 
 get at men's minds, not at what journalists think 
 is in men's minds. The human being in the news-
 
 OF NEWSPAPERS 75 
 
 papers seems to me an utterly unreal person, pic- 
 turesque, theatrical, fatuous, slobbering, absurd. 
 Does not the newspaper-convention misrepresent 
 us as much as the book-convention misrepresents 
 us ? We straggle irregularly along, we are capable 
 of entertaining at the same moment two wholly 
 contrary opinions, we do what we don't intend to 
 do, we don't carry out our hopes or our purposes. 
 The man in the papers is agitated, excited, wild, 
 inquisitive the ordinary person is calm, indifferent, 
 and on the whole fairly happy, unless some one 
 frightens him. I can't make it out, because it 
 isn't a conspiracy to deceive, and yet it does deceive ; 
 and what is more, most people don't even seem to 
 know that they are being misrepresented. It all 
 seems to me to differ as much from real life as the 
 Morning Service read in church differs from the 
 thoughts of the congregation ! ' ' 
 
 " How would you mend it ? "said Barthrop. " It 
 seems to me it must represent something." 
 
 "Something!" said Father Payne. "I don't 
 know ! I don't believe we are so stupid and so 
 ignoble ! As to mending it, that's another ques- 
 tion. Writing is such a curious thing it seems to 
 represent anything in the world except the current 
 of a man's thoughts. Reverie has anyone ever 
 tried to represent that ? I have been out for a 
 walk sometimes, and reflected when I came in that 
 if what has passed through my mind were all printed 
 in full in a book, it would make a large octavo 
 volume and precious stuff, too ! Yet the few 
 thoughts which do stand out when it is all over, the 
 few bright flashes, they are things which can hardly be 
 written down at least they never are written down "
 
 76 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 " But what would you do ? " I said " with the 
 newspapers, I mean." 
 
 " Well," said Father Payne, " a great deal of the 
 news most worth telling can be told best in pic- 
 tures. I believe very much in illustrated papers. 
 They really do help the imagination. That's the 
 worst of words a dozen scratches on a bit of paper 
 do more to make one realise a scene than columns 
 of description. I would do a lot with pictures, and 
 a bit of print below to tell people what to notice. 
 Then we must have a number of bare facts and 
 notices weather, business, trade, law the sort of 
 thing that people concerned must read. But I 
 would make a clean sweep of fashion, and all sen- 
 sational intelligence murders, accidents, sudden 
 deaths. I would have much more biography of 
 living people as well as dead, and a few of the big 
 speeches. Then I would have really good articles 
 with pictures about foreign countries we ought to 
 know what the world looks like, and how the other 
 people live. And then I would have one or two 
 really fine little essays every day by the very best 
 people I could get, amusing, serious, beautiful articles 
 about nature and art and books and ideas and 
 qualities some real, good, plain, wise, fine, simple 
 thinking. You want to get people in touch with 
 the best minds ! " 
 
 " And how many people would read such a 
 paper ? " I said. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know, I'm sure," said Father Payne 
 with a groan. " I would for one ! I want to have 
 the feeling of being in touch day by day with the 
 clever, interesting, lively, active-minded people, as 
 if I had been listening to good talk. Isn't that
 
 OF NEWSPAPERS 77 
 
 possible ? Instead of which I sit here, day after 
 day, overflowing with my own ridiculous thoughts 
 and the world discharging all its staleness and 
 stupidity like a sewer in these horrible documents. 
 Take it away from me, someone ! I 'm fascinated 
 by the disgusting smell of it ! " I withdrew the 
 paper from under his hands. "Thank you," said 
 Father Payne feebly. " That's the horror of it 
 that the world isn't a dull place or a sensational 
 place or a nasty place and these papers make me 
 feel it is all three ! " 
 
 " I 'm sorry you are so low about it," said Barthrop. 
 
 " Yes, because journalism ought to be the finest 
 thing in the world," said Father Payne. " Just ima- 
 gine ! The power of talking, without any of the in- 
 conveniences of personality, to half-a-million people." 
 
 " But why doesn't it improve ? " said Barthrop. 
 " You always say that the public finds out what it 
 wants, and will have it." 
 
 " In books, yes ! " said Father Payne ; " but in 
 daily life we are all so damnably afraid of the truth 
 that's what is the matter with us, and it is that 
 which journalism caters for. Suppress the truth, 
 pepper it up, flavour it, make it appetising try 
 to persuade people that the world is romantic ! 
 that's the aim of the journalist. He flies from the 
 truth, he makes a foolish tale out of it, he makes 
 people despise the real interests of life, he makes 
 us all want to escape from life into something that 
 never has been and never will be. I loathe romance 
 with all my heart. The way of escape is within, 
 and not without." 
 
 " You had better go for a walk," said Barthrop 
 soothingly.
 
 78 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 "I must," said Father Payne. "I'm drunk and 
 drugged with unreality. I will go and have a look 
 round the farm no, I won't have any company, 
 thank you. I shall only go on fuming and stewing, 
 if I have sympathetic listeners. You are too 
 amiable, you fellows. You encourage me to talk, 
 when you ought to stop your ears and run from me." 
 And Father Payne swung out of the room. 
 
 XIV 
 
 OF HATE 
 
 IT was at dinner, one frosty winter evening, and we 
 were all in good spirits. Two or three animated 
 conversations were going on at the table. Father 
 Payne was telling one of his dreams to the three 
 who were nearest to him, and, funny as most of his 
 dreams were, this was unusually so. There was a 
 burst of laughter and a silence a sudden sharp 
 silence, in which Vincent, who was continuing a 
 conversation, was heard to say to Barthrop, in a 
 tone of fierce vindictiveness, " I hate him like the 
 devil ! " Another laugh followed, and Vincent 
 blushed. " Perhaps I ought not to say that ? " 
 he said in hurried tones. 
 
 "You are quite right," said Father Payne to 
 Vincent, encouragingly " at least you may be 
 quite right. I don't know of whom you were 
 speaking." 
 
 " Yes, who is it, Vincent ? " said someone, leaning 
 forwards. 
 
 "No, no," said Father Payne, "that's not fair ! 
 It was meant to be a private confession."
 
 OF HATE 79 
 
 "But you don't hate people, Father?" said 
 Lestrange, looking rather pained. 
 
 "I, dear man? " said Father Payne. "Yes, of 
 course I do ! I loathe them ! Where are your eyes 
 and ears ? All decent people do. How would the 
 world get on without it ? " 
 
 Lestrange looked rather shocked. "I don't 
 understand," he said. "I always gathered that 
 you thought it our business to well, to love people." 
 
 " Our business, yes ! " said Father Payne ; " but 
 our pleasure, no ! One must begin by hating 
 people. What is there to like about many of us ? " 
 
 "Why, Father," said Vincent, "you are the 
 most charitable of men ! " 
 
 Father Payne gave him a little bow. " Come," 
 he said, " I will make a confession. I am by nature 
 the most suspicious of mankind. I have all the un- 
 civilised instincts. There are people of whom I 
 hate the sight and the sound, and even the scent. 
 My natural impulse is to see the worst points of 
 everyone. I admit that people generally improve 
 upon acquaintance, but I have no weak sentiment 
 about my fellow-men they are often ugly, stupid, 
 ill-mannered, ill-tempered, unpleasant, unkind, self- 
 ish. It is a positive delight sometimes to watch 
 a thoroughly nasty person, and to reflect how much 
 one detests him. It is a sign of grace to do so. 
 How otherwise should one learn to hate oneself ? 
 If you hate nobody, what reason is there for trying 
 to improve ? It is impossible to realise how nasty 
 you yourself can be until you have seen other people 
 being nasty. Then you say to yourself, ' Come, 
 that is the kind of thing that I do. Can I really 
 be like that ? ' "
 
 80 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 "But surely," said Lestrange, "if you do not 
 try to love people, you cannot do anything for them ; 
 you cannot wish them to be different." 
 
 "Why not?" said Father Payne, laughing. 
 " You may hate them so much that you may wish 
 them to be different. That is the sound way to 
 begin. I say to myself, ' Here is a truly dreadful 
 person ! I would abolish and obliterate him if I 
 could ; but as I cannot, I must try to get him out 
 of this mess, that we may live more at ease.' It 
 is simple humbug to pretend to like everyone. 
 You may not think it is entirely people's fault that 
 they are so unpleasant ; but if you really love fine 
 and beautiful things, you must hate mean and ugly 
 things. Don't let there be any misunderstanding," 
 he said, smiling round the table. " I have hated 
 most of you at different times, some of you very 
 much. I don't deny there are good points about 
 you, but that isn't enough. Sometimes you are 
 detestable ! " 
 
 "I see what you mean," said Barthrop ; "but 
 you don't hate people you only hate things in 
 them and about them. It is just a selection." 
 
 "Not at all," said Father Payne. "How are 
 you going to separate people's qualities and attri- 
 butes from themselves ? It is a process of addi- 
 tion and subtraction, if you like. There may be a 
 balance in your favour. But when a bad mood is 
 on, when a person is bilious, fractious, ugly, cross, 
 you hate him. It is natural to do so, and it is right 
 to do so. I do loathe this talk of mild, weak, uni- 
 versal love. The only chance of human beings 
 getting on at all, or improving at all, is that they 
 should detest what is detestable, as they abominate
 
 OF HATE 81 
 
 a bad smell. The only reason why we are clean is 
 because we have gradually learnt to hate bad smells. 
 A bad smell means something dangerous in the 
 background so do ugliness, ill-health, bad temper, 
 vanity, greediness, stupidity, meanness. They are 
 all danger signals. We have no business to ignore 
 them, or to forget them, or to make allowances 
 for them. They are all part of the beastliness of 
 the world." 
 
 " But if we believe in God, and in God's goodness 
 if He does not hate anything which He has made," 
 said Lestrange rather ruefully, " ought we not to 
 try to do the same ? " 
 
 "My dear Lestrange," said Father Payne, "one 
 would think you were teaching a Sunday-school 
 class ! How do you know that God made the nasty 
 things ? One must not think so ill of Him as that ! 
 It is better to think of God as feeble and inefficient, 
 than to make Him responsible for all the filth and 
 ugliness of the world. He hates them as much as 
 you do, you may be sure of that and is as anxious 
 as you are, and a great deal more anxious, to get 
 rid of them. God is infinitely more concerned about 
 it, much more disappointed about it, than you or 
 me. Why, you and I are often taken in. We don't 
 always know when things are rotten. I have made 
 friends before now with people who seemed charm- 
 ing, and I have found out that I was wrong. But 
 I do not think that God is taken in. It is a very 
 mixed affair, of course ; but one thing is clear, 
 that something very filthy is discharging itself into 
 the world, like a sewer into a river. I am not 
 going to credit God with that ; He is trying to get 
 rid of it, you may be sure, and He cannot do it 
 
 F
 
 82 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 as fast as He would like. We have got to sympa- 
 thise with Him, and we have got to help Him. 
 Come, someone else must talk I must get on with 
 my dinner." Father Payne addressed himself to 
 his plate with obvious appetite. 
 
 "It is all my fault," said Vincent, "but I am 
 not going to tell you whom I meant, and Barthrop 
 must not. But 1 will tell you how it was. I was 
 with this man, who is an old acquaintance of mine. 
 I used to know him when I was living in London. 
 I met him the other day, and he asked me to 
 luncheon. He was pleasant enough, but after 
 lunch he said to me that he was going to take the 
 privilege of an old friend, and give me some advice. 
 He began by paying me compliments ; he said 
 that he had thought a year ago that I was really 
 going to do something in literature. ' You had 
 made a little place for yourself, ' he said ; ' you had 
 got your foot on the ladder. You knew the right 
 people. You had a real chance of success. Then, 
 in the middle of it all, you go and bury yourself 
 in the country with an old ' no, I can't say it." 
 
 " Don't mind me ! " said Father Payne. 
 
 " Very well," said Vincent, " if you will hear it 
 ' with an old humbug, and a set of asses. You 
 sit in each others' pockets, you praise each others' 
 stuff, you lead what you call the simple life. Where 
 will you all be five years hence ? ' I told him that 
 I didn't know, and I didn't care. Then he lost 
 his temper, and, what was worse, he thought he was 
 keeping it. ' Very well,' he said. ' Now I will 
 tell you what you ought to be doing. You ought 
 to have buckled to your work, pushed yourself 
 quietly in all directions, never have written any-
 
 OF HATE 83 
 
 thing, or made a friend, or accepted an invitation, 
 without saying, "Will this add to my conse- 
 quence ? " We must all nurse our reputations in 
 this world. They don't come of themselves they 
 have to be made ! ' Well, I thought this all very 
 sickening, and I said I didn't care a d n about 
 my reputation. I said I had a chance of living 
 with people whom I liked, and of working at things 
 I cared about, and I thought his theories simply 
 disgusting and vulgar. He showed his teeth at 
 that, and said that he had spoken as a true friend, 
 and that it had been a painful task ; and then I 
 said I was much obliged to him, and came away. 
 That's the story ! " 
 
 "That's all right," said Father Payne, "and I 
 am much obliged to you for the sidelight on my 
 character. But there is something in what he said, 
 you know. You are rather unpractical ! I shall 
 send you back for a bit to London, I think ! " 
 
 " Why on earth do you say that ? " said Vincent, 
 looking a little crestfallen. 
 
 "Because you mind it too much, my boy," said 
 Father Payne. " You must not get soft. That's 
 the danger of this life ! It's all very well for me ; 
 I'm tough, and I'm moderately rich. But you 
 would not have cared so much if you had not thought 
 there was something in what he said. It was very 
 low, no doubt, and I give you leave to hate him ; 
 though, if you are going to lead the detached life, 
 you must be detached. But now I have caught 
 you up and we will go back a little. The mistake 
 you made, Vincent, if I may say so, was to be 
 angry. You may hate people, but you must not 
 show that you hate them. That is the practical
 
 84 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 side of the principle. The moment you begin to 
 squabble, and to say wounding things, and to try 
 to hurt the person you hate, you are simply putting 
 yourself on his level. And you must not be shocked 
 or pained either. That is worse still, because it 
 makes you superior, without making you engaging." 
 
 " Then what are you to do ? " said Barthrop. 
 
 " Try persuasion if you like," said Father Payne, 
 " but you had better fall back on attractive virtue ! 
 You must ignore the nastiness, and give the pleasant 
 qualities, if there are any, room to manoeuvre. 
 But I admit it is a difficult job, and needs some 
 practice." 
 
 "But I don't see any principle about it," said 
 Vincent. 
 
 "There isn't any," said Father Payne; "at 
 least there is, but you must not dig it in. You 
 mustn't use principles as if they were bayonets. 
 Civility is the best medium. If you appear to be 
 fatuously unconscious of other people's presence, 
 of course they want to make themselves felt. But 
 if you are good-humoured and polite, they will try 
 to make you think well of them. That is probably 
 why your friend calls me a humbug he thinks I 
 can't feel as polite as I seem." 
 
 " But if you are dealing with a real egotist," said 
 Vincent, " what are you to do then ? " 
 
 " Keep the talk firmly on himself," said Father 
 Payne, " and, if he ever strays from the subject, 
 ask him a question about himself. Egotists are 
 generally clever people, and no clever people like 
 being drawn out, while no egotists like to be per- 
 ceived to be egotists. You know the old saying 
 that a bore is a person who wants to talk about
 
 OF WRITING 85 
 
 himself when you want to talk about yourself. It 
 is the pull against him that makes the bore want 
 to hold his own. The first duty of the evangelist 
 is to learn to pay compliments unobtrusively." 
 
 "That's rather a nauseous prescription!" said 
 Lestrange, making a face. 
 
 "Well, you can begin with that," said Father 
 Payne, "and when I see you perfect in it, I will 
 tell you something else. Let's have some music, 
 and let me get the taste of all this high talk out of 
 my mouth ! " 
 
 XV 
 
 OF WRITING 
 
 THERE were certain days when Father Payne would 
 hurry in to meals late and abstracted, with a cloudy 
 eye, that, as he ate, was fixed on a point about a 
 yard in front of him, or possibly about two miles 
 away. He gave vague or foolish replies to ques- 
 tions, he hastened away again, having heard voices 
 but seen no one. I doubt if he could have certainly 
 named anyone in the room afterwards. 
 
 I had a little question of business to ask him on 
 one such occasion after breakfast. I slipped out 
 but two minutes after him, went to his study, and 
 knocked. An obscure sound came from within. 
 He was seated on his chair, bending over his writing- 
 table, 
 
 " May I ask you something ? " I said. 
 
 " Damnation ! " said Father Payne. 
 
 I apologised, and tried to withdraw on tiptoe, but 
 he said, turning half round, somewhat impatiently,
 
 86 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 "Oh, come in, come in it's all right. What do 
 you want ? " 
 
 " I don't want to disturb you," I said. 
 
 " Come in, I tell you ! " he said, adding, " you 
 may just as well, because I have nothing to do for 
 a quarter of an hour." He threw a pen on the 
 table. "It's one of my very few penances. If I 
 swear when I am at work, I do no work for a quarter 
 of an hour ; so you can keep me company. Sit 
 down there ! " He indicated a chair with his large 
 foot, and I sate down. 
 
 My question was soon asked and sooner answered. 
 Father Payne beamed upon me with an indulgent 
 air, and I said : " May I ask what you were doing ? " 
 
 "You may," he said. "I rejoice to talk about 
 it. It's my novel." 
 
 "Your novel!" I said. "I didn't know you 
 wrote novels. What sort of a book is it ? " 
 
 "It's wretched," he said, "it's horrible, it's 
 grotesque ! It's more like all other novels than 
 any book I know. It's written in the most abomin- 
 able style ; there isn't a single good point about 
 it. The incidents are all hackneyed, there isn't a 
 single lifelike character in it, or a single good de- 
 scription, or a single remark worth making. I 
 should think it's the worst book ever written. 
 Will you hear a bit of it ? Do, now ! only a short 
 bit. I should love to read it to you." 
 
 "Yes, of course/' I said, "there is nothing I 
 should like better." 
 
 He read a passage. It was very bad indeed. I 
 couldn't have imagined that an able man could 
 have written such stuff. I had an awful feeling 
 that I had heard every word before.
 
 OF WRITING 87 
 
 " There," he said at last, " that's rather a favour- 
 able specimen. What do you think of it ? Come, 
 out with it." 
 
 "I'm afraid I'm not very much of a judge," I 
 said. 
 
 His face fell. " That's what everyone says," he 
 said. "I know what you mean. But I'll publish 
 it I'll be d d if I won't I Oh, dash it, that's five 
 minutes more. No I wasn't working, was I ? 
 Just conversing." 
 
 " But why do you write it, if you are so dissatis- 
 fied with it ? " I said feebly. 
 
 "Why?" he said in a loud voice. "Why? 
 Because I love it. I'm besotted by it. It's like 
 strong drink to me. I doubt if there's a man in 
 England who enjoys himself more than I do when 
 I 'm writing. The worst of it is, that it won't come 
 out it's beautiful enough when I think of it, but 
 I can't get it down. It's my second novel, mind 
 you, and I have got plans for three more. Do you 
 suppose I'm going to sit here, with all you fellows 
 enjoying yourselves, and not have my bit of fun ? 
 But it's hopeless, and I ought to be ashamed of 
 myself. There simply isn't anything in the world 
 that I should not be better employed in doing than 
 in scribbling this stuff. I know that ; but all the 
 authors I know say that writing a book is the part 
 they enjoy they don't care about correcting proofs, 
 or publishing, or seeing reviews, or being paid for 
 it. Very disinterested and noble, of course ! Now 
 I should enjoy it all through, but I simply daren't 
 publish my last one I should be hooted in the 
 village when the reviews appeared. But I am 
 going to have my fun the act of creation, you
 
 88 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 know ! But it's too late to begin, and I have had 
 no training. The beastly thing is as sticky as 
 treacle. It's a sort of vomit of all the novels I 
 have ever read, and that's the truth ! " 
 
 "I simply don't understand," I said. "I have 
 heard you criticise books, I have heard you criticise 
 some of our work you have criticised mine. I 
 think you one of the best critics I ever heard. You 
 seem to know exactly how it ought to be done." 
 
 "Yes," he said, frowning, "I believe I do. 
 That's just it ! I'm a critic, pure and simple. I 
 can't look at anything, from a pigstye to a cathedral, 
 or listen to anything, from a bird singing to an 
 orchestra, or read anything, from Bradshaw to 
 Shakespeare, without seeing when it is out of shape 
 and how it ought to be done. I'm like the man in 
 Ezekiel, whose appearance was like the appearance 
 of brass, with a line of flax in his hand and a measur- 
 ing reed. He goes on measuring everything for 
 about five chapters, and nothing comes of it, as 
 far as I can remember ! I suppose I ought to be 
 content with that, but I can't bear it. I hate 
 fault-finding. I want to make beautiful things. I 
 spent months over my last novel, and, as Aaron 
 said to Moses, 'There came out this calf! ' I'm 
 a very unfortunate man. If I had not had to work 
 so hard for many years for a bare living, I could 
 have done something with writing, I think. But 
 now I'm a sort of plumber, mending holes in other 
 people's work. Never mind. I will waste my 
 time ! " 
 
 All this while he was eyeing the little clock on 
 his table. "Now be off!" he said suddenly. 
 "My penance is over, and I won't be disturbed ! "
 
 OF WRITING 89 
 
 He caught up his pen. " You had better tell the 
 others not to come near me, or I'm blessed if I 
 won't read the whole thing aloud after dinner ! " 
 And he was immersed in his work again. 
 
 Two or three days later I found Father Payne 
 strolling in the garden, on a bright morning. It 
 was just on the verge of spring. There were cat- 
 kins in the shrubbery. The lilacs were all knobbed 
 with green. The aconite was in full bloom under 
 the trees, and the soil was all pricked with little 
 green blades. He was drinking it all in with de- 
 lighted glances. I said something about his book. 
 
 " Oh, the fit's off ! " said he ; "I'm sober again ! 
 I finished the chapter, and, by Jove, I think it's the 
 worst thing I have done yet. It's simply infamous ! 
 I read it with strong sensations of nausea ! I really 
 don't know how I can get such deplorable rubbish 
 down on paper. No matter, I get all the rapture 
 of creation, and that's the best part of it. I simply 
 couldn't live without it. It clears off some perilous 
 stuff or other, and now I feel like a convalescent. 
 Did you ever see anything so enchanting as that 
 aconite ? The colour of it, and the way the little 
 round head is tucked down on the leaves ! I could 
 improve on it a trifle, but not much. God must 
 have had a delicious time designing flowers I 
 wonder why He gave up doing it, and left it to the 
 market-gardeners. I can't make out why new 
 flowers don't keep appearing. I could offer a few 
 suggestions. I dream of flowers sometimes great 
 banks of bloom rising up out of crystal rivers, in 
 deep gorges, full of sunshine and scent. How nice 
 it is to be idle ! I'm sure I've earned it, after that 
 deplorable chapter. It really is a miracle of flat-
 
 90 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 ness ! You go back to your work, my boy, and 
 thank God you can say what you mean ! And 
 then you can bring it to me, and I'll tell you to an 
 inch what it is worth ! " 
 
 XVI 
 
 OF MARRIAGE 
 
 WE were all at dinner one day, and Father Payne 
 came in, in an excited mood, with a letter in his 
 hand. "Here's a bit of nonsense, "he said. "Here's 
 my old friend Davenport giving me what he calls 
 a piece of his mind he can't have much left about 
 my 'celibate brotherhood/ as he calls it. It's all 
 the other way ! I am rather relieved when I hear 
 that any of you people are happily engaged to be 
 married. Celibacy is the danger of my experiment, 
 not the object of it." 
 
 ".Do you wish us to be married? " said Kaye. 
 "That's new to me. I thought this was a little 
 fortress against the eternal feminine." 
 
 "What rubbish!" said Father Payne. "The 
 worst of using ridiculous words like feminine is 
 that it blinds people to the truth. Masculine and 
 feminine have nothing to do with sex. In the first 
 place, intellectual people are all rather apt to be 
 sexless ; in the next place, all sensible people, men 
 and women alike, are what is meant by masculine 
 that is to say, spirited, generous, tolerant, good- 
 natured, frank. Thirdly, all suspicious, scheming, 
 sensitive, theatrical, irritable, vain people are what 
 is meant by feminine. And artistic natures are all 
 prone to those failings, because they desire dignity
 
 OF MARRIAGE 91 
 
 and influence they want to be felt. The real 
 difference between people is whether they want to 
 live, or whether they want to be known to exist. 
 The worst of feminine people is that they are pro- 
 bably the people who ought not to many, unless 
 they marry a masculine person ; and they are not, 
 as a rule, attracted by masculinity." 
 
 "But one can't get married in cold blood," said 
 Vincent. "I often wish that marriages could just 
 be arranged, as they do it in France. I think I 
 should be a very good husband, but I shall never 
 have the courage or the time to go in search of a 
 wife." 
 
 "That's why I send you all out into the world," 
 said Father Payne. "Most people ought to be 
 married. It's a normal thing it isn't a transcen- 
 dental thing. In my experience most marriages 
 are successful. It does everyone good to be obliged 
 to live at close quarters with other people, and to 
 be unable to get away from them." 
 
 "I didn't know you were interested in such 
 matters," said someone. 
 
 "I have gone into it pretty considerably, sir," 
 said Father Payne. " The one thing that does 
 interest me is human admixtures. It does no one 
 any good to get too much attached to his own point 
 of view." 
 
 "But surely," said Rose, "there are some mar- 
 riages which are obviously bad for all concerned 
 real incompatibilities ? People who can't under- 
 stand each other or their children-^children who 
 can't understand their parents ? It always seems 
 to me rather horrible that people should be shut 
 up together like rats in a cage."
 
 92 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 "I expect we shall have legislation before long," 
 said Father Payne, " for breaking up homes where 
 some definite evil like drunkenness is at work 
 but I don't want industrial schools for children ; 
 that is even more inhuman than a bad home. We 
 want more boarding out, but that's expensive. 
 Someone has to pay, if children are to be planted 
 out, and to pay well. There's no motive of duty 
 so strong for an Englishman as good wages. People 
 are honest about giving fair money's worth. But 
 it is no good talking about these things, because 
 they are all so far ahead of us. The question is 
 whether anyone can suggest any practical means 
 of filing away any of the roughnesses of marriage. 
 I do not believe that the problem is very serious 
 among workers. It is the marriage of idle people 
 that is apt to be disastrous." 
 
 "The thing that damages many marriages," said 
 Rose, "is the fact that people have got to see so 
 much of each other. What people really want is 
 a holiday from each other." 
 
 "Yes, but that is impossible financially," said 
 Father Payne. "Apart from love and children, 
 marriage is a small joint-stock company for cheap 
 comfort. But it is of no use to go vapouring on 
 about these big schemes, because in a democracy 
 people won't do what philosophers wish, but what 
 they want. Let's take a notorious case, known to 
 everyone. Can anyone say what practical advice 
 he could have given to either Carlyle or to Mrs. 
 Carlyle, which would have improved that witches' 
 cauldron ? There were two high-principled Puri- 
 tanical people, which is the same thing as saying 
 that they both were disposed to consider that any-
 
 OF MARRIAGE 93 
 
 one who disagreed with them did so for a bad motive, 
 and exalted their own whims and prejudices into 
 moral principles ; both of them irritable and 
 sensitive, both able to give instantaneous and 
 elaborate expression to their vaguest thoughts, 
 Carlyle himself with eloquence which he wielded 
 like a bludgeon, and Mrs. Carlyle with incisiveness 
 which she used like a sharp knife Carlyle with 
 too much to do, and Mrs. Carlyle with less than 
 nothing to do each passionately attached to the 
 other as soon as they were separated, and both 
 capable of saying the sweetest and most affectionate 
 things by letter, which they could not for the life 
 of them utter in talk. They did, as a matter of 
 fact, spend an immense amount of time apart ; 
 and when they were together, Carlyle, having been 
 trained as a peasant and one of a large family, 
 roughly neglected Mrs. Carlyle, while Mrs. Carlyle, 
 with a middle-class training, and moreover indulged 
 as an only daughter, was too proud to complain, 
 but not proud enough not to resent the neglect 
 deeply. What could have been done for them ? 
 Were they impossible people to live with ? W^as it 
 true, as Tennyson bluntly said, that it was as well 
 that they married, because two people were un- 
 happy instead of four ? " 
 
 "They wanted a child as a go-between ! " said 
 Barthrop. 
 
 "Of course they did!" said Father Payne. 
 " That would have pulled the whole menage to- 
 gether. And don't tell me that it was a wise 
 dispensation that they were childless ! Cleansing 
 fires ? The fires in which they lived, with Carlyle 
 raging about porridge and milk and crowing cocks,
 
 94 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 working alone, walking alone, flying off to see Lady 
 Ashburton, sleeping alone ; and Mrs. Carlyle, whom 
 everyone else admired and adored, eating her heart 
 out because she could not get him to value her 
 company ; there was not much that was cleansing 
 about all that ! The cleansing came when she was 
 dead, and when he saw what he had done." 
 
 "I expect they have made it up by now," said 
 Kaye. 
 
 " You're quite right ! " said Father Payne. " It 
 matters less with those great vivid people. They 
 can afford to remember. But the little people, 
 who simply end further back than they began, 
 what is to be done for them ? " 
 
 XVII 
 
 OF LOVING GOD 
 
 FATHER PAYNE suddenly said to me once in a loud 
 voice, after a long silence we were walking to- 
 gether "Writers, preachers, moralists, sentimen- 
 talists, are much to blame for not explaining more 
 what they mean by loving God perhaps they do 
 not know ! Love is so large a word, and covers so 
 great a range of feelings. What sort of love are we 
 to give God the love of the lover, or the son, or 
 the daughter, or the friend, or the patriot, or the 
 dog ? Is it to be passion, or admiration, or rever- 
 ence, or fidelity, or pity ? All of these enter into 
 love." 
 
 " What do you think yourself ? " I said. 
 
 "How am I to tell? " said Father Payne. "I
 
 OF LOVING GOD 95 
 
 am in many minds about it it cannot be passion, 
 because, whatever one may say, something of 
 physical satisfaction is mingled with that. It 
 cannot be a dumb fidelity that is irrational. It 
 cannot be an equal friendship, because there is no 
 equality possible. It cannot be that of the child 
 for the mother, because the mind is hardly concerned 
 in that. Can one indeed love the Unknown ? 
 Again, it cannot be all receiving and no giving. We 
 must have something to give God which He desires 
 to have and which we can withhold. To say that 
 the answer is, 'My son, give Me thy heart,' begs 
 the question, because the one thing certain about 
 love is that we cannot give it to whom we will it 
 must be evoked ; and even if it is wanted, we cannot 
 always give it. We may respect and reverence a 
 person very much, but, as Charlotte Bronte said, 
 ' our veins may run ice whenever we are near him.' 
 
 " And then, too, can we love any one who knows 
 us perfectly, through and through ? Is it not of 
 the essence of love to be blind ? Is it possible for 
 us to feel that we are worthy of the love of anyone 
 who really knows us ? 
 
 " And then, too, if disaster and suffering and cruel 
 usage and terror come from God, without reference 
 to the sensitiveness of the soul and body on which 
 they fall, can we possibly love the Power which 
 behaves so ? What child could love a father who 
 might at any time strike him ? I cannot believe 
 that God wants an unquestioning and fatuous trust, 
 and still less the sort of deference we pay to one 
 who may do us a mischief if we do not cringe before 
 him. All that is utterly unworthy of the mind and 
 soul."
 
 96 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 "Is it not possible to believe," I said, "that all 
 experience may be good for us, however harsh it 
 seems ? " 
 
 "No rational man can think that," said Father 
 Payne. "Suffering is not good for people if it is 
 severe and protracted. I have seen many natures 
 go utterly to pieces under it." 
 
 " What do you believe, then ? " I said. 
 
 "Of course the only obvious explanation," said 
 Father Payne, "is that suffering, misery, evil, 
 disaster, disease do not come from God at all ; 
 that He is the giver of health and joy and light and 
 happiness ; that He gives us all He can, and spares 
 us all He can ; but that there is a great enemy in 
 the world, whom He cannot instantly conquer ; 
 that He is doing all He can to shield us, and to 
 repair the harm that befalls us that we can make 
 common cause with Him, and pity Him for His 
 thwarted plans, His endless disappointments, His 
 innumerable failures, His grievous sufferings. It 
 would be easy to love God if He were like that 
 yet who dares to say it or to teach it ? It is the 
 dreadful doctrine of His Omnipotence that ruins 
 everything. I cannot hold any communication 
 with Omnipotence it is a consuming fire ; but if 
 I could know that God was strong and patient and 
 diligent, but not all-powerful or all-knowing, then I 
 could commune with Him. If, when some evil 
 mishap overtakes me, I could say to Him, ' Come, 
 help me, console me, show me how to mend this, 
 give me all the comfort you can,' then I could turn 
 to Him in love and trust, so long as I could feel 
 that He did not wish the disaster to happen to me 
 but could not ward it off, and was as miserable as
 
 OF LOVING GOD 97 
 
 myself that it had happened. Not so miserable, of 
 course, because He has waited so long, suffered so 
 much, and can discern so bright and distant a 
 hope. Then, too, I might feel that death was 
 perhaps our escape from many kinds of evil, and 
 that I should be clasped to His heart for awhile, 
 even though He sent me out again to fight His 
 battles. That would evoke all my love and energy 
 and courage, because I could feel that I could give 
 Him my help ; but if He is Almighty, and could 
 have avoided all the sorrow and pain, then I am 
 simply bewildered and frightened, because I can 
 predicate nothing about Him." 
 
 "Is not that the idea which Christianity aims 
 at ? " I said. 
 
 " Yes," he said ; " the suffering Saviour, who can 
 resist evil and amend it, but cannot instantly subdue 
 it ; but, even so, it seems to set up two Gods for 
 one. The mind cannot really identify the Saviour 
 with the Almighty Designer of the Universe. But 
 the thought of the Saviour does interpret the sense 
 of God's failure and suffering, does bring it all 
 nearer to the heart. But if there is Omnipotence 
 behind, it all falls to the ground again at least it 
 does for me. I cannot pray to Omnipotence and 
 Omniscience, because it is useless to do so. The 
 limited and the unlimited cannot join hands. I 
 must, if I am to believe in God, believe in Him as 
 a warrior arriving on a scene of disorder, and try- 
 ing to make all well. He must not have permitted 
 the disorder to grow up, and then try to subdue 
 it. It must be there first. It is a battle obviously 
 but it must be a real battle against a real foe, not 
 a sham fight between hosts created by God. In 
 
 G
 
 98 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 that case, ' to think of oneself as an instrument of 
 God's designs is a privilege one shares with the 
 devil,' as someone said. I will not believe that He 
 is so little in earnest as that. No, He is the great 
 invader, who desires to turn darkness to light, rage 
 to peace, misery to happiness. Then, and only 
 then, can I enlist under His banner, fight for Him, 
 honour Him, worship Him, compassionate Him, and 
 even love Him ; but if He is in any way responsible 
 for evil, by design or by neglect, then I am lost 
 indeed ! " 
 
 XVIII 
 
 OF FRIENDSHIP 
 
 " HE is the sort of man who is always losing his 
 friends," said Pollard at dinner to Father Payne, 
 describing someone, "and I always think that's a 
 bad sign." 
 
 "And I, on the contrary," said Father Payne, 
 " think that a man who always keeps his friends 
 is almost always an ass ! " He opened his mouth 
 and drew in his breath. 
 
 " Or else it means," said Barthrop, " that he has 
 never really made any friends at all ! " 
 
 " Quite right," said Father Payne. " People talk 
 about friendship as if it was a perfectly normal 
 thing, like eating and drinking it's not that ! 
 It's a difficult thing, and it is a rare thing. I do 
 not mean mere proximities and easy comradeships 
 and muddled alliances ; there are plenty of frank 
 and pleasant companionships about of a solid kind. 
 Still less do I mean the sort of thing which is con-
 
 OF FRIENDSHIP 99 
 
 tained in such an expression as ' Dear old boy ! ' 
 which is always a half-contemptuous phrase." 
 
 "But isn't loyalty a fine quality?" said Le- 
 strange. 
 
 "Loyalty!" said Father Payne. "Of course 
 you must play fair, and be ready to stick by a man, 
 and do him a kindness, and help him up if he has 
 a fall ; but that is not friendship at least it isn't 
 what I mean by friendship. Friendship is a sort 
 of passion, without anything sexual or reproductive 
 about it. There is a physical basis about it, of 
 course. I mean there are certain quite admirable, 
 straightforward, pleasant people, whom you may 
 meet and like, and yet with whom you could never 
 be friends, though they may be quite capable of 
 friendship, and have friends of their own. A man's 
 presence and his views and emotions must be in 
 some sort of tune with your own. There are cer- 
 tain people, not in the least repellent, genial, 
 kindly, handsome, excellent in every way, with 
 whom you simply are not comfortable. On the 
 other hand, there are people of no great obvious 
 attractiveness with whom you feel instantaneously 
 at ease. There is something mysterious about it, 
 some currents that don't mix, and some that do. 
 A thousand years hence we shall probably know 
 something about it we don't now." 
 
 "I feel that very strongly about books," said 
 Kaye. " There are certain authors, who have skill, 
 charm, fancy, invention, style all the things you 
 value who yet leave you absolutely cold. They 
 have every qualification for pleasing except the power 
 to please. It is simply a case of Dr. Fell ! You can't 
 give a single valid reason why you don't like them."
 
 ioo FATHER PAYNE 
 
 " Yes, indeed," said Father Payne. " And then, 
 again, there are authors whom you like at a certain 
 age and under certain circumstances, and who end 
 by boring you ; and again, authors whom you don't 
 like when you are young, and like better when you 
 are old. Does your idea of loyalty apply also to 
 books, Lestrange, or to music ? " 
 
 " No," said Lestrange, " to be frank, it does not ; 
 but I think that is different a lot of technical 
 things come in, and then one's taste alters." 
 
 "And that is just the same with people," said 
 Father Payne. " Why, what does loyalty mean in 
 such a connection ? You have admired a book or 
 a piece of music ; you cease to admire it. Are 
 you to go on saying you admire it, or to pretend to 
 yourself that you admire it ? Of course not that 
 is simply hypocrisy there is nothing real about 
 that."' 
 
 " But what are you to do," said Vincent, " about 
 people ? You can't treat them like books or music. 
 You need not go on reading a book which you have 
 ceased to admire. But what if you have made a 
 friend, and then ceased to care for him, and he 
 goes on caring for you ? Are you to throw him 
 over ? " 
 
 "I admit that there is a difficulty," said Father 
 Payne ; "I agree that you must not disappoint 
 people ; but it is also somehow your duty to get 
 out of a relation that is no longer a real one. It 
 can't be wholesome to simulate emotions for the 
 sake of loyalty. It must all depend upon which 
 you think the finer thing the emotion or the tie. 
 Personally, I think the emotion is the more sacred 
 of the two."
 
 OF FRIENDSHIP 101 
 
 " But does it not mean that you have made a 
 mistake somehow," said Vincent, "if you have 
 made a friend, and then cease to care about him ? " 
 
 " Not a bit," said Father Payne. " Why, people 
 change very much, and some people change faster 
 than others. A man may be exactly what you 
 want at a certain time of life ; he may be ahead of 
 you in ideas, in qualities, in emotions ; and what 
 starts a friendship is the perception of something 
 fine and desirable in another, which you admire 
 and want to imitate. But then you may outstrip 
 your friend. Take the case of an artist. He may 
 have an admiration for another artist, and gain 
 much from him ; but then he may go right ahead 
 of him. He can't go on admiring and deferring 
 out of mere loyalty." 
 
 " But must there not be in every real friendship 
 a purpose of continuance?" said Vincent. "It 
 surely is a very selfish sort of business, if you say 
 to yourself, ' I will make friends with this man 
 because I admire him now, but when I have got 
 all I can out of him, I will discard him.' ' 
 
 " Of course, you must not think in that cold- 
 blooded way," said Father Payne, " but it can never 
 be more than a hope of continuance. You may 
 hope to find a friendship a continuous and far- 
 reaching thing. It may be quite right to get to 
 know a man, believing him to have fine qualities ; 
 but you can't pledge yourself to admire whatever 
 you find in him. We have to try experiments in 
 friendship as in everything else. It is purely senti- 
 mental to say, ' I am going to believe in this man 
 blindfold, whatever I find him to be.' That's a 
 rash vow ! You must not take rash vows ; and if
 
 102 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 you do, you must be prepared to break them. 
 Besides, you can't depend upon your friend not 
 altering. He may lose some of the very things you 
 most admire. The mistake is to believe that any- 
 thing can be consistent or permanent." 
 
 "But if you don't believe that," said Lestrange, 
 " are you justified in entering upon intimate rela- 
 tions at all ? " 
 
 " Of course you are," said Father Payne ; " you 
 can't live life on prudent lines. You can't say, ' I 
 won't engage in life, or take a hand in it, or believe 
 in it, or love it, till I know more about it.' You 
 can't foresee all contingencies and risks. You must 
 take risks." 
 
 " I expect," said Barthrop, " that we are meaning 
 different things by friendship. Let us define our 
 terms. What do you mean by friendship, Father ? " 
 
 "Well," said Father Payne, "I will tell you if 
 I can. I mean a consciousness, which generally 
 comes rather suddenly, of the charm of a particular 
 person. You have a sudden curiosity about him. 
 You want to know what his ideas, motives, views 
 of life are. It is not by any means always that 
 you think he feels about things as you do yourself. 
 It is often the difference in him which attracts you. 
 But you like his manner, his demeanour, his hand- 
 ling of life. W 7 hat he says, his looks, his gestures, 
 his personality, affect 'you in a curious way. And 
 at the same time you seem to discern a correspond- 
 ing curiosity in him about yourself. It is a pleasur- 
 able surprise both to discover that he agrees with 
 you, and also that he disagrees with you. There 
 is a beauty, a mystery, about it all. Generally 
 you think it rather surprising that he should find
 
 OF FRIENDSHIP 103 
 
 you interesting. You wish to please him and to 
 satisfy his expectations. That is the dangerous 
 part of friendship, that two people in this condition 
 make efforts, sacrifices, suppressions, in order to be 
 liked. Even if you disagree, you both give hints 
 that you are prepared to be converted. There is 
 a sudden increase of richness in life, the sense of a 
 moving current whose impulse you feel. You meet, 
 you talk, you find a freshness of feeling, light cast 
 upon dark things, a new range of ideas vividly 
 present." 
 
 "But isn't all that rather intellectual?" said 
 Vincent, who had been growing restive. " The 
 thing can surely be much simpler than that ? " 
 
 "Yes, of course it can," said Father Payne, 
 " among simple people but we are all complicated 
 people here." 
 
 "Yes," said Vincent, "we are! But isn't it 
 possible for an intellectual man to feel a real friend- 
 ship for a quite unintellectual man not a desire 
 to discuss everything with him, but a simple ad- 
 miration for fine frank qualities ? " 
 
 "Oh yes," said Father Payne, "there can be all 
 sorts of alliances ; but I am not speaking of them. 
 I am speaking of a sort of mutual understanding. 
 In friendship, as I understand it, the two must not 
 speak different languages. They must be able to 
 put their minds fairly together there can be a 
 kind of man-and-dog friendship, of course, but that 
 is more a sort of love and trust. Now in friendship 
 people must be mutually intelligible. It need not 
 be equality it is very often far removed from that ; 
 but there must not be any condescension. There 
 must be a desire for equality, at all events. Each
 
 104 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 must lament anything, whether it is superiority or 
 inferiority, which keeps the two apart. It must be 
 a desire for unity above everything. There must 
 not be the smallest shadow of contempt on either 
 side it must be a frank proffer of the best you have 
 to give, and a knowledge that the other can give 
 you something sympathy, support, help which 
 you cannot do without. What breaks friendship, 
 in my experience, is the loss of that sense of equality ; 
 and the moment that friends become critical in 
 the sense, I mean, that they want to alter or improve 
 each other I think a friendship is in danger. If 
 you have a friend, you must be indulgent to his 
 faults like him, not in spite of them, but almost 
 because of them, I think." 
 
 "That's very difficult," said Vincent. "Mayn't 
 you want a friend to improve ? If he has some 
 patent and obvious fault, I mean ? " 
 
 " You mustn't want to improve him," said Father 
 Payne, smiling ; "that's not your business unless 
 he wants you to help him to improve ; and even 
 then you have to be very delicate-handed. It must 
 hurt you to have to wish him different." 
 
 "But isn't that what you call sentimental?" 
 said Vincent. 
 
 "No," said Father Payne, "it is sentiment to 
 try to pretend to yourself and others that the fault 
 isn't there. But I am speaking of a tie which you 
 can't risk breaking for anything so trivial as a fault. 
 The moment that the fault stands out, naked and 
 unpleasant, then you may know that the friendship 
 is over. There must be a glamour even about your 
 friend's faults. You must love them, as you love 
 the dints and cracks in an old building."
 
 OF PHYLLIS 105 
 
 " That seems to me weak," said Vincent. 
 
 " You will find that it is true," said Father Payne. 
 " We can't afford to sit in judgment on each other. 
 We must simply try to help each other along. We 
 must not say, ' You ought not to be tired.' ' 
 
 " But surely we may pity people ? " said Le- 
 strange. 
 
 "Not your friends," said Father Payne. "Pity 
 is fatal to friendship. There is always something 
 complacent in pity it means conscious strength. 
 You can't both pity and admire. You can't sepa- 
 rate people up into qualities they all come out of 
 the depth of a man ; I am quite sure of this, that 
 the moment you begin to differentiate a friend's 
 qualities, that moment what I call friendship is 
 over. It must simply be a case of you and me 
 not my weakness and your virtue, and still less 
 your weakness and my virtue. And you must 
 be content to lose friends and to be discarded by 
 friends. What is sentimental is to believe that it 
 can be otherwise." 
 
 XIX 
 
 OF PHYLLIS 
 
 IT was in the course of July, the month given to 
 hospitality. Father Payne used to have guests of 
 various kinds, quite unaccountable people, some of 
 them, with whom he seemed to be on the easiest 
 of terms, but whom he never mentioned at any other 
 time. " It is a time when I have old friends to stay 
 with me," he once said, "and I decline to define
 
 106 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 the term. There are reasons you must assume 
 that there are reasons which may not be apparent, 
 for the tie. They are not all selected for intel- 
 lectual or artistic brilliance they are the symbols 
 of undesigned friendships, which existed before I 
 exercised the faculty of choice. They are there, 
 uncriticised, unexplained, these friends of mine. 
 The modest man, you will remember, finds his 
 circle ready-made. I am attached to them, and 
 they to me. They understand no language, some 
 of them, as you will see, except the language of 
 the heart ; but you will help me, I know, to make 
 them feel at home and happy." 
 
 They certainly were odd people, several of them 
 dumb, good-natured, elderly men with no ostensible 
 purpose in the world ; elderly ladies, who called 
 Father Payne " dear " ; some simple and homely 
 married couples, who seemed to be living in another 
 century. But Father Payne welcomed them, chat- 
 tered with them, jested with them, took them drives 
 and walks, and seemed well-contented with their 
 company, though I confess that I generally felt as 
 though I were staying in a seaside boarding-house 
 on such occasions. We used to speculate as to 
 who they were, and how Father Payne had made 
 their acquaintance : we gathered that they were 
 mostly the friends and acquaintances of his youth, 
 or people into whose company he had drifted when 
 he lived in London. Sometimes, before a new 
 arrival, he would touch off his or her character 
 and circumstances in a few words. On one occa- 
 sion he said after breakfast to Barthrop and me : 
 " Arrivals to-day, Mr. and Mrs. Wetherall the 
 man a retired coal-merchant, rather wealthy, in-
 
 OF PHYLLIS 107 
 
 terested in foreign missions ; the woman inert ; 
 daughter prevented from coming, and they bring 
 a niece, Phyllis by name, understood to be charm- 
 ing. I undertake the sole charge of Wetherall 
 himself, Mrs. Wetherall requires no specific atten- 
 tions placid woman, writes innumerable letters 
 Miss Phyllis an unknown quantity." 
 
 The Wetheralls duly appeared, and proved very 
 simple people. Father Payne, to our surprise, 
 seemed to be soaked in mission literature, and drew 
 out Mr. Wetherall with patient skill. But Miss 
 Phyllis was a perfectly delightful girl, very simple 
 and straightforward, extremely pretty in a boyish 
 fashion, and quite used to the ways of the world. 
 We would willingly have entertained her, and did 
 our best ; but she made fast friends with Father 
 Payne, with the utmost promptitude, and the two 
 were for ever strolling about or sitting out together. 
 The talk at meals was of a sedate character, but 
 Miss Phyllis used to intercept Father Payne's 
 humorous remarks with a delighted little smile, 
 and Father Payne would shake his head gravely at 
 her in return. Miss Phyllis said to me one morning, 
 as we were sitting in the garden : " You seem to 
 have a very good time here, all of you it feels like 
 something in a book it is too good to be true ! " 
 
 "Ah," I said, "but this is a holiday, of course ! 
 We work very hard in term-time, and we are very 
 serious." Miss Phyllis looked at me with her blue 
 eyes in silence for a moment, with an ironical little 
 curve of her lips, and said : "I don't believe a 
 word of it ! I believe it is just a little Paradise, 
 and I suspect it of being rather a selfish Paradise. 
 W T hy do you shut everyone out ? "
 
 io8 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 "Oh, it is a case of 'business first'!" I said. 
 "Father Payne keeps us all in very good order." 
 "Yes," said Phyllis, "I expect he can do that. 
 But do any of you men realise what an abso- 
 lutely enchanting person he is ? I have never seen 
 anyone in the least like him ! He understands 
 everything, and sees everything, and cares for 
 everything he is so big and kind and clever. 
 Why, isn't he something tremendous?" "He 
 is," I said. " Oh yes, but you know what I 
 mean," said Miss Phyllis ; "he's a great man, and 
 he ought to have the reins in his hand. He 
 ought not to potter about here ! " 
 
 "Well," I said, "I have wondered about that 
 myself. But he knows his own mind he's a very 
 happy man ! " Miss Phyllis pondered silently, and 
 said: "I don't think you realise your blessings. 
 Father Payne is like the boy in the story the man 
 born to be king, you know. He ought not to be 
 wasted like this ! He ought to be ruler over ten 
 cities. Dear me, I don't often wish I were a man, 
 but I would give anything to be one of you. Won't 
 you tell me something more about him ? " 
 
 I did my best, and Phyllis listened absorbed, 
 dangling a shapely little foot over her knee, and 
 playing with a flower. "Yes," she said at last, 
 " that is what I thought ! I see you do appreciate 
 him after all. I won't make that mistake again." 
 And she gave me a fine smile. I liked the company 
 of this radiant creature, but at this moment Father 
 Payne appeared at the other end of the garden. 
 "Don't think me rude," said Miss Phyllis, "but 
 I am going to talk to Father Payne. It's my last 
 day, and I must get all I can out of him." She
 
 OF PHYLLIS 109 
 
 fled, and presently they went off together for a 
 stroll, a charming picture. She carried him off 
 likewise after dinner, and they sate long in the dusk. 
 I could hear Father Payne's emphatic tones and 
 Phyllis's refreshing laughter. 
 
 The next morning the Wetheralls went off. 
 Barthrop and I, with Father Payne, saw them go. 
 The Wetheralls were serenely enjoying the prospect 
 of returning home after a successful visit, but Miss 
 Phyllis looked mournful, and as if she were strug- 
 gling with concealed emotions. She kissed her 
 hand to Father Payne as the carriage drove away. 
 
 " Very worthy people ! " said Father Payne cheer- 
 fully, as the carriage passed out of sight. " I am 
 very glad to have seen them, and no less thankful 
 that they are gone." 
 
 "But the charming Phyllis?" said Barthrop. 
 " Is that all you have to say about her ? I never 
 saw a more delightful girl ! " 
 
 "She is quite delightful," said Father Payne. 
 " Phyllis is my only joy ! The sight of her and 
 the sound of her make me feel as if I had been 
 reading an Elizabethan song-book 'Sing hey, 
 nonny nonny ! ' But why didn't one of you 
 fellows make up to her ? that's a girl worth the 
 winning ! " 
 
 "Why didn't we make up to her ? " I said in- 
 dignantly. " I wonder you have the face to ask, 
 Father ! Why, she was simply taken up with you, 
 and she hadn't a word or a look for anyone else. 
 I never saw such a case of love at first sight ! " 
 
 " She gave me a flower this morning," said Father 
 Payne meditatively, "and I believe I kissed her 
 hand. It was like a scene in one of my novels.
 
 no FATHER PAYNE 
 
 It wasn't my fault the woman tempted me, of 
 course ! But I think she is a charming creature, 
 and as clever as she is pretty. I could have made 
 love to her with the best will in the world ! But 
 that wouldn't do, and I just made friends with her. 
 She wants an older friend, I think. She has ideas, 
 the pretty Phyllis, and she doesn't strike out sparks 
 from the Wetheralls much." 
 
 Barthrop went off, smiling to himself, and I 
 strolled about with Father Payne. 
 
 " You really could hardly do better than be 
 Phyllis 's faithful shepherd," he said to me, smiling. 
 "She's a fine creature, you know, full of fire and 
 vitality, and eager for life. She must marry a nice 
 man and have nice children. We want more people 
 like Phyllis. You consider it, old man ! I would 
 like to see you happily married." 
 
 "Why, Father," I said boldly, "if you feel like 
 that, why don't you put in for her yourself ? 
 Phyllis is in love with you ! You may not know 
 it she may not know it but I know it. She could 
 talk of nothing else." 
 
 " Get thee behind me, Satan ! " said Father Payne 
 very emphatically. " Don't say such things to 
 me ! The pretty Phyllis wants a father confessor 
 that's all I can do for her." 
 
 " I don't think that is so, Father," I said. " She 
 would be prepared for something much closer than 
 that, if you held out your hand." 
 
 Father Payne smiled benignantly at me. " Yes, 
 I know what you mean, old man," he said, " and I 
 daresay it is true ! But I mustn't allow myself to 
 think of such things at my age. It wouldn't do. 
 I'm old enough to be her father and she has just
 
 OF PHYLLIS in 
 
 had a pretty fancy, that's all. It's rather a romantic 
 setting, this place, you know ; and she is hungering 
 and thirsting for all sorts of ideas and beautiful 
 adventures ; and she finds a good-humoured old 
 bird like myself, who can give her something of 
 what she wants. She is fitful and impetuous, and 
 she wants something strong and fatherly to lean 
 upon and to worship, perhaps. Bless you, I see 
 it all clearly enough ! But put the clock on for a 
 few years : the charming Phyllis is made for better 
 things than tying my muffler and walking beside 
 my bath-chair. No, she must have a run for her 
 money. And what's more, I'm not sure that I 
 want the sole charge of that sweet nymph she 
 would want a lot of response and sympathy and 
 understanding. It's altogether too big a job for 
 me, and I don't feel the call. What do I want, 
 then, with the pretty child ? Why, I like to be 
 with her, and to see her, and to hear her talk and 
 laugh. I want to help her along if I can she is 
 a high-spirited creature, and will take things .hardly. 
 But I cannot be romantic, and take advantage of 
 a romantic child. Mind you, I think that these 
 friendships between men and women are good for 
 both, if they aren't complicated by love : the worst 
 of it is that passion is a tindery thing, and lights 
 up suddenly when people least expect it. But I'm 
 too old for all that ; and one of the pleasures of 
 growing old is that one can see a beautiful creature 
 like Phyllis high-spirited, vivid, full of grace and 
 delight without wanting to claim her for one's 
 own or take her away into a corner. I 'm just glad 
 to be with her, glad to think she is in the world, 
 glad to think she comes direct from the Divine hand.
 
 H2 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 It moves me tremendously, that flashing and 
 brightening charm of hers but I see and feel it, 
 I think, as something beyond and outside of her, 
 which comes as a message to me. She's a darling ! 
 But I am not going to interfere with her or compli- 
 cate her life. She must find a fit mate, and I am 
 going to let her feel that she can depend on me for 
 any service I can do for her. I don't mind saying, 
 old man," added Father Payne, in a different tone, 
 "that there isn't a touch of temptation about it 
 all. I yield in imagination to it quite frankly I 
 think how jolly it would be to have a creature like 
 that living in this old house, telling me all she 
 thought about, making a home beautiful. I could 
 make a very fair lover if I tried ! But I have got 
 myself well in hand, and I know better. It isn't 
 what she wants, and it isn't really what I want. 
 I have got my work cut out for me ; but I'll give 
 her all I can, and be thankful if she gives me a bit 
 of her heart ; and I shall love to think of her going 
 about the world, and reminding everyone she meets 
 of the best and purest sort of beauty. I love Phyllis 
 with all my old heart is that enough for you ? 
 and a great deal too well to confiscate her, as I 
 should certainly have tried to do twenty years 
 ago." 
 
 Father Payne stopped, and looked at me with one 
 of his great clear smiles. 
 
 "Well, I must say," I began 
 
 "No, you mustn't," said Father Payne. "1 
 know all the excellent arguments you would ad- 
 vance. Why shouldn't two people be happy and 
 not look ahead, and all that ? I do look ahead, 
 and I'm going to make her happy if I can. Shall
 
 OF CERTAINTY 113 
 
 I use my influence in your favour, my boy ? How 
 does that strike you ? " 
 
 I laughed and reddened. Father Payne put his 
 arm in mine, and said : " Now, I have turned my 
 heart out for your inspection, and you can' t con- 
 vert me. Let the pretty child go her way ! I only 
 wish she was likely to get more fun out of the 
 Wetheralls. Such excellent people too : but a lack 
 of inspiration not propelled from quite the central 
 fount of beauty, I fancy ! But it will do Phyllis 
 good to make the best of them, and I fancy she is 
 trying pretty hard. Dear me, I wish she were my 
 niece ! But I couldn't have her here we should 
 all be at daggers drawn in a fortnight : that's the 
 puzzling thing about these beautiful people, that 
 they light up such conflagrations, and make such 
 havoc of divine philosophy, old boy ! " 
 
 XX 
 
 OF CERTAINTY 
 
 WE were returning from a walk, Father Payne and 
 I ; as we passed the churchyard, he said : " Do 
 you remember that story of Lamennais at La 
 Chenaie ? He was sitting behind the chapel under 
 two Scotch firs which grew there, with some of his 
 young disciples. He took his stick, and marked 
 out a grave on the turf, and said : ' It is there 1 
 would wish to be buried, but no tombstone ! Only 
 a simple mound of grass. Oh, how well I shall 
 be there ! ' That is what I call sentiment. If 
 Lamennais really thought he would be confined in 
 
 H
 
 H4 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 spirit to such a place, he would not tolerate it 
 least of all a combative fellow like Lamennais it 
 would be a perpetual solitary confinement. Such a 
 cry is merely a theatrical way of saying that he felt 
 tired. Yet it is such sayings which impress people, 
 because men love rhetoric." 
 
 Presently he went on : " It is strange that what 
 one fears in death is the vagueness and the solitude 
 of it we are afraid of finding ourselves lost in the 
 night. It would be agitating, but not frightful, if 
 we were sure of finding company ; and if we were 
 s^^re of meeting those whom we had loved and lost, 
 death would not frighten us at all. Dying is simple 
 enough, and indeed easy, for most of us. But I 
 expect that something very precise and definite 
 happens to us, the moment we die. It is probable, 
 I think, that we shall set about building up a new 
 body to inhabit at once, as a snail builds its shell. 
 We are very definite creatures, all of us, with 
 clearly apportioned tastes and energies, preferences 
 and dislikes. The only puzzling thing is that we 
 do not all of us seem to have the bodies which suit 
 us here on earth : fiery spirits should have large 
 phlegmatic bodies, and they too often have weak 
 and inadequate bodies. Beautiful spirits cannot 
 always make their bodies beautiful, and evil people 
 have often very lovely shapes and faces. I confess 
 I find all that very mysterious ; heredity is quite 
 beyond me. If it were merely confined to the body 
 and even the mind, I should not wonder at it, but 
 it seems to affect the soul as well. Who can feel 
 free in will, if that is the case ? And now, too, they 
 say with some certainty that it seems as though all 
 their own qualities need not be transmitted by
 
 OF CERTAINTY 115 
 
 parents, but that no quality can be transmitted 
 which is not present in the parents that we can 
 lose qualities, that is, but not gain them. If that 
 is true, then all our qualities were present in primi- 
 tive forms of life, and we are not really developing, 
 we are only specialising. All this hurts one to 
 think of, because it ties us hand and foot." 
 
 Presently he went on : " How ludicrous, after 
 all, to make up our mind about things as most of 
 us do ! I believe that the desire for certainty is 
 one of the worst temptations of the devil. It 
 means closing our eyes and minds and hearts to 
 experience ; and yet it seems the only way to 
 accomplish anything. I trust," he said, turning 
 to me with a look of concern, "that you do not 
 feel that you are being formed or moulded here, by 
 me or by any of the others ? " 
 
 "No," I said, "certainly not! I feel, indeed, 
 since I came here, that I have got a wider horizon 
 of ideas, and I hope I am a little more tolerant. I 
 have certainly learnt from you not to despise ideas 
 or experiences at first sight, but to look into them." 
 
 He seemed pleased at this, and said : " Yes, to 
 look into them we must do that ! When we see 
 anyone acting in a way that we admire, or even 
 in a way which we dislike, we must try to see why 
 he acts so, what makes him what he is. We must 
 not despise any indications. On the whole, I think 
 that people behave well when they are happy, and 
 ill when they are afraid. All violence and spite 
 come when we are afraid of being left out ; and we 
 are happy when we are using all our powers. Don't 
 be too prudent ! Don't ever be afraid of uproot- 
 ing yourself," he added with great emphasis. "Try
 
 n6 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 experiments in life, in work, in companionship. 
 Have an open mind ! That is why we should be 
 so careful what we pray for, because in my experi- 
 ence prayers are generally granted, and often with 
 a fine irony. The grand irony of God ! It is one 
 of the things that most reassures me about Him, 
 to find that He can be ironical and indulgent ; 
 because our best chance of discovering the nature 
 of things is that we should be given what we wish, 
 just in order to find out that it was not what we 
 wished at all ! " 
 
 " But," I said, " if you are for ever experimenting, 
 always moving on, always changing your mind, 
 don't you run the risk of never mixing with life at 
 all ? " 
 
 " Oh, life will take care of that ! " said Father 
 Payne, smiling. "The time will come when you 
 will know where to post your battery, and what to 
 fire at. But don't try to make up your mind too 
 early don't try to fortify yourself against doubts 
 and anxieties. That is the danger of all sensitive 
 people. You can't attain to proved certainties in 
 this life at least, you can't at present. I don't 
 say that there are not certainties indeed, I think 
 that it is all certainty, and that we mustn't confuse 
 the unknown with the unknowable. As you go on, 
 if you are fair-minded and sympathetic, you will 
 get intuitions : you will discover gradually exactly 
 what you are worth, and what you can do, and 
 how you can do it best. But don't expect to know 
 that too soon. And don't yield to the awful 
 temptation of saying, ' So many good, fine, reason- 
 able people seem certain of this and that ; I had 
 better assume it to be true.' It isn't better, it is
 
 OF BEAUTY 117 
 
 only more comfortable. A great many more people 
 suffer from making up their mind too early and 
 too decisively than suffer from open-mindedness 
 and the power to relate new experience to old ex- 
 perience. No one can write you out a prescription 
 for life. You can't anticipate experience ; and if 
 you do, you will only find that you have to begin 
 all over again." 
 
 XXI 
 
 OF BEAUTY 
 
 FATHER PAYNE had been away on one of his rare 
 journeys. He always maintained that a journey 
 was one of the most enlivening things in the world, 
 if it was not too often indulged in. "It intoxi- 
 cates me," he said, "to see new places, houses, 
 people." 
 
 "Why don't you travel more, then?" said 
 someone. 
 
 "For that very reason," said Father Payne; 
 " because it intoxicates me and I am too old for 
 that sort of self-indulgence ! " 
 
 "It's a dreadful business," he went on, "that 
 northern industrial country. There's a grandeur 
 about it the bare valleys, the steep bleak fields, 
 the dead or dying trees, the huge factories. Those 
 great furnaces, with tall iron cylinders and galleries, 
 and spidery contrivances, and black pipes, and 
 engines swinging vast burdens about, and moving 
 wheels, are fearfully interesting and magnificent. 
 They stand for all sorts of powers and forces ; they 
 frighten me by their strength and fierceness and
 
 n8 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 submissiveness. But the land is awfully barren of 
 beauty, and I doubt if that can be wholesome. It 
 all fascinates me, it increases my pride, but it makes 
 me unhappy too, because it excludes beauty so 
 completely. Those bleak stone-walled fields of 
 dirty grass, the lines of grey houses, are fine in their 
 way but one wants colour and clearness. I longed 
 for a glimpse of elms and water-meadows, and soft- 
 wooded pastoral hills. It produces a shrewd, 
 strong, good-tempered race, but very little genius. 
 There is something harsh about Northerners they 
 haven't enough colour." 
 
 "But you are always saying/' said Rose, "that 
 we must look after form, and chance colour." 
 
 " Yes, but that is because you are in statu pupil- 
 lari," said Father Payne. "If a man begins by 
 searching for colour and ornament and richness, he 
 gets clotted and glutinous. Colour looks after 
 itself but it isn't clearness that I am afraid of , it 
 is shrewdness I think that is, on the whole, a low 
 quality, but it is awfully strong ! What I am 
 afraid of, in bare laborious country like that, is 
 that people should only think of what is comfortable 
 and sensible. Imagination is what really matters. 
 It is not enough to have solid emotions ; one ought 
 not to be too reasonable about emotions. The 
 thing is to care in an unreasonable and rapturous 
 way about beautiful things, and not to know why 
 one cares. That is the point of things which are 
 simply beautiful and nothing else, that you feel 
 it isn't all capable of explanation." 
 
 " But isn't that rather sentimental ? " said Rose. 
 
 "No, no, it's just the opposite," said Father 
 Payne. " Sentiment is when one understands and
 
 OF BEAUTY 119 
 
 exaggerates an emotion ; beauty isn't that it is 
 something mysterious and inexplicable ; it makes 
 you bow the head and worship. Take the sort of 
 thing you may see on the coast of Italy a blue sea, 
 with gray and orange cliffs falling steeply down into 
 deep water ; a gap, with a clustering village, coming 
 down, tier by tier, to the sea's edge ; fantastic 
 castles on spires of rock, thickets and dingles running 
 down among the clefts and out on the ledges, and 
 perhaps a glimpse of pale, fantastic hills behind. 
 No one could make it or design it ; but every line, 
 every blending colour, all combine to give you the 
 sense of something marvellously and joyfully con- 
 trived, and made for the richness and sweetness 
 of it. That is the sort of moment when I feel the 
 overwhelming beauty and nearness of God every- 
 thing done on a vast scale, which floods mind and 
 heart with utter happiness and wonder. Anything 
 so overpoweringly joyful and delicious and useless 
 as all that must come out of a fulness of joy. The 
 sharp cliffs mean some old cutting and slashing, 
 the blistering and burning of the earth ; and yet 
 those old rents have been clothed and mollified by 
 some power that finds it worth while to do it and 
 it isn't done for you or me, either there must be 
 treasures of loveliness going on hidden for centuries 
 in tropic forests. It's done for the sake of doing 
 it ; and we are granted a glimpse of it, just to 
 show us perhaps that we are right to adore it, and 
 to try in our clumsy way to make beautiful things 
 too. That is why I envy the musician, because he 
 creates beauty more directly then any other mind 
 and the best kind of poetry is of the same order." 
 "But isn't there a danger in all this? " said
 
 120 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 Lestrange. " No, I don't want to say anything 
 priggish," he added, seeing a contraction of Father 
 Payne's brows ; " I only want to say what I feel. 
 I recognise the fascination of it as much as anyone 
 can but isn't it, as you said about travelling, a 
 kind of intoxication ? I mean, may it not be right 
 to interpose it, but yet not right to follow it ? 
 Isn't it a selfish thing, and doesn't it do the very 
 thing which you often speak against blind us to 
 other experience, that is ? " 
 
 "Yes, there is something in that," said Father 
 Payne. " Of course that is always the difficulty 
 about the artist, that he appears to live selfishly in 
 joy but it applies to most things. The best you 
 can do for the world is often to turn your back 
 upon it. Philanthropy is a beautiful thing in its 
 way, but it must be done by people who like it 
 it is useless if it is done in a grim and self-penalising 
 way. If a man is really big enough to follow art, 
 he had better follow it. I do not believe very much 
 in the doctrine that service to be useful must be 
 painful. No one doubts that Wordsworth gave 
 more joy to humanity by living his own life than 
 if he had been a country doctor. Of course the sad 
 part of it is when a man follows art and does not 
 succeed in giving pleasure. But you must risk 
 that and a real devotion to a thing gives the best 
 chance of happiness to a man, and is perhaps, 
 too, his best chance of giving something to others. 
 There is no reason to think that Shakespeare was a 
 philanthropist." 
 
 " But does that apply to things like horse-racing 
 or golf ? " said Rose. 
 
 " No, you must not pursue comfort," said Father
 
 OF BEAUTY 121 
 
 Payne ; " but I don't believe in the theory that 
 we have all got to set out to help other people. 
 That implies that a man is aware of valuable things 
 which he has to give away. Make friends if you 
 can, love people if you can, but don't do it with a 
 sense of duty. Do what is natural and beautiful 
 and attractive to do. Make the little circle which 
 surrounds you happy by sympathy and interest. 
 Don't deal in advice. The only advice people take 
 is that with which they agree. And have your 
 own work. I think we are many of us afraid of 
 enjoying work ; but in any case, if we can show 
 other people how to perceive and enjoy beauty, we 
 have done a very great thing. The sense of beauty 
 is growing in the world. Many people are desiring 
 it, and religion doesn't cater for it, nor does duty 
 cater for it. But it is the only way to make pro- 
 gress and religion has got to find out how to include 
 beauty in its programme, or it will be left stranded. 
 Nothing but beauty ever lifted people higher the 
 unsensuous, inexplicable charm, which makes them 
 ashamed of dull, ugly, greedy, quarrelsome ways. 
 It is only by virtue of beauty that the world climbs 
 higher and if the world does climb higher by 
 something which isn't obviously beautiful, it is 
 only that we do not recognise it as beautiful. Sin 
 and evil are signals from the unknown, of course ; 
 but they are danger signals, and we follow them with 
 terror but beauty is a signal too, and it is the 
 signal made by peace and happiness and joy."
 
 122 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 XXII 
 
 OF WAR 
 
 THE talk one evening turned on War ; Lestrange 
 said that he believed it was good for a nation to 
 have a war : "It unites them with the sense of a 
 common purpose, it evokes self-sacrifice, it makes 
 them turn to God. ' ' 
 
 "Yes, yes," said Father Payne, rather im- 
 patiently. " But you can't personify a nation like 
 that ; that personification of societies and classes 
 and sections of the human race does no end of 
 harm. It is all a matter of statistics, not of generali- 
 sation. Take your three statements. ' It is good 
 for a nation to have a war.' You mean, I suppose, 
 that, in spite of the loss of the best stock and the 
 disabling of strong young men, and the disintegra- 
 tion of families, and the hideous waste of time and 
 money subtracting all that there is a balance of 
 good to the survivors ? " 
 
 " Yes, I think so," said Lestrange. 
 
 " But are you sure about this ? " said Father 
 Payne. "How do you know? Would you feel 
 the same if you yourself were turned out a helpless 
 invalid for life with your occupation gone ? Are 
 you sure that you are not only expressing the feeling 
 of relief in the community at having a danger over ? 
 Is it more than the sense of gratitude of a man 
 who has not suffered unbearably, to the people who 
 have died and suffered ? The only evidence worth 
 having is that of the real sufferers. Take the case 
 of the people who have died. You can't get evid-
 
 OF WAR 123 
 
 ence from them. It is an assumption that they 
 are content to have died. Is not the glory which 
 surrounds them and how short a time that lasts ! 
 a human attempt to make consciences comfortable, 
 and to relieve human doubts ? The worst of that 
 theory is that it makes so light of the worth of life ; 
 and, after all, a soldier's business is to kill and not 
 to be killed ; while, generally speaking, the worst 
 turn that a strong, healthy, and honest man can 
 do to his country is to die prematurely. Of course 
 war has a great and instinctive prestige about it ; 
 are we not misled by that into accepting it as an 
 inevitable business ? " 
 
 " No, I believe there is a real gain," said Lestrange, 
 " in the national sense of unity, in the feeling of 
 having been equal to an emergency." 
 
 " But are you speaking of a nation which conquers 
 or a nation which is defeated ? ' ' said Father Payne. 
 
 " Both," said Lestrange ; "it unites a nation in 
 any case." 
 
 " But if a nation is defeated," said Father Payne, 
 " are they the better for the common depression of 
 not having been equal to the emergency ? " 
 
 "It may make them set their teeth," said Le- 
 strange, " and prepare themselves better." 
 
 "Then it does not matter," said Father Payne, 
 " whether they are united by the complacency of 
 conquest or by the desire for revenge ? " 
 
 "I would not quite say that," said Lestrange. 
 " But at all events a desire for revenge might teach 
 them discipline." 
 
 "I can't believe that," said Father Payne; "it 
 seems to me to make all the difference what the 
 purpose has been, I do not believe that a nation
 
 124 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 gains by being united for a predatory and ag- 
 gressive purpose. I think the victory of the Ger- 
 mans in the Franco- Prussian war has been wholly 
 bad for them. It has made them believe in aggres- 
 siveness. A nation naturally philosophical and 
 moral, and also both energetic and stupid, acquires 
 the sense of a divine mission like that. I don't 
 believe that a belief in your own methods of virtue 
 is a wholesome belief. That seems to me likely to 
 perpetuate war and I suppose that we should all 
 believe that war was an evil, if we could produce 
 the good results of it without war." 
 
 We all agreed to this. 
 
 "I will grant," said Father Payne, "that if a 
 nation which sincerely believes in peace and wishes 
 to cultivate goodwill, is wantonly and aggressively 
 attacked, and repels that attack, it may gain much 
 from war if it sticks to its theory, does not attempt 
 reprisals, and leaves the conquered bully in a posi- 
 tion to see its mistake and regain its self-respect. 
 But it is a very dangerous kind of success for all 
 that. I do not believe that complacency ever does 
 anything but harm. The purpose must be a good 
 one in the first place, the cause must be a great one, 
 and it must be honestly pursued to the end, if it is 
 to help a nation. But it lets all sorts of old and evil 
 passions loose, and it makes slaughter glorious. No, 
 I believe that at best it is a relapse into barbarism. 
 Hardly any nation is strong enough and great enough 
 to profit either by conquest or by defeat." 
 
 " But what about the splendid self-sacrifice it 
 all evokes ? " said Lestrange. " People give up 
 their comfort, their careers, they go to face the last 
 risk is that nothing ? "
 
 OF WAR 125 
 
 "No," said Father Payne; "it is a very magni- 
 ficent and splendid thing, I don't deny that. But 
 even so, that can't be preserved artificially. I 
 mean that no one would think that, if there were 
 no chance of a real war, it would be a good thing 
 to evoke such self-sacrifice by having manoeuvres 
 in which the best youth of the country were pitted 
 against each other, to kill each other if possible. 
 There must be a real cause behind it. No one would 
 say it was a noble thing for the youth of a country 
 to fling themselves down over a cliff or to infect 
 themselves with leprosy to show that they could 
 despise suffering and death. If it were possible to 
 settle the differences between nations without war, 
 war would be a wholly evil thing. The only thing 
 that one can say is that while there exists a strong 
 nation which believes enough in war to make war 
 aggressively, other nations are bound to resist it. 
 But the nation which believes in war is ipso facto 
 an uncivilised nation. ' ' 
 
 " But does not a war," said Lestrange, " clear 
 the air, and take people away from petty aims and 
 trivial squabbles into a sterner and larger atmos- 
 phere ? " 
 
 "Yes, I think it does," said Father Payne; 
 " but a great pestilence might do that. We might 
 be thankful for all the good we could get out of a 
 pestilence, and be grateful for it ; but we should 
 never dream of artificially renewing it for that 
 reason. I look upon war as a sort of pestilence, a 
 contagion which spreads under certain conditions. 
 But we disguise the evil of it from ourselves, if we 
 allow ourselves to believe in its being intrinsically 
 glorious. I can't believe that highway robbery
 
 126 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 has only to be organised on a sufficiently large 
 scale to make it glorious. A man who resists high- 
 way robbery, and runs the risk of death, because 
 he wants to put a stop to it, seems to me a noble 
 person quite different from the man who sees a 
 row going on and joins in it because he does not 
 want to be out of a good thing ! Do you remember 
 the story of the Irishman who saw a fight proceed- 
 ing, and rushed into the fray wielding his shillelagh, 
 and praying that it might fall on the right heads ? 
 We have all of us uncivilised instincts, but it does 
 not make them civilised to join with a million other 
 people in indulging them. I think that a man 
 who refuses to join from conviction, at the risk of 
 being hooted as a coward, is probably doing a 
 braver thing still." 
 
 " But I have often heard you say that life must be 
 a battle," said Lestrange. 
 
 "Yes," said Father Payne, "but I know what 
 I want to fight. I want the human race to join in 
 fighting crime and disease, evil conditions of nur- 
 ture, dishonesty and sensuality. I don't want to 
 pit the finest stock of each country against each 
 other. That is simple suicide, for two nations to 
 kill off the men who could fight evil best. I want 
 the nations to combine collectively for a good 
 purpose, not to combine separately for a bad one." 
 
 "I see that," said Lestrange; "but I regard 
 war as an inevitable element in society as at present 
 constituted. I don't think the world can be per- 
 suaded out of it. If it ever ceases, it will die a 
 natural death because it will suddenly be regarded 
 as absurd. Meantime, I think it is our duty to 
 regard the benefits of it ; and, as I said, it turns a
 
 OF WAR 127 
 
 nation to God it takes them out of petty squabbles, 
 and makes them recognise a power beyond and 
 behind the world." 
 
 "Yes, that is so," said Father Payne, "if you 
 regard war as caused by God. But I rather believe 
 that it is one of the things that God is fighting 
 against ! And I don't agree that it produces a 
 noble temper all through. It does in many of the 
 combatants ; but there is nothing so characteristic 
 at the outbreak of war as the amount of bullying 
 that is done. Peaceful people are hooted at and 
 shouted down ; thousands of general convictions 
 are over-ridden ; the violent have it their own way ; 
 it seems to me to organise the unruly and obstre- 
 perous, and to force all gentler and more civilised 
 natures into an unconvinced silence. Many of the 
 people who do most for the happiness of the world 
 can't face unpopularity. They are apt to think 
 that there must be something wrong with them- 
 selves, something spiritless and abnormal, if they 
 find themselves loathing the cruelties of which others 
 seem to approve. I do not believe that war 
 organises wholesome and sane opinion ; I believe 
 that it silences it. It is a time when base, heartless, 
 cruel people can become heroes. It is true that it 
 also gives serene, courageous, and calm people a 
 great opportunity. But on the whole it is a bad 
 time for sober, orderly, and peaceable people. I 
 believe that it evokes a good many fine qualities 
 simplicity, uncomplaining patience, unselfishness, 
 but it reveals them rather than creates them. It 
 shows the worth of a nation, but it should want a 
 great deal of evidence before I believe that it does 
 more than prove to people that they are braver
 
 128 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 than they know. I can't believe vaguely in death 
 and sorrow and disablement and waste being good 
 things. It is merely a question of what you are 
 paying so ghastly a price for. In the Napoleonic 
 wars the price was paid for the liberties of Europe, 
 to show a great nation that it must abandon the 
 ideal of domination. That is a great cause ; but 
 it is great because men are evil, and not because 
 they are good. War seems to me the temporary 
 triumph of the old bad past over the finer and more 
 beautiful future. Do not let us be taken in by the 
 romance of it. That is the childish view, that loves 
 the sight and sound of the marching column and 
 the stirring music. People find it hard to believe 
 that anything so strong and gallant and cheerful 
 can have a sinister side. And no doubt for a young, 
 strong, and bold man the excitement of it is an 
 intense pleasure. But what we have to ask is 
 whether we are right in taking so heavy a toll from 
 the world for all that : I do not think it right, 
 though it may be inevitable. But then I belong to 
 the future, and I think I should be more at home in 
 the world a thousand years hence than I am to-day." 
 
 "But I go back to my point," said Lestrange : 
 " does not a great war like that send people to their 
 knees in faith ? " 
 
 "Depend upon it," said Father Payne, "that 
 anything which makes people acquiesce in prevent- 
 able evil, and see the beautiful effects of death and 
 pain and waste, is the direct influence of the devil. 
 It is the last and most guileful subtlety that he 
 practises, to make us solemnly mournful and 
 patient in the presence of calamities for which we 
 have ourselves to thank. The only prayer worth
 
 OF WAR 129 
 
 praying in the time of war is not, ' Help us to bear 
 this/ but ' Help us to cure this ' ; and to behave 
 with meek reverence is to behave like the old servant 
 in The Master of Ballantrae, who bore himself like 
 an afflicted saint under an illness, the root of which 
 was drunkenness. The worst religion is that which 
 keeps its sense of repentance alive by its own mis- 
 deeds ! " 
 
 He was silent for a moment, and then he said : 
 " No, we mustn't make terms with war, any more 
 than we must do with cholera. It's a great, heart- 
 breaking evil, and it puts everything back a stage. 
 Of course it brings out fine qualities I know that 
 and so does a plague of cholera. It's the evil in 
 both that brings out the fine things to oppose it. 
 But we ought to have more faith, and believe that 
 the fine qualities are there war doesn't create 
 them, it only shows you that they are present 
 and we believe in war because it reassures us about 
 the presence of the great qualities. It shows them, 
 and then blows them out, like the flame of a candle. 
 But we want to keep them ; we don't want just to 
 be shown them, with a risk of extinguishing them. 
 Example can do something, but not half as much 
 as inheritance ; and we sweep away the inheritance 
 for the sake of the romantic delight of seeing the 
 great virtues flare up. No," he said, "war is one 
 of the evil things that is trying to hurt mankind, 
 and disguising itself in shining armour ; but it 
 means men ill ; it is for ever trying to bring their 
 dreams to an end."
 
 130 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 XXIII 
 
 OF CADS AND PHARISEES 
 
 "THERE are only two sorts of people with whom 
 it is impossible to live," said Father Payne one day, 
 in a loud, mournful tone. 
 
 " Elderly women and young women, I suppose he 
 means," said Rose softly. 
 
 "No," said Father Payne, "I protest ! I adore 
 sensible women, simple women, clever women, all 
 non-predatory women it is they who will not live 
 with me. I forget they are not men, and they do 
 not like that. And then they are so much more 
 unselfish than men, that they have generally axes 
 to grind, and I don't like that." 
 
 " Whom do you mean, then ? " said I. 
 
 "Cads and Pharisees," said Father Payne, "and 
 they are not two sorts really, but one. They are 
 the people without imagination. It is that which 
 destroys social life, the lack of imagination. The 
 Pharisee is the cad with a tincture of Puritanism." 
 
 " What is the cad, then ? " said I. 
 
 "Well," said Father Payne, "he is very easy to 
 detect, and not very easy to define. He is the man 
 who has got a perfectly definite idea of what he 
 wants, and he suffers from isolation. He can't put 
 himself into anyone's place, or get inside other 
 people's minds. He is stupid, and he is unpercep- 
 tive. He does not detect the little looks, gestures, 
 tones of voice, which show when people are uncom- 
 fortable or disgusted. He is not uncomfortable or 
 easily disgusted himself, and he does not much
 
 OF CADS AND PHARISEES 131 
 
 mind other people being so. He says what he thinks, 
 and you have got to lump it. Sometimes he is 
 good-natured enough, and even brave. There is 
 an admirable sketch of a good-natured cad in one 
 of Mrs. Walford's novels, who is the acme of kind 
 indelicacy. The cad is dreadful to live with, be- 
 cause he is always making one ashamed, and ashamed 
 of being ashamed, because many of the things he 
 does do not really matter very much. Then, when 
 he is out of sight and hearing, you cannot trust him. 
 He makes mischief, he throws mud. If he is vexed 
 with you, he injures you with other people. We 
 are all criticised behind our backs, of course, and 
 we have all faults which amuse and interest our 
 friends ; and it is not caddish to criticise friends if 
 one is only interested in them. But the cad is not 
 interested, except in clearing other people out of his 
 way. He is treacherous and spiteful. He drops in 
 upon you uninvited, and then he tells people he 
 could not get enough to eat. He repeats things 
 you have said about your friends to the people of 
 whom you have spoken, leaving out all the justi- 
 fications, and says that he thinks they ought to 
 know how you abuse them. He borrows money 
 of you, and if you ask him for repayment, he says 
 he is not accustomed to be dunned. He never can 
 bring himself to apologise for anything, and if you 
 lose your temper with him, he says you are getting 
 testy in your old age. His one idea is to be for- 
 midable, and he says that he does not let people 
 take liberties with him. He takes a mean and 
 solitary view of the world, and other people are 
 merely channels for his own wishes, or obstacles to 
 them. The only way is to keep him at arm's
 
 132 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 length, because he is not disarmed by any generosity 
 or trustfulness ; the discovery of caddishness in a 
 man is the only excuse for breaking off a companion- 
 ship. The worst of it is that cads are sometimes 
 very clever, and don't let the caddishness appear 
 till you are hooked. The mischief really is that 
 the cad has no morals, no sense of social duty." 
 
 " What about Pharisees ? " said I. 
 
 "Well, the Pharisee has too many morals," said 
 Father Payne. " He is the person whose own 
 tastes are a sort of standard. If you disagree with 
 him, he thinks you must be wicked. If your tastes 
 differ from his, they are of the nature of sin. You 
 live under his displeasure. If he dresses for dinner, 
 it is sloppy and middle-class not to do so. If he 
 doesn't dress for dinner, the people who do are 
 either wasting time or aping the manners of the 
 great. He is always very strong about wasting time. 
 If he likes gardening, he says it is the best sort of 
 exercise ; if he does not, he says that it is bilious 
 work muddling about in a corner. Everything that 
 he does is done on principle, but he uses his prin- 
 ciples to bludgeon other people. If you make him 
 the subject of a harmless jest, he says that he cannot 
 bear personalities. You can please him only by 
 deferring to him, and the only way to manage him 
 is by gross flattery. A Pharisee can be a gentle- 
 man, and he isn't purely noxious like the cad ; he 
 is only unpleasant and discouraging. He is quite 
 impervious to argument, and only says that he 
 thought the principle he is contending for was 
 generally accepted. The Pharisee wants in a heavy 
 way to improve the world, and thinks meanly of 
 it, while the cad thinks meanly of it, and wants to
 
 OF CONTINUANCE 133 
 
 exploit it. The Pharisee is a tyrant, and hates 
 freedom ; but you can often make a friend of him 
 by asking him a favour, if you are also prepared 
 to be subsequently reminded of the trouble he took 
 to serve you. 
 
 " I think that the Pharisee perhaps does most 
 harm in the end, because he hates all experiments. 
 He does harm to the young, because he makes them 
 dislike virtue and mistrust beauty. The cad does 
 not corrupt in fact, I think he rather improves 
 people, because he is so ugly a case of what no one 
 wishes to be and it is better to hate people than 
 to be frightened of them. If we got a cad and a 
 Pharisee in here, for instance, it would be easier 
 to get rid of the cad than the Pharisee." 
 
 "I begin to breathe more freely," said Vincent. 
 " I had begun to review my conscience." 
 
 Father Payne laughed. "It's all blank car- 
 tridge," he said. 
 
 XXIV 
 
 OF CONTINUANCE 
 
 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, per- 
 fuming truth, diplomatising. This ought not to 
 be, of course ; and if one was not thorny, self-
 
 134 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 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." 
 
 Presently he stopped, and looked long at some 
 daffodil blades which were thrusting up in a shel- 
 tered place. " Look at the gray bloom on those 
 blades," he said; "isn't that perfect? Fancy 
 thinking of that each of them so obviously 
 the same thought taking shape, yet each of them 
 different. Do not you see in them something calm, 
 continuous, active happy, in fact at work ; often 
 tripped up and imprisoned, and thwarted but 
 moving on ? " He was silent a little, and then he 
 said : "This force of life what a fascinating mys- 
 tery it is never dying, never ceasing, always coming 
 back to shape itself into matter. I wonder some- 
 times it is not content to exist alone ; but no, it is 
 always back again, arranging matter, manipulating 
 it into beautiful shapes and creatures, never dis- 
 couraged ; even when the plant falls ill and begins 
 to pine away, the happy life is within it languid 
 perhaps, but just waiting for the release, till the 
 cage in which it has imprisoned itself is opened,
 
 OF CONTINUANCE 135 
 
 and then so I believe back again in an instant 
 somewhere else. 
 
 "I am inclined to believe," he went on, "that 
 that is what we are all about ; it seems to me the 
 only explanation for the fact that we care so much 
 about the past and the future. If we are creatures 
 of a day, why should we be interested ? The only 
 reason we care about the past is because we our- 
 selves were there in it ; and we care about the 
 future because we shall be there in it again." 
 
 " You mean a sort of re-incarnation," I said. 
 
 "That's an ugly word for a beautiful thing," he 
 said. " But this love of life, this impulse to live, 
 to protect ourselves, to keep ourselves alive, must 
 surely mean that we have always lived and shall 
 always live. Some people think that dreadful. 
 They think it is taking liberties with them. If 
 they are rich and comfortable and dignified, they 
 cannot bear to think that they may have to begin 
 again, perhaps as a baby in a slum or they grow 
 tired, and think they want rest ; but we can't rest 
 we must live again, we must be back at work ; 
 and of course the real hope in it all is that, when we 
 do anything to make the world happier, it is our 
 own future that we are working for. Who could 
 care about the future of the world, if he was to be 
 banished from it for ever ? I was reading a book 
 the other day, in which a wise and a good man said 
 that he felt about the future progress of the world 
 as Moses did about the promised land, ' not as of 
 something we want to have for ourselves, but as of 
 something which we want to exist, whether we exist 
 or no.' I can't take so impersonal a view ! If one 
 really believed that one was going to be extinguished
 
 136 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 in death, one would care no more about the world's 
 future than one cares where the passengers in a 
 train are going to, when we get out at a station. 
 Who, on arriving at home, can lose himself in 
 wondering where his fellow-travellers have got to ? 
 We have better things to do than that ! That is 
 the sham altruism. It is as if a boy at school, 
 instead of learning his own lesson, spent his time 
 in imploring the other boys to learn theirs. That 
 is what we are whipped for for not learning our 
 own lesson." 
 
 "But if all this is so," I said, "why don't we 
 know that we shall live again ? Why is the one thing 
 which is important for us to know hidden from 
 us? " 
 
 "I think we do know it," said Father Payne, 
 ' ' deep down in ourselves. It is why it is worth while 
 to go on living. If we believed our reason, which 
 tells us that we come to an end and sink into 
 silence, we could not care to live, to suffer, to form 
 passionate ties which must all be severed, only to 
 sink into nothingness ourselves. If we will listen 
 to our instincts, they assure us that it is all worth 
 doing, because it all has a significance for us in the 
 life that comes next." 
 
 " But if we are to go on living," I said, " are we 
 to forget all the love and interest and delight of 
 life ? There seems no continuance of identity with- 
 out memory." 
 
 " Oh," said Father Payne, " that is another delu- 
 sion of reason. Our qualities remain our power 
 of being interested, of loving, of caring, of suffering. 
 We practise them a little in one life, we practise 
 them again in the next that is why we improve.
 
 OF CONTINUANCE 137 
 
 I forget who it was who said it, but it is quite true, 
 that there are numberless people now alive, who, 
 because of their orderliness, their patience, their 
 kindness, their sweetness, would have been adored 
 as saints if they had lived in mediaeval times. And 
 that is the best reason we have for suppressing as 
 far as we can our evil dispositions, and for living 
 bravely and freely in happy energy, that we shall 
 make a little better start next time. It is not the 
 particular people we love who matter it is the 
 power of loving other people and if we meet the 
 same people as those we loved again, we shall love 
 them again ; and if we do not, why, there will be 
 others to love. One of the worst limitations I feel 
 is the fact that there are so many thousand people 
 on earth whom I could love, if I could but meet 
 them and I am not going to believe that this 
 wretched span of days is my only chance of meeting 
 them. We need not be in a hurry and yet we 
 have no time to waste ! " 
 
 He stopped for a moment, and then added : 
 " When I lived in London, and was very poor, and 
 had either too much or not enough to do, and was 
 altogether very unhappy, I used to wander about 
 the streets and wonder how I could be so much 
 alone when there were so many possible friends. 
 Just above Ludgate Railway Viaduct, as you go 
 to St. Paul's, there is a church on your left, a Wren 
 church, very plain, of white and blackened stone, 
 and an odd lead spire at the top. It has hardly 
 any ornament, but just over the central doorway, 
 under a sort of pediment, there is a little childish 
 angel's head, a beautiful little baby face, with such 
 an expression of stifled bewilderment. It seems to
 
 138 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 say, ' Why should I hang here, covered with soot, 
 with this mob of people jostling along below, in all 
 this noise and dirt ? ' The child looks as if it was 
 just about to burst into tears. I used to feel like 
 that. I used to feel that I was meant to be happy, 
 and even to make people happy, and that I had 
 been caught and pinned down in a sort of pillory. 
 It's a grievous mistake to feel like that. Self-pity 
 is the worst of all luxuries ! But I think I owe all 
 my happiness to that bad time. Coming here was 
 like a resurrection ; and I never grudged the time 
 when I was face to face with a nasty, poky, useless 
 life. And if that can happen inside a single exist- 
 ence, I am not going to despair about the possi- 
 bility of its happening in many existences. I 
 dreamed the other night that I saw a party of 
 little angels singing a song together, all absorbed 
 in making music, and I recognised the little child 
 of Ludgate Hill in the middle of them singing loud 
 and clear. He gave me a little smile and something 
 like a wink, and I knew that he had got his pro- 
 motion. We ought all of us, and always, to be 
 expecting that. But we have got to earn it, of 
 course. It does not come if we wait with folded 
 hands." 
 
 XXV 
 
 OF PHILANTHROPY 
 
 FATHER PAYNE told us an odd story to-day of a big 
 house on the outskirts of London, with a great 
 garden and some fields belonging to it, that was 
 shut up for years and seemed neglected. It was
 
 OF PHILANTHROPY 139 
 
 inhabited by an old retired Colonel and his daughter : 
 the daughter had become an invalid, and her mind 
 was believed to be affected. No one ever came to 
 the house or called there. A wall ran round it, 
 and the trees grew thick and tangled within ; the 
 big gates were locked. Occasionally the Colonel 
 came out of a side-door, a tall handsome man, and 
 took a brisk walk ; sometimes he would be seen 
 handing his daughter, much wrapped up, into a 
 carriage, and they drove together. But the place 
 had a sinister air, and was altogether regarded with 
 a gloomy curiosity. 
 
 When the Colonel died, it was discovered that the 
 place was beautifully kept within, and the house 
 delightfully furnished. It came out that, after a 
 period of mental depression, the daughter had 
 recovered her spirits, though her health was still 
 delicate. The two were devoted to each other, and 
 they decided that, instead of living an ordinary 
 sociable life, they would just enjoy each other's 
 society in peace. It had been the happiest life, 
 simple, tenderly affectionate, the two living in and 
 for each other, and one, moreover, of open-handed, 
 secret benevolence. Apart from the expenses of 
 the household, the Colonel's wealth had been used 
 to support every kind of good work. Only one old 
 friend of the Colonel's was in the secret, and he 
 spoke of it as one of the most beautiful homes he 
 had ever seen. 
 
 Someone of us criticised the story, and asked 
 whether it was not a case of refined selfishness. 
 He added rather incisively that the expenditure of 
 money on charitable objects seemed to him to show 
 that the Colonel's conscience was ill at ease.
 
 140 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 Father Payne was very indignant. He said the 
 world had gone mad on philanthropy and social 
 service. Three-quarters of it was only fussy am- 
 bition. He went on to say that a beautiful and 
 simple life was probably the thing most worth 
 living in the world, and that two people could 
 hardly be better employed than in making each 
 other happy. He said that he did not believe in 
 self-denial unless people liked it. Was it really a 
 finer life to chatter at dinner-parties and tea-parties, 
 and occasionally to inspect an orphanage ? Perspira- 
 tion was not the only evidence of godliness. Why, 
 was it to be supposed that one could not live 
 worthily unless one was always poking one's nose 
 into one's neighbour's concerns ? He said that you 
 might as well say that it was refined selfishness to 
 have a rose-tree in your garden, unless you cut off 
 every bud the moment it appeared and sent it to a 
 hospital. If the critic really believed what he said, 
 Aveley was no place for him. Let him go to 
 Chicago ! 
 
 XXVI 
 
 OF FEAR 
 
 I FORGET what led up to the subject ; perhaps I 
 did not hear ; but Father Payne said, " It isn't for 
 nothing that ' the fearful ' head the list of all the 
 abominable people murderers, sorcerers, idolaters, 
 and liars who are reserved for the lake of fire and 
 brimstone ! Fear is the one thing that we are 
 always wrong in yielding to : I don't mean timidity 
 and cowardice, but the sort of heavy, mild, and
 
 OF FEAR 141 
 
 rather pious sort of foreboding that wakes one up 
 early in the morning, and that takes all the wind 
 out of one's sails ; fear of not being liked, of having 
 given offence, of living uselessly, of wasting time 
 and opportunities. Whatever we do, we must not 
 lead an apologetic kind of life. If we on the whole 
 intend to do something which we think may be 
 wrong, it is better to do it it is wrong to be cautious 
 and prudent. I love experiments." 
 
 " Isn't that rather immoral ? " said Lestrange. 
 
 "No, my dear boy," said Father Payne, "we 
 must make mistakes : better make them ! I am 
 not speaking of things obviously wrong, cruel, 
 unkind, ungenerous, spiteful things ; but it is right 
 to give oneself away, to yield to impulses, not to 
 take advice too much, and not to calculate conse- 
 quences too much. I hate the Robinson Crusoe 
 method of balancing pros and cons. Live your 
 own life, do what you are inclined to do, as long as 
 you really do it. That is probably the best way of 
 serving the world. Don't be argued into things, or 
 bullied out of them. You need not parade it 
 but rebel silently. It is absolutely useless going 
 about knocking people down. That proves nothing 
 except that you are stronger. Don't show up 
 people, or fight people ; establish a stronger influ- 
 ence if you can, and make people see that it is 
 happier and pleasanter to live as you live. Make 
 them envy you don't make them fear you. You 
 must not play with fear, and you must not yield 
 to fear."
 
 142 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 XXVII 
 
 OF ARISTOCRACY 
 
 FATHER PAYNE came into the hall one morning 
 after breakfast when I was opening a parcel of books 
 which had arrived for me. It was a fine, sunny 
 day, and the sun lit up the portrait framed in the 
 panelling over the mantelpiece, an old and skilful 
 copy (at least I suppose it was a copy) of Reynolds' 
 fine portrait of James, tenth Earl of Shropshire. 
 Father Payne regarded the picture earnestly. 
 " Isn't he magnificent ? " he said. " But he was a 
 very poor creature really, and came to great grief. 
 My great-great-grandfather ! His granddaughter 
 married my grandfather. Now look at that that's 
 the best we can do in the way of breeding ! There's 
 a man whose direct ancestors, father to son, had 
 simply the best that money can buy fine houses 
 to live in, power, the pick of the matrimonial market, 
 the best education, a fine tradition, every induce- 
 ment to behave like a hero ; and what did he do 
 he gambled away his inheritance, and died of drink 
 and bad courses. We can't get what we want, it 
 would seem, by breeding human beings, though we 
 can do it with cows and pigs. Where and how does 
 the thing go wrong ? His father and mother were 
 both of them admirable people fine in every sense 
 of the word. 
 
 " And then people talk, too, as if we had got rid 
 of idolatry ! We make a man a peer, we heap 
 wealth upon him, and then we worship him for his 
 magnificence, and are deeply affected if he talks
 
 OF ARISTOCRACY 143 
 
 civilly to us. We don't do it quite so much now, 
 perhaps but in that man's day, think what an 
 aroma of rank and splendour is cast, even in Boswell's 
 Life of Johnson, over a dinner-party where a man like 
 that was present ! If he paid Johnson the most 
 trumpery of compliments, Johnson bowed low, and 
 down it went on Boswell's cuff ! Yet we go on 
 perpetuating v it. We don't require that such a 
 man should be active, public-spirited, wise. If he 
 is fond of field-sports, fairly business-like, kindly, 
 courteous, decently virtuous, we think him a great 
 man, and feel mildly elated at meeting him and 
 being spoken to civilly by him. I don't mean that 
 only snobs feel that ; but respectable people, who 
 don't pursue fashion, would be more pleased if an 
 Earl they knew turned up and asked for a cup 
 of tea than if the worthiest of their neighbours 
 did so. I don't exaggerate the power of rank it 
 doesn't make a man necessarily powerful now, but 
 a very little ability, backed up by rank, will go a 
 long way. A great general or a great statesman 
 likes to be made an Earl ; and yet a good many 
 people would like an Earl of long descent quite as 
 much. There are a lot of people about who feel 
 as Melbourne did when he said he liked the Garter 
 
 so much because there was no d d merit about 
 
 it. I believe we admire people who inherit magni- 
 ficence better than we admire people who earn it ; 
 and while that feeling is there, what can be done 
 to alter it ? " 
 
 "I don't think I want to alter it," I said; "it 
 is very picturesque ! " 
 
 "Yes, there's the mischief," said Father Payne, 
 " it is more picturesque, hang it all ! The old
 
 144 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 aristocrat who feels like a prince and behaves like 
 one, is more picturesque than the person who has 
 sweated himself into it. Think of the old Duke 
 who was told he must retrench, and that he need 
 not have six still-room maids in his establishment, 
 
 and said, after a brief period of reflection, ' D n 
 
 it, a man must have a biscuit ! ' We like insolence ! 
 That is to say, we like it in its place, because we 
 admire power. It's ten times more impressive 
 than the meekness of the saint. The mischief is 
 that we like anything from a man of power. If he 
 is insolent, we think it grand ; if he is stupid, we 
 think it a sort of condescension ; if he is mild and 
 polite, we think it marvellous ; if he is boorish, we 
 think it is simple-minded. It is power that we 
 admire, or rather success, and both can be inherited. 
 If a man gets a big position in England, he is always 
 said to grow into it ; but that is because we care 
 about the position more than we care about the 
 man. 
 
 " When I was younger," he went on, "I used to 
 like meeting successful people it was only rarely 
 that I got the chance but I gradually discovered 
 that they were not, on the whole, the interesting 
 people. Sometimes they were, of course, when they 
 were big animated men, full of vitality and interest. 
 But many men use themselves up in attaining 
 success, and haven't anything much to give you 
 except their tired side. No, I soon found out that 
 freshness was the interesting thing, wherever it 
 was to be found and, mind you, it isn't very com- 
 mon. Many people have to arrive at success by 
 resolute self-limitation ; and that becomes very un- 
 interesting. Buoyancy, sympathy, quick interests,
 
 OF ARISTOCRACY 145 
 
 perceptiveness that's the supreme charm ; and 
 the worst of it is that it mostly belongs to the 
 people who haven't taken too much out of them- 
 selves. When we have got a really well-ordered 
 State, no one will have any reason to work too hard, 
 and then we shall all be the happier. These gigantic 
 toilers, it's a sort of morbidity, you know ; the real 
 success is to enjoy work, not to drudge yourself 
 dry. One must overflow not pump ! " 
 
 "But what is an artist to do," I said, "who is 
 simply haunted by the desire to make something 
 beautiful ? " 
 
 "He must hold his hand," said Father Payne; 
 " he must learn to waste his time, and he must love 
 wasting it. A habit of creative work is an awful 
 thing." 
 
 "Come out for a turn," he went on; "never 
 mind these rotten books ; don't get into a habit 
 of reading it's like endlessly listening to good 
 talk without ever joining in it it makes a corpulent 
 mind ! " 
 
 We went and walked in the garden ; he stopped 
 before some giant hemlocks. " Just look at those 
 great things," he said, "built up as geometrically 
 as a cathedral, tier above tier, and yet not quite 
 regular. There must be something very hard at 
 work inside that, piling it all up, adding cell to cell, 
 carrying out a plan, and enjoying it all. Yet the 
 beauty of it is that it isn't perfectly regular. You 
 see the underlying scheme, yet the separate shoots 
 are not quite mechanical they lean away from 
 each other, that joint is a trifle shorter there wasn't 
 quite room at the start in that stem, and the pressure 
 goes on showing right up to the top. I suppose 
 
 K
 
 146 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 our lives would look very nearly as geometrical to 
 anyone who knew really knew ; but how little geo- 
 metrical we feel ! I don't suppose this hemlock is 
 cursed by the power of thinking it might have done 
 otherwise, or envies the roses. We mustn't spend 
 time in envying, or repenting either or still less 
 in renouncing life." 
 
 "But if I want to renounce it," I said, "why 
 shouldn't I ? " 
 
 " Yes, there you have me," said Father Payne ; 
 " we know so little about ourselves, that we don't 
 always know whether we do better to renounce a 
 thing or to seize it. Make experiments, I say 
 don't make habits." 
 
 " But you are always drilling me into habits," 
 I said. 
 
 He gave me a little shake with his hand. " Yes, 
 the habit of being able to do a thing," he said, 
 " not the habit of being unable to do anything 
 else ! Hang these metaphysics, if that is what they 
 are ! What I want you young men to do is to get 
 a firm hold upon life, and to feel that it is a finer 
 thing than any little presentment of it. I want you 
 to feel and enjoy for yourselves, and to live freely 
 and generously. Bad things happen to all of us, 
 of course ; but we mustn't mind that not to be 
 petty or quarrelsome, or hidebound or prudish or 
 over-particular, that's the point. To leave other 
 people alone, except on the rare occasions when 
 they are not letting other people alone ; to be 
 peaceable, and yet not to be afraid ; not to be hurt 
 and vexed ; to practise forgetting ; not to want 
 to pouch things ! It's all very well for me to talk," 
 he said ; " I made a sufficient hash of it, when I was
 
 OF CRYSTALS 147 
 
 poor and miserable and overworked ; and then I 
 was transplanted out of a slum window-box into 
 a sunny garden, just in time ; yet I 'm sure that most 
 of my old troubles were in a way of my own making, 
 because I hated being so insignificant ; but I fear 
 that was a little poison lurking in me from the 
 Earls of Shropshire. That is the odd thing about 
 ambitions, that they seem so often like regaining a 
 lost position rather than making a new one. The 
 truth is that we are caged ; and the only thing to 
 do is to think about the cage as little as we can." 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 OF CRYSTALS 
 
 ONE day I was strolling down the garden among 
 the winding paths, when I came suddenly upon 
 Father Payne, who was hurrying towards the house. 
 He had in each of his hands a large roughly spherical 
 stone, and looked at me a little shamefacedly. 
 
 ; ' You look, Father," I said, " as if you were going 
 to stone Stephen." 
 
 He laughed, and looked at the stones. " Yes," 
 he said, "they are what the Greeks called 'hand- 
 fillers,' for use in battle but I have no nefarious 
 designs." 
 
 " What are you going to do with them ? " I said 
 
 "That's a secret ! " he said, and made as if he 
 were going in. Then he said, "Come, you shall 
 hear it you shall share my secret, and be a partner 
 in my dreams, as the fisherman says in Theocritus." 
 But he did not tell me what he was going to do, and 
 seemed half shy of doing so.
 
 148 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 "It's like Dr. Johnson and the orange-peel," I 
 said. " ' Nay, Sir, you shall know their fate no 
 further.'" 
 
 " Well, the truth is," he said at last, "that I'm 
 a perfect baby. I never can resist looking into a 
 hole in the ground, and I happened to look into the 
 pit where we dig gravel. I can't tell you how long 
 I spent there." 
 
 " What were you doing ? " I said. 
 
 "Looking for fossils," he said; "I had a great 
 gift for finding them when I was a child. I didn't 
 find any fossils to-day, but I found these stones, 
 and I think they contain crystals. I am going to 
 break them and see." 
 
 I took one in my hand. " I think they are only 
 fossil sponges," I said; "there will only be a rusty 
 sort of core inside." 
 
 "You know that!" he said, brightening up ; 
 " you know about stones too ? But these are not 
 sponges they would rattle if they were no, they 
 contain crystals I am sure of it. Come and see ! " 
 
 We went into the stable-yard. Father Payne 
 fetched a hammer, and then selected a convenient 
 place in the cobbled yard to break the stones. He 
 put one of them in position, and aimed a blow at 
 it, but it glanced off, and the stone flew off with the 
 impact to some distance. " Lie still, can't you ? " 
 said Father Payne, apostrophising the stone,, and 
 adding, "This is for my pleasure, not for yours." 
 I recovered the stone, and brought it back, and 
 Father Payne broke it with a well-directed blow. 
 He gathered up the pieces eagerly. " Yes," he 
 said, "it's all right they are blue crystals : better 
 than I had hoped."
 
 OF CRYSTALS 149 
 
 He handed a fragment to me to look at. The 
 inside of the stone was hollow. It had a coagulated 
 appearance, and was thickly coated with minute 
 bluish crystals, very beautiful. 
 
 " I don't know that I ever saw a stone I liked 
 as well as this," said Father Payne, musing over 
 another piece. " Think what millions of years this 
 has been like that, before Abraham was ! It has 
 never seen the light of day before it's a splash of 
 some molten stone, which fell plop into a cool sea- 
 current, I suppose. I wish I knew all about it. 
 The question is, why is it so beautiful ? It couldn't 
 help it, I suppose ! But for whose delight ? " 
 Then he said, "I suppose this was a vacuum in 
 here till it was broken ? That is why it is so clear 
 and fresh. Good Heavens, what would I not give 
 to know why this thing cooled into these lovely 
 little shapes. It's no use talking about the laws of 
 matter why are the laws of matter what they are, 
 and not different ? And odder still, why do I like 
 the look of it ? " 
 
 " Perhaps that is a law of matter too," I said. 
 
 " Oh, shut up ! " said Father Payne to me. " But 
 I understand and of course the temptation is to 
 believe that this was all done on your account and 
 mine. That is as odd a thing as the stone itself, 
 if you come to think of it, that we should be made 
 so that we refer everything to ourselves, and to 
 believe that God prepared this pretty show for us." 
 
 " I suppose we come in somewhere ? " I said. 
 
 " Yes, we are allowed to see it," said Father 
 Payne. " But it wasn't arranged for the benefit 
 of a silly old man like me. That is the worst of our 
 religious theories that we believe that God is for
 
 150 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 ever making personal appeals to us. It is that 
 sort of self-importance which spoils everything." 
 
 " But I can hardly believe that we have this 
 sense of self-importance only to get rid of it," I 
 said. " It all seems to me a dreadful muddle to 
 shut up these lovely little things inside millions of 
 stones, and then to give us the wish to break a 
 couple, only that we may reflect that they were 
 not meant for us to see at all." 
 
 Father Payne gave a groan. " Yes, it is a 
 muddle!" he said. "But one thing I feel clear 
 about that a beautiful thing like this means a 
 sense of joy somewhere : some happiness went to 
 the making of things which in a sense are quite 
 useless, but are unutterably lovely all the same. 
 Beauty implies consciousness but come, we are 
 neglecting our business. Give me the other stone 
 at once ! " 
 
 I gave it him, and he cracked it. " Very dis- 
 appointing ! " he said. "I made sure there was a 
 beautiful stone, but it is all solid only a flaky sort 
 of jelly it's no use at all ! " 
 
 He threw it aside, but carefully gathered up the 
 fragments of the crystalline stone. " Don't tell of 
 me ! " he said, looking at me whimsically. " This 
 is the sort of nonsense which our sensible friends 
 won't understand. But now that I know that you 
 care about stones, we will have a rare hunt together 
 one of these days. But mind no stuff about 
 geology ! It's beauty that we are in search of, you 
 and I."
 
 EARLY LIFE 151 
 
 XXIX 
 
 EARLY LIFE 
 
 ONE day, to my surprise and delight, Father Payne 
 indulged in some personal reminiscences about his 
 early life. He did not as a rule do this. He used 
 to say that it was the surest sign of decadence to 
 think much about the past. " Sometimes when I 
 wake early," he said, "I find myself going back 
 to my childhood, and living through scene after 
 scene. It's not wholesome I always know I am 
 a little out of sorts when I do that it is only one 
 degree better than making plans about the future ! ' ' 
 However, on this occasion he was very communi- 
 cative. He had been talking about Ruskin, and 
 he said : "Do you remember in Prceteriia how 
 Ruskin, writing about his sheltered and complacent 
 childhood, describes how entirely he lived in the 
 pleasure of sight? He noticed everything, the 
 shapes and colours of things, the almond blossom, 
 the ants that made nests in the garden walk, the 
 things they saw in their travels. He was entirely 
 absorbed in sense-impressions. Well, that threw a 
 light on my own life, because it was exactly what 
 happened to me as a child. I lived wholly in ob- 
 servation. I had no mind and very little heart. 
 I suppose that I had so much to do looking at 
 everything, getting the shapes and the textures 
 and the qualities of everything by heart, that I 
 had no time to think about ideas and emotions. 
 I had a very lonely childhood, you know, brought 
 up in the country by my mother, who was rather
 
 152 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 an invalid, my father being dead. I had no com- 
 panions to speak of, and I didn't care about anyone 
 or need anyone it was all simply a collecting of 
 impressions. The result is that I can visualise 
 anything and everything speak of a larch-bud or 
 a fir-cone, and there it is before me the little rosy 
 fragrant tuft, or the glossy rectangular squares of 
 the cone. Then I went to Maryborough, and I was 
 dreadfully unhappy. I hated everything and every- 
 body the ugliness and slovenliness of it all, the 
 noise, the fuss, the stink. I did not feel I had 
 anything in common with those little brutes, as I 
 thought them. I lived the life of a blind creature 
 in a fright, groping aimlessly about. I joined 
 in nothing but I was always strong, and so I 
 was left alone. No one dared to interfere with 
 me ; and I have sometimes wished I hadn't been 
 so strong, that I had had the experience of being 
 weak. I dare say that nasty things might have 
 happened but I should have known more what 
 the world was like, I should have depended more 
 upon other people, I should have made friends. 
 As it was, I left school entirely innocent, very soli- 
 tary, very modest, thinking myself a complete 
 duffer, and everyone else a beast. It got a little 
 better at the end of my time, and I had a com- 
 panion or two but I never dreamed of telling any- 
 one what I was really thinking about." 
 
 He broke off suddenly. " This is awful twaddle ! " 
 he said. " Why should you care to hear about all 
 this ? I was thinking aloud." 
 
 "Do go on thinking aloud a little," I said ; "it 
 is most interesting ! " 
 
 "Ah," he said, "with the flatterers were busy
 
 EARLY LIFE 153 
 
 mockers ! You enjoy staring and looking upon 
 me." 
 
 "No, no," I said, rather nettled. "Father 
 Payne, don't you understand ? I want to hear 
 more about you. I want to know how you came 
 to be what you are : it interests me more than I 
 can say. You asked me about myself when I came 
 here, and I told you. Why shouldn't I ask you, for 
 a change ? " 
 
 He smiled, obviously pleased at this. "Why, 
 then," he said, "I'll go on. I'm not above liking 
 to tell my tale, like the Ancient Mariner. You can 
 beat your breast when you are tired of it." He 
 was intent for a moment, and then went on. " Well, 
 I went up to Oxford to Corpus. A funny little 
 place, I now think rather intellectual. I could 
 hardly believe my senses when I found how different 
 it was from school, and how independent. Heavens, 
 how happy I was ! I made some friends I found 
 I could make friends after all I could say what I 
 liked, I could argue, I could even amuse them. I 
 really couldn't make you realise how I adored some 
 of those men. I used to go to sleep after a long 
 evening of chatter, simply hating the darkness 
 which separated me from life and company. There 
 were two in particular, very ordinary young men, 
 I expect. But they were fond of me, and liked 
 being with me, and I thought them the most won- 
 derful and enchanting persons, with a wide know- 
 ledge of the great mysterious world. The world ! 
 It wasn't, I saw, a nasty, jostling place, as I had 
 thought at school, but a great beautiful affair, full 
 of love and delight, of interest and ideas. I read, 
 I talked, I flew about it was simply a new birth !
 
 154 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 I felt like a prisoner suddenly released. Of course, 
 the mischief was that I neglected my work. There 
 wasn't time for that : and I fell in love, too, or 
 thought I did, with the sister of one of those friends, 
 with whom I went to stay. I wonder if anyone 
 was ever in love like that ! I daresay it's common 
 enough. But I won't go into that ; these raptures 
 are for private consumption. I was roughly jerked 
 up. I took a bad degree. My mother died I had 
 very little in common with her : she was an invalid 
 without any hold on life, and I took no trouble to 
 be kind to her I was perfectly selfish and wilful. 
 Then I had to earn my living. I would have given 
 anything to stay at Oxford : and you know, even 
 now, when I think of Oxford, a sort of electric shock 
 goes through me, I love it so much. I daren't 
 even set foot there, I'm so afraid of finding it altered. 
 But when I think of those dark courts and bowery 
 gardens, and the men moving about, and the fronts 
 of blistered stone, and the little quaint streets, and 
 the meadows and elms, and the country all about, 
 I have a physical yearning -that is almost a pain 
 a sort of home-sickness " 
 
 He broke off, and was silent for a moment, and I 
 saw that his eyes were full of tears. 
 
 " Then it was London, that accursed place ! I 
 had a tiny income : I got a job at a coaching 
 establishment, I worked like the devil. That was 
 a cruel time. I couldn't dream of marriage that 
 all vanished, and she married pretty soon. I 
 couldn't get a holiday I was too poor. I tried 
 writing, but I made a hash of that. I simply went 
 down into hell. One of my great friends died, and 
 the other well, it was awkward to meet, when I
 
 EARLY LIFE 155 
 
 had had to break it off with his sister. I simply 
 can't describe to you how utterly horrible it all 
 was. I used to teach all the terms, and in the 
 vacations I simply mooned about. I hadn't a 
 club, and I used to read at the Museum read just 
 to keep my senses. Then I suppose I got used to 
 it. Of course, if I had had any adventurousness 
 in me, I should have gone off and become a day- 
 labourer or anything but I am not that sort of 
 person. 
 
 " That went on till I was about thirty- three and 
 then quite suddenly, and without any warning, I 
 had my experience. I suppose that something was 
 going on inside me all the time, something being 
 burnt out of me in those fires. It was a mixture 
 of selfishness and stupidity and perverseness that 
 was the matter with me. I didn't see that I could 
 do anything. I was simply furious with the world 
 for being such a hole, and with God for sticking 
 me in the middle of it. The occasion of the change 
 was simply too ridiculous. It was nothing else 
 but coming back to my rooms and finding a big 
 bowl of daffodils there. They had been left, my 
 landlady told me, by a young gentleman. It 
 sounds foolish enough but it suddenly occurred to 
 me to think that someone was interested in me, 
 pitied me, cared for me. A sort of mist cleared 
 away from my eyes, and I saw in a flash what was 
 the mischief that I had walled myself in by my 
 misery and bad temper, and by my expectation 
 that something must be done for me. The next day 
 I had to take a lot of pupils, one after another, for 
 composition. One of them had a daffodil in his 
 hand, which he put down carelessly on the table.
 
 156 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 I stared at it and at him, and he blushed. He 
 wasn't an interesting young man to look at or to 
 talk to but it was just a bit of simple humanity. 
 It all came out. I had been good to him I looked 
 as if I were having a bad time. It was just a little 
 human signal, and a beautiful one. It was there, 
 then, all the time, I saw human affection if I 
 cared to put out my hand for it. I can't describe 
 to you how it all developed, but my heart had 
 melted somehow thawed like a lump of ice. I 
 saw that there was no specific ill-will to me in the 
 world. I saw that everything was there, if I only 
 chose to take it. That was my second awakening 
 a glimmer of light through a chink and suddenly, 
 it was day ! I had been growling over bones and 
 straw in a filthy kennel, and I was not really tied 
 up at all. Life was running past me, a crystal 
 river. I was dying of thirst : and all because it 
 was not given me in a clean glass on a silver tray, 
 I would not drink it and God smiling at me all 
 the time." 
 
 Father Payne walked on in silence. 
 
 "The truth is, my boy," he said a minute later, 
 "that I'm a converted man, and it isn't everyone 
 who can say that nor do I wish everyone to be 
 converted, because it's a ghastly business preparing 
 for the operation. It isn't everyone who needs it 
 only those self-willed, devilish, stand-off, proud 
 people, who have to be braised in a mortar and 
 pulverised to atoms. Then, when you are all to 
 bits, you can be built up. Do you remember that 
 stone we broke the other day ? Well, I was a 
 melted blob of stone, and then I was crystallised 
 now I 'm full of eyes within ! And the best of it is
 
 OF BLOODSUCKERS 157 
 
 that they are little living eyes, and not sparkling 
 flints they see, they don't reflect ! At least I 
 think so ; and I don't think trouble is brewing for 
 me again though that is always the danger ! " 
 
 I was very deeply moved by this, and said some- 
 thing about being grateful. 
 
 " Oh, not that," said Father Payne ; " you don't 
 know what fun it has been to me to tell you. That's 
 the sort of thing that I want to get into one of my 
 novels, but I can't manage it. But the moral is, 
 if I may say so : Be afraid of self-pity and dignity 
 and self-respect don't be afraid of happiness and 
 simplicity and kindness. Give yourself away with 
 both hands. It's easy for me to talk, because I 
 have been loaded with presents ever since : the 
 clouds drop fatness a rich but expressive image 
 that ! " 
 
 XXX 
 
 OF BLOODSUCKERS 
 
 "I'M feeling low to-night," said Father Payne in 
 answer to a question about his prolonged silence. 
 "I'm not myself: virtue has gone out of me 
 I'm in the clutches of a bloodsucker." 
 
 " Old debts with compound interest ? " said Rose 
 cheerfully. 
 
 "Yes," said Father Payne with a frown; "old 
 emotional I.O.U.'s. I didn't know what I was 
 putting my name to." 
 
 " A man or a woman ? " said Rose. 
 
 "Thank God, it's a man ! " said Father Payne. 
 " Female bloodsuckers are worse still. A man, at
 
 158 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 all events, only wants the blood ; a woman wants 
 the pleasure of seeing you wince as well ! " 
 
 " It sounds very tragic," said Kaye. 
 
 " No, it's not tragic," said Father Payne ; " there 
 would be something dignified about that ! It's 
 only unutterably low and degrading. Come, I'll 
 tell you about it. It will do me good to get it off 
 my chest. 
 
 " It is one of my old pupils," Father Payne went 
 on. " He once got into trouble about money, and 
 I paid his debts he can't forgive me that ! " 
 
 "Does he want you to pay some more? " said 
 Rose. 
 
 "Yes, he does," said Father Payne, "but he 
 wants to be high-minded too. He wants me to 
 press him to take the money, to prevail upon him 
 to accept it as a favour. He implies that if I hadn't 
 begun by paying his debts originally, he would not 
 have ever acquired what he calls ' the unhappy 
 habit of dependence.' Of course he doesn't think 
 that really : he wants the money, but he also 
 wants to feel dignified. ' If I thought it would 
 make you happier if I accepted it/ he says, ' of 
 course I should view the matter differently. It 
 would give me a reason for accepting what I must 
 confess would be a humiliation.' Isn't that in- 
 fernal ? Then he says that I may perhaps think 
 that his troubles have coarsened him, but that he 
 unhappily retains all his old sensitiveness. Then 
 he goes on to say that it was I who encouraged 
 him to preserve a high standard of delicacy in these 
 matters." 
 
 " He must be a precious rascal," said Vincent. 
 
 "No, he isn't," said Father Payne, "that's the
 
 OF BLOODSUCKERS 159 
 
 worst of it but he is a frantic poseur. He has 
 got so used to talking and thinking about his feel- 
 ings, that he doesn't know what he really does feel. 
 That's the part of it which bothers me : because 
 if he was a mere hypocrite, I would say so plainly. 
 One must not be taken in by apparent hypocrisy. 
 It often represents what a man did once really 
 think, but which has become a mere memory. One 
 must not be hard on people's reminiscences. Don't 
 you know how the mildest people are often dis- 
 posed to make out that they were reckless and 
 daring scapegraces at school ? That isn't a lie ; it 
 is imagination working on very slender materials." 
 
 We laughed at this, and then Barthrop said, 
 " Let me write to him, Father. I won't be 
 offensive." 
 
 "I know you wouldn't," said Father Payne; 
 " but no one can help me. It's not my fault, but 
 my misfortune. It all comes of acting for the best. 
 I ought to have paid his debts, and made myself 
 thoroughly unpleasant about it. What I did was 
 to be indulgent and sympathetic. It's all that 
 accursed sentimentality that does it. I have been 
 trying to write a letter to him all the morning, 
 showing him up to himself without being brutal. 
 But he will only write back and say that I have 
 made him miserable, and that I have wholly mis- 
 understood him : and then I shall explain and 
 apologise ; and then he will take the money to 
 show that he forgives me. I see a horrible vista 
 of correspondence ahead. After four or five letters, 
 I shall not have the remotest idea what it is all 
 about, and he will be full of reproaches. He will 
 say that it isn't the first time that he has found
 
 160 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 how the increase of wealth makes people ungenerous. 
 Oh, don't I know every step of the way ! He is 
 going to have the money, and he is going to put 
 me in the wrong : that is his plan, and it is going 
 to come off. I shall be in the wrong : I feel in 
 the wrong already ! " 
 
 " Then in that case there is certainly no necessity 
 for losing the money too ! " said Rose. 
 
 "It's all very well for you to talk in that im- 
 personal way, Rose," said Father Payne. " Of 
 course I know very well that you would handle the 
 situation kindly and decisively ; but you don't 
 know what it is to suffer from politeness like a 
 disease. I have done nothing wrong except that 
 I have been polite when I might have been dry. 
 I see right through the man, but he is absolutely 
 impervious ; and it is my accursed politeness that 
 makes it impossible for me to say bluntly what 
 I know he will dislike and what he genuinely will 
 not understand. I know what you are thinking, 
 every one of you that I say lots of things that 
 you dislike but then you do understand ! I 
 could no more tell this wretch the truth than I 
 could trample on a blind old man." 
 
 " What will you really do ? " said Barthrop. 
 
 "I shall send him the money," said Father 
 Payne firmly, "and I shall compliment him on his 
 delicacy ; and then, thank God, I shall forget, 
 until it all begins again. I am a wretched old 
 opportunist, of course ; a sort of Ally Sloper not 
 fit company for strong and concise young men ! "
 
 OF INSTINCTS 161 
 
 XXXI 
 
 OF INSTINCTS 
 
 I DO not remember what led to this remark of 
 Father Payne's : " It's a painful fact, from the 
 ethical point of view, that qualities are more ad- 
 mired, and more beautiful indeed, the more in- 
 stinctive they are. We don't admire the faculty 
 of taking pains very much. The industrious boy 
 at school is rather disliked than otherwise, while 
 the brilliant boy who can construe his lesson without 
 learning it is envied. Take a virtue like courage : 
 the love of danger, the contempt of fear, the power 
 of dashing headlong into a thing without calculating 
 the consequences is the kind of courage we admire. 
 The person who is timid and anxious, and yet just 
 manages desperately to screw himself up to the 
 sticking- point, does not get nearly as much credit 
 as the bold devil-may-care person. It is so with 
 most performances ; we admire ease and rapidity 
 much more than perseverance and tenacity, what 
 obviously costs little effort rather than what costs 
 a great deal. 
 
 " We all rather tend to be bored by a display of 
 regularity and discipline. Do you remember that 
 letter of Keats, where he confesses his intense irri- 
 tation at the way in which his walking companion, 
 Brown, I think, always in the evening got out his 
 writing-materials in the same order first the paper, 
 then the ink, then the pen. 'I say to him,' says 
 Keats, ' why not the pen sometimes first ? ' We 
 don't like precision ; look at the word 'Methodist/ 
 
 L
 
 162 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 which originally was a nick-name for people of 
 strictly disciplined life. We like something a little 
 more gay and inconsequent. 
 
 " Yet the power of forcing oneself by an act of will 
 to do something unpleasant is one of the finest 
 qualities in the world. There is a story of a man 
 who became a Bishop. He was a delicate and 
 sensitive fellow, much affected by a crowd, and par- 
 ticularly by the sight of people passing in front of 
 him. He began his work by holding an enormous 
 confirmation, and five times in the course of it he 
 actually had to retire to the vestry, where he was 
 physically sick. That's a heroic performance ; but 
 we admire still more a bland and cheerful Bishop 
 who is not sick, but enjoys a ceremony." 
 
 "Surely that is all right, Father Payne ? " said 
 Barthrop. "When we see a performance, we are 
 concerned with appreciating the merit of it. A 
 man with a bad headache, however gallant, is not 
 likely to talk as well as a man in perfect health and 
 high spirits ; but if we are not considering the per- 
 formance, but the virtues of the performer, we 
 might admire the man who pumped up talk when 
 he was feeling wretched more than the man from 
 whom it flowed." 
 
 " The judicious Barthrop ! " said Father Payne. 
 " Yes, you are right but for all that we do not in- 
 stinctively admire effort as much as we admire easy 
 brilliance. We are much more inclined to imitate 
 the brilliant man than we are to imitate the man 
 who has painfully developed an accomplishment. 
 The truth is, we are all of us afraid of effort ; and 
 instinct is generally so much more in the right than 
 reason, that I end by believing that it is better to
 
 OF HUMILITY 163 
 
 live freely in our good qualities, than painfully to 
 conquer our bad qualities ; not to take up work 
 that we can't do from a sense of duty, but to take 
 up work that we can do from a sense of pleasure. 
 I believe in finding our real life more than in sticking 
 to one that is not real for the sake of virtue. Trained 
 inclination is the secret. That is why I should 
 never make a soldier. I love being in a rage no 
 one more it has all the advantages and none of the 
 disadvantages of getting drunk. But I can't do 
 it on the word of command." 
 
 "Isn't that what is called hedonism ?" said 
 Lestrange. 
 
 " You must not get in the way of calling names ! " 
 said Father Payne; "hedonism is a word invented 
 by Puritans to discourage the children of light. It 
 is not a question of doing what you like, but of 
 liking what you do. Of course everyone has got 
 to choose you can't gratify all your impulses, 
 because they thwart each other ; but if you freely 
 gratify your finer impulses, you will have much less 
 temptation to indulge your baser inclinations. It 
 is more important to have the steam up and to use 
 the brake occasionally, than never to have the steam 
 up at all." 
 
 XXXII 
 
 OF HUMILITY 
 
 WE had been listening to a paper by Kaye a 
 beautiful and fanciful piece of work ; when he 
 finished, Father Payne said: "That's a charming
 
 164 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 thing, Kaye a little sticky in places, but still 
 beautiful." 
 
 "It's not so good as I had hoped," said Kaye 
 mildly. 
 
 "Oh, don't be humble," said Father Payne; 
 " that's the basest of the virtues, because it vanishes 
 the moment you realise it ! Make your bow like a 
 man. It may not be as good as you hoped 
 nothing ever is but surely it is better than you 
 expected ? " 
 
 Kaye blushed, and said, " Well, yes, it is." 
 
 "Now let me say generally," said Father Payne, 
 " that in art you ought never to undervalue your 
 own work. You ought all to be able to recognise 
 how far you have done what you intended. The 
 big men, like Tennyson and Morris, were always 
 quite prepared to praise their own work. They 
 did it quite modestly, more as if some piece of good 
 fortune had befallen them than as if they deserved 
 credit. There's no such thing as taking credit to 
 oneself in art. \Vhat you try to do is always 
 bound to be miles ahead of what you can do that 
 is where the humility comes in. But a man who 
 can't admire his own work on occasions, can't admire 
 anyone's work. If you do a really good thing, you 
 ought to feel as if you had been digging for diamonds 
 and had found a big one. Hang it, you intend to 
 make a fine thing ! You are not likely to be con- 
 ceited about it, because you can't make a beautiful 
 thing every day ; and the humiliation comes in 
 when, after turning out a good thing, you find your- 
 self turning out a row of bad ones. The only artists 
 who are conceited are those who can't distinguish 
 between what is good and what is inferior in their
 
 OF HUMILITY 165 
 
 own work. You must not expect much praise, and 
 least of all from other artists, because no artist is 
 ever very deeply interested in another artist's work, 
 except in the work of the two or three who can do 
 easily what he is trying to do. But it is a deep 
 pleasure, which may be frankly enjoyed, to turn out 
 a fine bit of work ; though you must not waste much 
 time over enjoying it, because you have got to go 
 on to the next." 
 
 "I always think it must be very awful," said 
 Vincent, " when it dawns upon a man that his mind 
 is getting stiff and his faculty uncertain, and that 
 he is not doing good work any more. What ought 
 people to do about stopping ? " 
 
 "It's very hard to say," said Father Payne. 
 " The happiest thing of all is, I expect, to die before 
 that comes ; and the next best thing is to know 
 when to stop and to want to stop. But many 
 people get a habit of work, and fall into dreariness 
 without it." 
 
 " Isn't it better to go on with the delusion that 
 you are just as good as ever like Wordsworth and 
 Browning ? " said Rose. 
 
 "No, I don't think that is better," said Father 
 Payne, " because it means a sort of blindness. It 
 is very curious in the case of Browning, because he 
 learned exactly how to do things. He had his 
 method, he fixed upon an abnormal personality or 
 a curious incident, and he turned it inside out with 
 perfect fidelity. But after a certain time in his life, 
 the thing became suddenly heavy and uninteresting. 
 Something evaporated I do not know what ! The 
 trick is done just as deftly, but one is bored ; one 
 simply doesn't care to see the inside of a new person,
 
 166 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 however well dissected. There's no life, no beauty 
 about the later things. Wordsworth is somehow 
 different he is always rather noble and prophetic. 
 The later poems are not beautiful, but they issue 
 from a beautiful idea a passion of some kind. But 
 the later Browning poems are not passionate 
 they remind one of a surgeon tucking up his sleeves 
 for a set of operations. I expect that Browning 
 was too humble ; he loved a gentlemanly conven- 
 tion, and Wordsworth certainly did not do that. 
 If you want to know how a poet should live, read 
 Dorothy Wordsworth's journals at Grasmere ; if 
 you want to know how he should feel, read the 
 letters of Keats." 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 OF MEEKNESS 
 
 I HAD been having some work looked over by Father 
 Payne, who had been somewhat trenchant. " You 
 have been beating a broken drum, you know," he 
 had said, with a smile. 
 
 "Yes," I said. "It's poor stuff, I see. But I 
 didn't know it was so bad when I wrote it ; I 
 thought I was making the best of a poor subject 
 rather ingeniously. 1 am afraid I am rather stupid." 
 
 "If I thought you really felt like that,'' said 
 Father Payne, "I should be sorry for you. But I 
 expect it is only your idea of modesty ? " 
 
 "No," 1 said/ "it isn't modesty it's humility, 
 I think." 
 
 "No one has any business to think himself 
 humble," said Father Payne. "The moment you
 
 OF MEEKNESS 167 
 
 do that, you are conceited. It's not a virtue to 
 grovel. A man ought to know exactly what he is 
 worth. You needn't be always saying what you are 
 worth, of course. It's modest to hold your tongue. 
 But humility is, or ought to be, extinct as a virtue. 
 It belongs to the time when people felt bound to 
 deplore the corruption of their heart, and to speak 
 of themselves as worms, and to compare themselves 
 despondently with God. That in itself is a piece of 
 insolence ; and it isn't a wholesome frame of mind 
 to dwell on one's worthlessness, and to speak of 
 one's righteousness as filthy rags. It removes 
 every stimulus to effort. If you really feel like that, 
 you had better take to your bed permanently you 
 will do less harm there than pretending to do work 
 in the value of which you don't believe." 
 
 " But what is the word for the feeling which one 
 has when one reads a really splendid book, let us 
 say, or hears a perfect piece of music ? " I said. 
 
 " Well, it ought to be gratitude and admiration," 
 said Father Payne. "Why mix yourself up with 
 it at all?" 
 
 "Because I can't help it," I said; "I think of 
 the way in which I muddle on with my writing, 
 and I feel how hopeless I am." 
 
 " That's all wrong, my boy," said Father Payne ; 
 " you ought to say to yourself ' So that is his 
 way of putting things and, by Jove, it's superb. 
 Now I've got to find my way of putting things ! ' 
 You had better go and work in the fields like an 
 honest man, if you don't feel you have got anything 
 to say worth saying. You have your own point 
 of view, you know : try and get it down on paper. 
 It isn't exactly the same as, let us say, Shakespeare's
 
 168 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 point of view : but if you feel that he has seen 
 everything worth seeing, and said everything worth 
 saying, then, of course, it is no good going on. But 
 that is pure grovelling ; no lively person ever does 
 feel that he says, ' Hang it, he has left some things 
 out ! ' After all, everyone has a right to his point 
 of view, and if it can be expressed, why, it is worth 
 expressing. We want all the sidelights we can get." 
 
 " That's one comfort ! " I said. 
 
 "Yes," said Father Payne, "but you know 
 perfectly well that you knew it before I told you. 
 Why be so undignified ? You need not want to 
 astonish or amuse the whole civilised world. You 
 probably won't do that ; but you can fit a bit of 
 the mosaic in, if you have it in you. Now look 
 you here ! I know exactly what I am worth. I 
 can't write though I think I can when I'm at it 
 but I can perceive, and see when a thing is amiss, 
 and lay my finger on a fault ; I can be of some use 
 to a fellow like yourself and I can manage an estate 
 in my own way, and I can keep my tenants' spirits 
 up. I have got a perfectly definite use in the world, 
 and I'm going to play my part for all that I'm 
 worth. I'm not going to pretend that I am a worm 
 or an outcast I don't feel one ; and I am as sure 
 as I can be of anything, that God does not wish me 
 to feel one. He needs me ; He can't get on without 
 me just here ; and when He can, He will say the 
 word. 1 don't think I am of any far-reaching 
 significance : but neither am I going to say that 
 I am nothing but vile earth and a miserable sinner. 
 I'm lazy, I'm cross, I'm unkind, I'm greedy: but 
 I know when I am wasting time and temper, and 
 I don't do it all the time. It's no use being abject.
 
 OF MEEKNESS 169 
 
 The mistake is to go about comparing yourself 
 with other people and weighing yourself against 
 them. The right thing to do is to be able to re- 
 cognise generously and desirously when you see 
 anyone doing something finely which you do badly, 
 and to say, ' Come, that's the right way ! I must 
 do better.' But to be humble is to be grubby, 
 because it makes one proud, in a nasty sort of way, 
 of doing things badly. ' What a poor creature I 
 am,' says the humble man, 'and how nice to 
 know that I am so poor a creature ; how noble and 
 unworldly I am.' The mistake is to want to do 
 a thing better than Smith or Jones : the right way 
 is to want to do it better than yourself." 
 
 "Yes," I said, "that's perfectly true, Father: 
 and I won't be such a fool again." 
 
 " You haven't been a fool, so far as I am aware," 
 said Father Payne. " It is only that you are just a 
 thought too polite. You mustn't be polite in mind, 
 you know only in manners. Politeness only con- 
 sists in not saying all you think unless you are 
 asked. But humility consists in trying to believe 
 that you think less than you think. It's like hold- 
 ing your nose, and saying that the bad smell has 
 gone it is playing tricks with your mind : and if 
 you get into the way of doing that, you will find 
 that your mind has a nasty way of playing tricks 
 upon you. Here ! hold on ! I am rapidly be- 
 coming like Chadband ! Send me Vincent, will 
 you there's a good man ? He comes next."
 
 170 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 XXXIV 
 
 OF CRITICISM 
 
 FATHER PAYNE had told me that my writing was 
 becoming too juicy and too highly-scented. " You 
 mustn't hide the underlying form," he said ; " have 
 plenty of plain spaces. This sort of writing is only 
 for readers who want to be vaguely soothed and 
 made to feel comfortable by a book it's a stimu- 
 lant, it's not a food ! " 
 
 " Yes," I said with a sigh, " I suppose you are 
 right." 
 
 "Up to a certain point, I am right," he replied, 
 " because you are in training at present and people 
 in training have to do abnormal things : you can't 
 live as if you were in training, of course ; but when 
 you begin to work on your own account, you must 
 find your own pace and your own manner : and even 
 now you needn't agree with me unless you like." 
 
 I determined, however, that I would give him 
 something very different next time. He suggested 
 that I should write an essay on a certain writer of 
 fiction. I read the novels with great care, and I 
 then produced the driest and most technical criti- 
 cism I could. I read it aloud to Father Payne a 
 month later. He heard it in silence, stroking his 
 beard with his left hand, as his manner was. "When 
 I had finished, he said : " Well, you have taken my 
 advice with a vengeance ; and as an exercise indeed, 
 as a tour-de-force it is good. I didn't think you 
 had it in you to produce such a bit of anatomy. I 
 think it's simply the most uninteresting essay I ever
 
 OF CRITICISM 171 
 
 heard in my life chip, chip, chip, the whole time. 
 It won't do you any harm to have written it, but, 
 of course, it's a mere caricature. No conceivable 
 reason could be assigned for your writing it. It's 
 like the burial of the dead ashes to ashes, dust 
 to dust ! " 
 
 "I admit," I said, "that I did it on purpose, to 
 show you how judicious I could be." 
 
 "Oh yes," he said, "I quite realise that and 
 that's why I admire it. If you had produced it 
 as a real thing, and not by way of reprisal, I should 
 think very ill of your prospects. It's like the work 
 of an analytical chemist I tell you what it's like, 
 it's like the diagnosis of the symptoms of some sick 
 person of rank in a doctor's case-book ! But, of 
 course, you know you mustn't write like that, as 
 well as I do. There must be some motive for 
 writing, some touch of admiration and sympathy, 
 something you can show to other people which 
 might escape them, and which is worth while for 
 them to see. In writing at present, at all events 
 one can't be so desperately scientific and technical 
 as all that. I suppose that some day, when we treat 
 human thought and psychology scientifically, we 
 shall have to dissect like that ; but even so, it will 
 be in the interests of science, not in the interests 
 of literature. One must not confuse the two, and 
 no doubt, when we begin to analyse the develop- 
 ment of human thought, its heredity, its genesis 
 and growth, w r e shall have a Shelley-culture in a 
 test-tube, and we shall be able to isolate a Browning- 
 germ : but we haven't got there yet." 
 
 "In that case," I said, "I don't really see what 
 was so wrong with my last essay."
 
 172 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 "Why, it was a mere extemporisation," said 
 Father Payne ; "a phrase suggested a phrase, a 
 word evoked a lot of other words there was no 
 real connection of thought. It was pretty enough, 
 but you were not even roving from one place to 
 another, you were just drifting with the stream. 
 Now this last essay is purely business-like. You 
 have analysed the points but there's no beauty 
 or pleasure in it. It is simply what an engineer 
 might say to an engineer about the building of a 
 bridge. Mind, I am not finding fault with your 
 essay. You did what you set out to do, and you 
 have done it well. I only say there is not any con- 
 ceivable reason why it should have been written, 
 and there is every conceivable reason why it should 
 not be read." 
 
 "It was just an attempt," I said, "to see the 
 points and to disentangle them." 
 
 "Yes, yes," said Father Payne; "I see that, 
 and I give you full credit for it. But, after all, you 
 must look on writing as a species of human communi- 
 cation. The one reason for writing is that the writer 
 sees something which other people overlook, perceives 
 the beauty and interest of it, gets behind it, sees 
 the quality of it, and how it differs from other 
 similar things. If the writer is worth anything, his 
 subject must be so interesting or curious or beauti- 
 ful to himself that he can't help setting it down. 
 The motive of it all must be the fact that he is 
 interested not the hope of interesting other people. 
 You must risk that, though the more you are inter- 
 ested, the better is your chance of interesting others. 
 Then the next point is that things mustn't be pre- 
 sented in a cold and abstract light you have done
 
 OF CRITICISM 173 
 
 that here it must be done as you see it, not as a 
 photographic plate records it : and that is where 
 the personality of the artist comes in, -and where 
 writers are handicapped, according as they have or 
 have not a personal charm. That is the unsolved 
 mystery of writing the personal charm : apart 
 from that there is little in it. A man may see a 
 thing with hideous distinctness, but he may not be 
 able to invest it with charm : and the danger of 
 charm is that some people can invest very shallow, 
 muddled, and shabby thinking with a sort of charm. 
 It is like a cloak, if I may say so. If I wear an old 
 cloak, it looks shabby and disgraceful, as it is. But 
 if I lend it to a shapely and well-made friend, it 
 gets a beauty from the wearer. There are men I 
 know who can tell me a story as old as the hills, 
 and yet make it fresh and attractive. Look at that 
 delicious farrago of nonsense and absurdity, Rus- 
 kin's Fors Clavigera. He crammed in anything 
 that came into his head his reminiscences, scraps 
 out of old dreary books he had read, paragraphs 
 snipped out of the papers. There's no order, no 
 sequence about it, and yet it is irresistible. But 
 then Ruskin had the charm, and managed to pour 
 it into all that he wrote. He is always there, that 
 whimsical, generous, perverse, affectionate, afflicted, 
 pathetic creature, even in the smallest scrap of a letter 
 or the dreariest old tag of quotation. But you and I 
 can't play tricks like that. You are sometimes there, 
 I confess, in what you write, while I am never there 
 in anything that I write. What I want to teach you 
 to do is to be really yourself in all that you write." 
 " But isn't it apt to be very tiresome," said I, "if 
 the writer is always obtruding himself ? "
 
 174 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 " Yes, if he obtrudes himself, of course he is 
 tiresome, ' ' said Father Payne. " But look at Ruskin 
 again. I imagine, from all that I read about him, 
 that if he was present at a gathering, he was the one 
 person whom everyone wanted to hear. If he was 
 sulky or silent, it was everyone's concern to smoothe 
 him down if only he would talk. "What you must 
 learn to do is to give exactly as much of yourself 
 as people want. But it must be a transfusion of 
 yourself, not a presentment. I don't imagine that 
 Ruskin always talked about himself he talked 
 about what interested him, and because he saw five 
 times as much as anyone else saw in a picture, and 
 about three times as much as was ever there, it was 
 fascinating : but the primary charm was in Ruskin 
 himself. Don't you know the curious delight of 
 seeing a house once inhabited by anyone whom 
 one has much admired and loved ? However dull 
 and commonplace it is, you keep on saying to your- 
 self, ' That was what his eyes rested on, those were 
 the books he handled ; how could he bear to have 
 such curtains, how could he endure that wall- 
 paper ? ' The most hideous things become inter- 
 esting, because he tolerated them. In writing, 
 all depends upon how much of what is inter- 
 esting, original, emphatic, charming in yourself 
 you can communicate to what you are writing. It 
 has got to live ; that is the secret of the common- 
 place and even absurd books which reviewers treat 
 with contempt, and readers buy in thousands. They 
 have life ! " 
 
 " But that is very far from being art, isn't it ? " 
 I said. 
 
 " Of course ! " said Father Payne, " but the use
 
 OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY 175 
 
 of art, as I understand it, is just that that all you 
 present shall have life, and that you should learn 
 not to present what has not got life. Why I ob- 
 jected to your last essay was because you were not 
 alive in it : you were just echoing and repeating 
 things : you seemed to me to be talking in your 
 sleep. Why I object to this essay is that you are 
 too wide awake you are just talking shop." 
 
 " I confess I rather despair," I said. 
 
 " What rubbish !" said Father Payne ; "all I 
 want you to do is to live in your ideas make them 
 your own, don't just slop them down without 
 having understood or felt them. I'll tell you what 
 you shall do next. You shall just put aside all this 
 dreary collection of formulae and scalpel- work, and 
 you shall write me an essay on the whole subject, 
 saying the best that you feel about it all, not the 
 worst that a stiff intelligence can extract from it. 
 Don't be pettish about it ! I assure you I respect 
 your talent very much. I didn't think it was in 
 you to produce anything so loathsomely judicious." 
 
 XXXV 
 
 OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY 
 
 THERE had been some vague ethical discussion 
 during dinner in which Father Payne had not inter- 
 vened ; but he suddenly joined in briskly, though 
 I don't remember who or what struck the spark 
 out. " You are running logic too hard," he said ; 
 " the difficulty with all morality is not to know where 
 it is to begin, but where it is to stop."
 
 176 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 "I didn't know it had to stop," said Vincent ; 
 " I thought it had to go on." 
 
 " Yes, but not as morality," said Father Payne ; 
 " as instinct and feeling only very elementary 
 people indeed obey rules, because they are rules. 
 The righteous man obeys them because on the whole 
 he agrees with them." 
 
 " But in one sense it isn't possible to be too 
 good ? " said Vincent. 
 
 "No," said Father Payne, "not if you are sure 
 what good is but it is quite easy to be too righteous, 
 to have too many rules and scruples not to live 
 your own life at all, but an anxious, timid, broken- 
 winged sort of life, like some of the fearful saints in 
 the Pilgrim's Progress, who got no fun out of the 
 business at all. Don't you remember what Mr. 
 Feeblemind says ? I can't quote it's a glorious 
 passage." 
 
 Barthrop slipped out and fetched a Pilgrim's 
 Progress, which he put over Father Payne's shoulder. 
 " Thank you, old man," said Father Payne, " that's 
 very kind of you that is morality translated into 
 feeling ! " 
 
 He turned over the pages, and read the bit in his 
 resonant voice : 
 
 " ' I am, as I said, a man of a weak and feeble 
 mind, and shall be offended and made weak at that 
 which others can bear. I shall like no Laughing : 
 I shall like no gay Attire : I shall like no unprofit- 
 able Questions. Nay, I am so weak a man, as to be 
 offended with that which others have a liberty to do. 
 I do not know all the truth : I am a very ignorant 
 Christian man ; sometimes, if I hear some rejoice in 
 the Lord, it troubles me, because I cannot do so too.' "
 
 OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY 177 
 
 "There," he said, "that's very good writing, 
 you know full of freshness but you are not meant 
 to admire the poor soul : that's not the way to go 
 on pilgrimage ! There is something wrong with a 
 man's religion, if it leaves him in that state. I 
 don't mean that to be happy is always a sign of 
 grace it often is simply a lack of sympathy and 
 imagination ; but to be as good as Mr. Feeblemind, 
 and at the same time as unhappy, is a clear sign 
 that something is wrong. He is like a dog that 
 will try to get through a narrow gap with a stick in 
 his mouth he can't make out why he can't do his 
 duty and bring the stick it catches on both sides, 
 and won't let him through. He knows it is his 
 business to bring the thing back at once, but he is 
 prevented in some mysterious way. It doesn't 
 occur to him to put the stick down, get through 
 himself, and then pull it through by the end. That 
 is why our duty is often so hard, because we think 
 we ought to do it simply and directly, when it really 
 wants a little adjusting we regard the momentary 
 precept, not the ultimate principle." 
 
 " But what is to tell us where to draw the line," 
 said Vincent, " and when to disregard the precept ? " 
 
 "Ah," said Father Payne, "that's my great dis- 
 covery, which no one else will ever recognise that 
 is where the sense of beauty comes in ! " 
 
 "I don't see that the sense of beauty has any- 
 thing to do with morality," said Vincent. 
 
 "Ah, but that is because you are at heart a 
 Puritan," said Father Payne ; " and the mistake of 
 all Puritans is to disregard the sense of beauty all 
 the really great saints have felt about morality as 
 an artist feels about beauty. They don't do good 
 
 M
 
 178 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 things because they are told to do them, but because 
 they feel them to be beautiful, splendid, attractive ; 
 and they avoid having anything to do with evil 
 things, because such things are ugly and repellent." 
 
 " But when you have to do a thoroughly dis- 
 agreeable thing," said Vincent, "there often isn't 
 anything beautiful about it either way. I '11 give you 
 a small instance. Some months ago I had been 
 engaged for a fortnight to go to a thoroughly dull 
 dinner-party with some dreary relations of mine, 
 and a man asked me to come and dine at his 
 club and meet George Meredith, whom I would 
 have given simply anything to meet. Of course I 
 couldn't do it I had to go on with the other thing. 
 I had to do what I hated, without the smallest hope 
 of being anything but fearfully bored : and I had 
 to give up doing what would have interested me 
 more than anything in the world. Of course, that 
 is only a small instance, but it will suffice." 
 
 "It all depends on how you behaved at your 
 dinner-party when you got there," said Father 
 Payne, smiling ; " were you sulky and cross, or 
 were you civil and decent ? ' ' 
 
 " I don't know," said Vincent ; "I expect I was 
 pretty much as usual. After all, it wasn't their 
 fault ! " 
 
 " You are all right, my boy," said Father Payne ; 
 "you have got the sense of beauty right enough, 
 though you probably call it by some uncomfortable 
 name. I won't make you blush by praising you, 
 but I give you a good mark for the whole affair. 
 If you had excused yourself, or asked to be let off, 
 or told a lie, it would have been ugly. "What you 
 did was in the best taste : and that is what I mean.
 
 OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY 179 
 
 The ugly thing is to clutch and hold on. You did 
 more for yourself by being polite and honest than 
 even George Meredith could have done for you. 
 What I mean by the sense of beauty, as applied to 
 morality, is that a man must be a gentleman first, 
 and a moralist afterwards, if he can. It is grab- 
 bing at your own sense of righteousness, if you use 
 it to hurt other people. Your own complacency 
 of conscience is not as important as the duty of 
 not making other people uncomfortable. Of course 
 there are occasions when it is right to stand up to 
 a moral bully, and then you may go for him for all 
 you are worth : but these cases are rare ; and what 
 you must not do is to get into the way of a sort of 
 moral skirmishing. In ordinary life, people draw 
 their lines in slightly different places according to 
 preference : you must allow for temperament. 
 You mustn't interfere with other people's codes, 
 unless you are prepared to be interfered with. It 
 is impossible to be severely logical. Take a thing 
 like the use of money : it is good to be generous, 
 but you mustn't give away what you can't afford, 
 because then your friends have to pay your bills. 
 What everyone needs is something to tell him when 
 he must begin practising a virtue, and when to stop 
 practising it. You may say that common sense 
 does that. Well, I don't think it does ! I know 
 sensible people who do very brutal things : there must 
 be something finer than common sense : it must 
 be a mixture of sense and sympathy and imagina- 
 tion, and delicacy and humour and tact and I 
 can't find a better way of expressing it than to call 
 it a sense of beauty, a faculty of judging, in a fine, 
 sweet-tempered, gentle, quiet way, with a sort of
 
 i8o FATHER PAYNE 
 
 instinctive prescience as to where the ripples of 
 what you do and say will spread to, and what sort 
 of effect they will produce. That's the right sort 
 of virtue attractive virtue which makes other 
 people wish to behave likewise. I don't say that 
 a man who lives like that can avoid suffering : he 
 suffers a good deal, because he sees ugly things 
 going on all about him ; but he doesn't cause 
 suffering unless he intends to and even so he 
 doesn't like doing it. He is never spiteful or 
 jealous. He often makes mistakes, but he recog- 
 nises them. He doesn't erect barriers between 
 himself and other people. He isn't always exactly 
 popular, because many people hate superiority 
 whenever they see it : but he is trusted and loved 
 and even taken advantage of, because he doesn't 
 go in for reprisals." 
 
 " But if you haven't got this sense of beauty," 
 said Vincent, "how are you to get it ? " 
 
 " By admiring it," said Father Payne. " I don't 
 say that the people who have got it are conscious 
 of it in fact they are generally quite unconscious 
 of it. Do you remember what Shelley who was, I 
 think, one of the people who had the sense of beauty 
 as strongly as anyone who ever lived what he said 
 to Hogg, when Hogg told him how he had shut up an 
 impertinent young ruffian ? ' I wish I could be as 
 exclusive as you are,' said Shelley with a sigh, 
 feeling, no doubt, a sense of real failure ' but I 
 cannot ! ' Shelley's weakness was a much finer 
 thing than Hogg's strength. I don't say that 
 Shelley was perfect : his imagination ran away 
 with him to an extent that may be called untruthful ; 
 he idealised people, and then threw them over when
 
 OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY 181 
 
 he discovered them to be futile ; but that is the 
 right kind of mistake to make : the wrong kind of 
 mistake is to see people too clearly, and to take for 
 granted that they are not as delightful as they seem." 
 
 " You mean that if one must choose," said Vin- 
 cent, " it is better to be a fool than a knave." 
 
 " Why, of course," said Father Payne ; " but 
 don't call it ' a fool ' call it ' a child ' : that's the 
 kind of beauty I mean, the unsuspicious, guileless, 
 trustful, affectionate temper that to begin with : 
 and you must learn, as you go on, a quality which 
 the child has not always got a sense of humour. 
 That is what experience ought to give you a 
 power, that is, of seeing what is really there, and 
 of being more amused than shocked by it. That 
 helps you to distinguish real knavishness from 
 childish faults. A great many of the absurd, per- 
 verse, unkind, unpleasant things which people do 
 are not knavish at all they are silly, selfish little 
 diplomacies, guileless obedience to conventions, 
 unreasonable deference to imaginary authority. 
 People don't mean any harm by such tricks they 
 are the subterfuges of weakness : but when you 
 come upon real cynical deliberate knavishness 
 that is different. There's nothing amusing about 
 that. But you must be indulgent to weakness, 
 and only severe with strength." 
 
 "I'm getting a little confused," said Vincent. 
 
 " Not as much as I am," said Father Payne ; " I 
 don't know where I have got to, I am sure. I 
 seem to have changed hares ! But one thing does 
 emerge, and that is, that a sort of inspired good taste 
 is the only thing which can regulate morals. The 
 root of all morals is ultimately beauty. "Why are
 
 182 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 we not all as greedy and dirty as the old cave-men ? 
 For the simple reason that something, for which 
 he was not responsible, began to work in the cave- 
 man's mind. He said to himself, ' This is not the 
 way to behave : it would be nicer not to have killed 
 Mary when I was angry.' And then, when that im- 
 pulse is once started, human beings go too fast, and 
 want to carry out their new discoveries of rules and 
 principles too far : and you must have a regulating 
 force : and if you can find a better force than the 
 instinct for what is beautiful, tell me, and I'll under- 
 take to talk for at least as long about it. I must 
 stop ! My sense of beauty warns me that I am 
 becoming a bore." 
 
 XXXVI 
 
 OF BIOGRAPHY 
 
 FATHER PAYNE broke out suddenly after dinner to 
 two or three of us about a book he had been reading. 
 
 "It's called a Life," he said, "at the top of 
 every page almost. I don't wonder the author 
 felt it necessary to remind you or perhaps he was 
 reminding himself? I can see him," said Father 
 Payne, " saying to himself with a rueful expression, 
 ' This is a Life, undoubtedly ! ' Why, the wax- 
 works of Madame Tussaud are models of vivacity 
 and agility compared to it. I never set eyes on 
 such a book ! ' ' 
 
 " Why on earth did you go on reading it ? " said I. 
 
 "Well may you ask!" said Father Payne. 
 " It's one of my weaknesses ; if I begin a book, 
 I can put it down if it is moderately good ; but
 
 OF BIOGRAPHY 183 
 
 if it is either very good or very bad, I can't get 
 out of it I feel like a wasp in a honey-pot. I make 
 faint sticky motions of flight but on I go." 
 
 "Whose life was it ? " I said, laughing. 
 
 "I hardly know," said Father Payne. "It 
 leaves on my mind the impression of his having 
 been a decent old party enough. I think he must 
 have been a general merchant he seems to have 
 had pretty nearly everything on hand. He wrote 
 books, I gather"; and Father Payne groaned. 
 
 "What were they about ? " I said. 
 
 "I don't know, I'm sure," said Father Payne. 
 " History and stuff literary essays, and people's 
 influence, perhaps. He went in for accounting 
 for things, I fancy, and explaining things away. 
 There were extracts which alienated my attention 
 faster than any extracts I ever read. I could not 
 keep my mind on them. God preserve me from 
 ever falling in with any of his books ; I should 
 spend days in reading them ! He travelled too 
 he was always travelling. Why couldn't he leave 
 Europe alone ? He has left his trail all over Europe, 
 like a snail. He has denied all the finest scenery 
 on the Continent. But, by Jove, he met his match 
 in his biographer ; he has been accounted for all 
 right. And yet I feel that it was rather hard on 
 him. If he could have held his tongue about 
 things in general, and if his biographer could have 
 held his tongue about him, it would have been 
 all right. He did no harm, so far as I can make 
 out he was honest and upright ; he would have 
 done very well as a trustee." 
 
 Father Payne stopped, and looked round with 
 a melancholy air. "I have gathered," he said,
 
 184 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 " after several hours' reading, three interesting 
 facts about him. The first is that he wore rather 
 loud checks I liked that I detected a touch of 
 vanity in that. The second is that he was fond 
 of quoting poetry, and the moment he did so, his 
 voice became wholly inaudible from emotion 
 that's a good touch. And the third is that, if he had 
 a guest staying with him, he used to talk con- 
 tinuously in the smoking-room, light his candle, 
 go on talking, walk away talking by Jove, I can 
 hear him doing it all up the stairs, along the passage 
 to his bedroom talk, talk, talk in they went then 
 he used to begin to undress no escape I can hear 
 his voice muffled as he pulled off his shirt off went 
 his socks talking still then he would actually get 
 into bed more, explanations, more quotations. 
 I wonder how the guest got away ; that isn't re- 
 lated in the intervals of an inaudible quotation, 
 perhaps ? What do you think ? " 
 
 We exploded in laughter, in which Father Payne 
 joined. Then he said : " But look here, you know, 
 it's not really a joke it's horribly serious ! A man 
 ought really to be prosecuted for writing such a 
 book. That is the worst of English people, that 
 they have no idea who deserves a biography and 
 who does not. It isn't enough to be a rich man, 
 or a public man, or a man of virtue. No one ought 
 to be written about, simply because he has done 
 things. He must be content with that. No one 
 should have a biography unless he was either 
 beautiful or picturesque or absurd, just as no one 
 should have a portrait painted unless he is one of 
 the three. Now this poor fellow I daresay there 
 were people who loved him think what their
 
 OF BIOGRAPHY 185 
 
 feelings must be at seeing him stuffed and set up 
 like this ! A biography must be a work of art 
 it ought not to be a post-dated testimonial ! Most 
 of us are only fit, when we have finished our work, 
 to go straight into the waste-paper basket. The 
 people who deserve biographies are the vivid, rich, 
 animated natures who lived life with zest and 
 interest. There are a good many such men, who can 
 say vigorous, shrewd, lively, fresh things in talk, 
 but who cannot express themselves in writing. 
 The curse of most biographies is the letters ; not 
 many people can write good letters, and yet it 
 becomes a sacred duty to pad a Life out with dull 
 and stodgy documents ; it is all so utterly inartis- 
 tic and decorous and stupid. A biography ought 
 to be well seasoned with faults and foibles. That 
 is the one encouraging thing about life, that a man 
 can have plenty of failings and still make a fine 
 business out of it all. Yet it is regarded as almost 
 treacherous to hint at imperfections. Now if I 
 had had our friend the general merchant to bio- 
 graphise, I would have taken careful notes of his 
 talk while undressing there's something pictur- 
 esque about that ! I would have told how he spent 
 his day, how he looked and moved, ate and drank. 
 A real portrait of an uninteresting man might be 
 quite a treasure." 
 
 "Yes, but you know it wouldn't do," said Bar- 
 throp ; ' ' his friends would be out at you like a 
 swarm of wasps." 
 
 " Oh, I know that," said Father Payne. "It is 
 all this infernal sentimentality which spoils every- 
 thing ; as long as we think of the dead as elderly 
 angels hovering over us v/hile we pray, there is
 
 i86 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 nothing to be done. If we really believe that we 
 migrate out of life into an atmosphere of mild piety, 
 and lose all our individuality at once, then, of course, 
 the less said the better. As long as we hold that, 
 then death must remain as the worst of cata- 
 strophes for everyone concerned. The result of it 
 all is that a bad biography is the worst of books, 
 because it quenches our interest in life, and makes 
 life insupportably dull. The first point is that the 
 biographer is infinitely more important than his 
 subject. Look what an enchanting book Carlyle 
 made out of the Life of Sterling. Sterling was a 
 man of real charm who could only talk. He couldn't 
 write a line. His writings are pitiful. Carlyle put 
 them all aside with a delicious irony ; and yet he 
 managed to depict a swift, restless, delicate, radiant 
 creature, whom one loves and admires. It is one 
 of the loveliest books ever written. But, on the 
 other hand, there are hundreds of fine creatures 
 who have been hopelessly buried for ever and ever 
 under their biographies the sepulchre made sure, 
 the stone sealed, and the watch set." 
 
 " But there are some good biographies ? " said 
 Barthrop. 
 
 "About a dozen," said Father Payne. "I 
 won't give a list of them, or I should become like 
 our friend the merchant. I feel it coming on, by 
 Jove I feel like accounting for things and talking 
 you all up to my bedroom." 
 
 " But what can be done about it all ? " I said. 
 
 " Nothing whatever, my boy," said Father Payne ; 
 " as long as people are not really interested in life, 
 but in money and committees, there is nothing to be 
 done. And as long as they hold things sacred,
 
 OF POSSESSIONS 187 
 
 which means a strong dislike of the plain truth, it's 
 hopeless. If a man is prepared to write a really 
 veracious biography, he must also be prepared to 
 fly for his life and to change his name. Public 
 opinion is for sentiment and against truth ; and you 
 must change public opinion. But, oh dear me, 
 when I think of the fascination of real personality, 
 and the waste of good material, and the careful 
 way in which the pious biographer strains out all 
 the meat and leaves nothing but a thin and watery 
 decoction, I could weep over the futility of mankind. 
 The dread of being interesting or natural, the adora- 
 tion of pomposity and full dress, the sickening love 
 of romance, the hatred of reality oh, it's a deplor- 
 able world ! " 
 
 XXXVII 
 
 OF POSSESSIONS 
 
 " I WONDER," said Father Payne one day at dinner, 
 " whether any nation's proverbs are such a disgrace 
 to them as our national proverbs are to us. Ours 
 are horribly Anglo-Saxon and characteristic. They 
 seem to me to have been all invented by a shrewd, 
 selfish, complacent, suspicious old farmer, in a very 
 small way of business, determined that he will not 
 be over-reached, and equally determined, too, that 
 he will take full advantage of the weakness of others. 
 * Charity begins at home,' ' Possession is nine points 
 of the law,' ' Don't count your chickens before they 
 are hatched,' ' When poverty comes in at the door, 
 love flies out of the window.' They are all equally 
 disgraceful. They deride all emotion, they despise
 
 i88 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 imagination, they are unutterably low and hard, 
 and what is called sensible ; they are frankly un- 
 christian as well as ungentlemanly. No wonder 
 we are called a nation of shopkeepers." 
 
 " But aren't we a great deal better than our pro- 
 verbs ?" said Barthrop : "do they really express 
 anything more than a contempt for weakness and 
 sentiment ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Father Payne, " but I don't like them 
 any better for that. \\hy should we be ashamed 
 of all our better feelings ? I admit that we have a 
 sense of justice ; but that only means that we care 
 for material possessions so much that we are afraid 
 not to admit that others have the right to do the 
 same. The real obstacle to socialism in England is 
 the sense of sanctity about a man's savings. The 
 moment that a man has saved a few pounds, he 
 agrees to any legislation that allows him to hold on 
 to them." 
 
 " But aren't we, behind all that," said Barthrop, 
 "an intensely sentimental nation? " 
 
 "Yes," said Father Payne, "but that's a fault 
 really we don't believe in real justice, only in 
 picturesque justice. We are hopeless individual- 
 ists. We melt into tears over a child that is lost, 
 or a dog that howls ; and we let all sorts of evil 
 systems and arrangements grow and flourish. We 
 can't think algebraically, only arithmetically. We 
 can be kind to a single case of hardship ; we can't 
 take in a widespread system of oppression. W T e are 
 improving somewhat ; but it is always the particular 
 case that affects us, and not the general principle." 
 
 "But to go back to our sense of possession," 
 I said, " is that really much more than a matter
 
 OF POSSESSIONS 189 
 
 of climate ? Does it mean more than this, that 
 we, in a temperate climate inclining to cold, need 
 more elaborate houses and more heat-producing 
 food than nations who live in warmer climates ? 
 Are not the nations who live in warmer climates 
 less attached to material things simply because 
 they are less important ? " 
 
 "There is something in that, no doubt," said 
 Father Payne. " Of course, where nature is more 
 hostile to life, men will have to work longer hours 
 to support life than where ' the spicy breezes blow 
 soft o'er Ceylon's isle.' But it isn't that of which 
 I complain it is the awful sense of respectability 
 attaching to possessions, the hideous way in which 
 we fill our houses with things which we do not want 
 or use, just because they are a symbol of respec- 
 tability. We like hoarding, and we like luxuries, 
 not because we enjoy them, but because we like 
 other people to know that we can pay for them. 
 I do not imagine that there is any nation in the 
 world whose hospitality differs so much from the 
 mode in which pc ople actually live as ours does. In 
 a sensible society, if we wanted to see our friends, 
 we should ask them to bring their cold mutton 
 round, and have a picnic. What we do actually do 
 is to have a meal which we can't afford, and which 
 our guests know is not in the least like our ordinary 
 meals ; and then we expect to be asked back to 
 a similarly ostentatious banquet." 
 
 "But isn't there something," said Barthrop, 
 "in Dr. Johnson's dictum, that a meal was good 
 enough to eat, but not good enough to ask a man 
 to ? Isn't it a good impulse to put your best before 
 a guest ? "
 
 190 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 " Oh, no doubt," said Father Payne, " but there's 
 a want of simplicity about it if you only want to 
 entertain people in order that they may see you 
 do it, and not because you want to see them. It's 
 vulgar, somehow that's what I suspect our nation 
 of being. Our inability to speak frankly of money 
 is another sign. We do money too much honour 
 by being so reticent about it. The fact is that it 
 is the one sacred subject among us. People are 
 reticent about religion and books and art, because 
 they are not sure that other people are interested 
 in them. But they are reticent about money as 
 a matter of duty, because they are sure that every- 
 one is deeply interested. People talk about money 
 with nods and winks and hints those are all the 
 signs of a sacred mystery ! " 
 
 "Well, I wonder," said Barthrop, "whether we 
 are as base as you seem to think ! " 
 
 "I will tell you when I will change my mind," 
 said Father Payne ; "all the talk of noble aims and 
 strong purposes will not deceive me. What would 
 convert me would be if I saw generous giving a 
 custom so common that it hardly excited remark. 
 You see a few generous wills but even then a will 
 which leaves money to public purposes is generally 
 commented upon ; and it almost always means, 
 too, if you look into it, that a man has had no near 
 relations, and that he has stuck to his money and 
 the power it gives him during his life. If I could 
 see a few cases of men impoverishing themselves 
 and their families in their lifetime for public objects ; 
 if I saw evidence of men who have heaped up wealth 
 content to let their children start again in the race, 
 and determined to support the State rather than
 
 OF LONELINESS 191 
 
 the family ; if I could hear of a rich man's children 
 beseeching their father to endow the State rather 
 than themselves, and being ready to work for a 
 livelihood rather than to receive an inherited 
 fortune ; if I could hear of a few rich men living 
 simply and handing out their money for general 
 purposes, then I would believe ! But none of these 
 things is anything but a rare exception ; a man 
 who gives away his fortune, as Ruskin did, in great 
 handfuls, is generally thought to be slightly crazy ; 
 and, speaking frankly, the worth of a man seems 
 to depend not upon what he has given to the world, 
 but upon what he has gained from the world. You 
 may say it is a rough test ; so it is ! But when 
 we begin to feel that a man is foolish in hoarding 
 and wise in lavishing, instead of being foolish in 
 lavishing and wise in hoarding, then, and not till 
 then, shall I believe that we are a truly great nation. 
 At present the man whom we honour most is the man 
 who has been generous to public necessities, and 
 has yet retained a large fortune for himself. That 
 is the combination which we are not ashamed to 
 admire." 
 
 XXXVIII 
 
 OF LONELINESS 
 
 WE were walking together, Father Payne and I. 
 It was in the early summer a still, hot day. The 
 place, as I remember it, was very beautiful. We 
 crossed the stream by a little foot-bridge, and took 
 a bypath across the meadows ; up the slope you 
 came to a beautiful bit of old forest country, the
 
 IQ2 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 trees of all ages, some of them very ancient ; there 
 were open glades running into the heart of the 
 woodland, with thorn thickets and stretches of 
 bracken. Hidden away in the depth of the woods, 
 and approached only by green rides, were the ruins 
 of what must have been a big old Jacobean mansion ; 
 but nothing remained of it except some grassy 
 terraces, a bit of a fine fa?ade of stone with empty 
 windows, half-hidden in ivy, and some tall stone 
 chimney-stacks. The forest lay silent and still ; 
 and, along one of the branching rides, you could 
 discern far away a glimpse of blue hills. The 
 scene was so entirely beautiful that we had gradu- 
 ally ceased to talk, and had given ourselves up to 
 the sweet and quiet influence of the place. 
 
 We stood for awhile upon one of the terraces, 
 looking at the old house, and Father Payne said, 
 " I'm not sure that I approve of the taste for ruins ; 
 there is something to be said for a deserted castle, 
 because it is a reminder that we do not need to 
 safeguard ourselves so much against each others' 
 ill-will ; but a roofless church or a crumbling house 
 there's something sad about them. It seems to 
 me a little like leaving a man unburied in order that 
 we may come and sentimentalise over his bones. 
 It means, this house, the decay of an old centre of 
 life there's nothing evil or cruel about it, as there 
 is about a castle ; and I am not sure that it ought 
 not to be either repaired or removed 
 
 " ' And doorways where a bridegroom trode 
 Stand open to the peering air.' " 
 
 "I don't know," I said; "I'm sure that this 
 is somehow beautiful. Can't one feel that nature
 
 OF LONELINESS 193 
 
 is half-tender, half-indifferent to our broken de- 
 signs ? " 
 
 "Perhaps," said Father Payne, "but I don't 
 like being reminded of death and waste I don't 
 want to think that they can end by being charming 
 the vanity of human wishes is more sad than 
 picturesque. I think Dr. Johnson was right when 
 he said, ' After all, it is a sad thing that a man 
 should lie down and die.' ' 
 
 A little while afterwards he said, " How strange 
 it is that the loneliness of this place should be so 
 delightful! I like my fellow-beings on the whole 
 I don't want to avoid them or to abolish them 
 but yet it is one of the greatest luxuries in the 
 world to find a place where one is pretty sure of 
 not meeting one of them." 
 
 " Yes," I said, "it is very odd! I have been 
 feeling to-day that I should like time to stand still 
 this summer afternoon, and to spend whole days 
 in rambling about here. I won't say," I said with 
 a smile, " that I should prefer to be quite alone ; 
 but I shouldn't mind even that in a place like this. 
 I never feel like that in a big town there is always 
 a sense of hostile currents there. To be alone in 
 a town is always rather melancholy ; but here it 
 is just the reverse." 
 
 " Indeed, yes," said Father Payne, " and it is one 
 of the great mysteries of all to me what we really 
 want with company. It does not actually take away 
 from us our sense of loneliness at all. You can't 
 look into my mind, nor can I look into yours ; what- 
 ever we do or say to break down the veil between 
 us, we can't do it. And I have often been happier 
 when alone than I have ever been in any company."
 
 194 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 "Isn't it a sense of security ? " I said ; "I sup- 
 pose that it is an instinct derived from old savage 
 days which makes us dread other human beings. 
 The further back you go, the more hatred and mis- 
 trust you find ; and I suppose that the presence 
 of a friend, or rather of someone with whom one 
 has a kind of understanding, gives a feeling of com- 
 parative safety against attack." 
 
 " That's it, no doubt," said Father Payne ; " but 
 if I had to choose between spending the rest of my 
 life in solitude, or in spending it without a chance 
 of solitude, I should be in a great difficulty. I 
 am afraid that I regard company rather as a whole- 
 some medicine against the evils of solitude than I 
 regard solitude as a relief from company. After 
 all, what is it that we want with each other ? what 
 do we expect to get from each other ? I remem- 
 ber," he said, smiling, "a witty old lady saying 
 to me once that eternity was a nightmare to her. 
 'For instance,' she said, 'I enjoy sitting here 
 and talking to you very much ; but if I thought 
 it was going on to all eternity, I shouldn't like it 
 at all.' Do we really want the company of any 
 one for ever and ever ? And if so, why ? Do we 
 want to agree or to disagree ? Is the point of it 
 that we want similarity or difference ? Do we 
 want to hear about other people's experiences, or 
 do we simply want to tell our own ? Is the desire, 
 I mean, for congenial company anything more 
 than the pleasure of seeing our own thoughts and 
 ideas reflected in the minds of others ; or is it a real 
 desire to alter our own thoughts and ideas by com- 
 paring them with the experiences of others ? Why 
 do we like books, for instance ? Isn't it more
 
 OF LONELINESS 195 
 
 because we recognise our own feelings than because 
 we make acquaintance with unfamiliar feelings ? 
 It conies to this ? Can we really ever gain an idea, 
 or can we only recognise our own ideas ? " 
 
 "It is very difficult," I said; "if I answered 
 hastily, I should say that I liked being with you 
 because you give me many new ideas ; but if I 
 think about it, it seems to me that it is only because 
 you make me recognise my own thoughts." 
 
 "Yes," said Father Payne, "I think that is so. 
 If I see another man behaving well where I should 
 behave ill, I recognise that I have all the elements 
 in my own mind for doing the same, but that I have 
 given undue weight to some of them and not enough 
 weight to others. I don't think, on the whole, 
 that anyone can give one a new idea ; he can only 
 help one to a sense of proportion. But I want to 
 get deeper than that. You and I are friends at 
 least I think so ; but what exactly do we give each 
 other ? How do you affect my solitude, or I yours ? 
 I'm blessed if I know. It looks to me, indeed, as if 
 you and I might be parts of one great force, one 
 great spirit, and that we recognise our unity, through 
 some material condition which keeps us apart. I 
 am not sure that it isn't only the body that divides 
 us, and that we are a part of the same thing behind 
 it all." 
 
 " But why, if that is so," said I, "do we feel a 
 sense of unity with some people, and not at all with 
 others ? There are people, I mean, with whom I 
 feel that I have simply nothing in common, and that 
 our spirits could not possibly mix or blend. With 
 you, to speak frankly, it is different. I feel as though 
 I had known you far longer than a few months, and
 
 196 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 should never be in any real doubt about you. I 
 recognise myself in you and yourself in me. But 
 there are many people in whom I don't recognise 
 myself at all." 
 
 Father Payne put his arm through mine, "Well, 
 old man," he said, "we must be content to have 
 found each other, but we mustn't give up trying to 
 find other people too. I think that is what civilisa- 
 tion means a mutual recognition we're only just 
 at the start of it, you know. I'm in no doubt as to 
 what you give me it's a sense of trust. When I 
 think about you, I feel, ' Come, there is someone at 
 all events who will try to understand me and to 
 forgive me and to share his best with me ' but even 
 so, my boy, I shall enjoy being alone sometimes. I 
 shall want to get away from everyone, even from 
 you ! There are thoughts I cannot share with you, 
 because I want you to think better of me than I do 
 of myself. I suppose that is vanity but still old 
 Wordsworth was right when he wrote : 
 
 " ' And many love me ; but by none 
 Am I enough beloved.' " 
 
 XXXIX 
 
 OF THE WRITER'S LIFE 
 
 I WAS walking once with Father Payne in the fields, 
 and he was talking about the difficulties of the 
 writer's life. He said that the great problem for all 
 industrious writers was how to work in such a way 
 as not to be a nuisance to the people they lived 
 with. " Of course men vary very much in their
 
 OF THE WRITER'S LIFE 197 
 
 habits," he said; "but if you look at the lives of 
 authors, they often seem tiresome people to get on 
 with. The difficulty is mostly this," he went on, 
 " that a writer can't write to any purpose for more 
 than about three hours a day if he works really 
 hard, even that is quite enough to tire him out. 
 Think what the brain is doing it is concentrated 
 on some idea, some scene, some situation. Take a 
 novelist : he has to have a picture in his mind all 
 the time a clear visualisation of a place a room, a 
 garden, a wood ; then he must know how his people 
 move and look and speak, and he has to fly back- 
 wards and forwards from one to another ; then he 
 has the talk to create, and he has to be always 
 rejecting thoughts and impressions and words, good 
 enough in themselves, but not characteristic. It 
 is a fearful strain on imagination and emotion, on 
 phrase-making and word-finding. The real wonder 
 is not that a few people can do it better than others, 
 but that anyone can do it at all. The difference 
 between the worst novelist and the best is much 
 less than the difference between the worst novelist 
 and the person who can't write at all. 
 
 " Well, then, there is such a thing as inspiration ; 
 most creative writers get a book in their minds, and 
 can think of nothing else, day and night, while it is 
 on. The difficulty is to know what a writer is to 
 do in the intervals between his books, and in the 
 hours in which he is not writing. He has got to 
 take it easy somehow, and the question is what is 
 he to do. He can't, as a rule, do much in the way of 
 hard exercise. Violent exercise in the open air is 
 pleasant enough, but it leaves the brain torpid and 
 stagnant. A man who really makes a business of
 
 igS FATHER PAYNE 
 
 writing has got to live through ten or twelve hours 
 of a day when he isn't writing. He can't afford to 
 read very much at least he can't afford to read 
 authors whom he admires, because they affect his 
 style. There is something horribly contagious 
 about style, because it is often much easier to do a 
 thing in someone else's way than to do it in one's 
 own. Pater was asked once if he had read Steven- 
 son or Kipling, I forget which ' Oh no, I daren't ! ' 
 he said, ' I have peeped into him occasionally, but 
 I can't afford to read him. I have learnt exactly 
 how I can approach and develop a subject, and if 
 I looked to see how he does it, I should soon lose my 
 power. The man with a style is debarred from read- 
 ing fine books unless they are on lines entirely apart 
 from his own.' That is perfectly true, I expect. 
 There is nothing so dreadful as reading a writer 
 whom one likes, and seeing that he has got deflected 
 from his manner by reading some other craftsman. 
 The effect is a" very subtle one. If you really want 
 to see that sort of sympathy at work, you should 
 look at Ruskin's letters his letters are deeply 
 affected by the correspondent to whom he is writ- 
 ing. If he wrote to Carlyle or to Browning, he wrote 
 like Carlyle and Browning, because, as he wrote, 
 they were strongly in his mind. 
 
 " With a painter or a musician it is different a 
 lot of hand- work comes in which relieves the brain, 
 so that they can work longer hours. But a writer, 
 as a rule, while he is writing, can't even afford to 
 talk very much to interesting people, because talk- 
 ing is hard work too. 
 
 " Well, then, a writer, as an artistic person, is 
 rather easily bored. He likes vivid sensations and
 
 OF THE WRITER'S LIFE 199 
 
 emphatic preferences and it is not really good for 
 him to be bored ; a man may read the paper, write a 
 few letters, stroll, garden, chatter but if he takes his 
 writing seriously, he must somehow be fresh for it. 
 It isn't easy to combine writing with any other 
 occupation, and it leaves many hours unoccupied. 
 
 " Carlyle is a terrible instance, because he was 
 wretched and depressed when he was not writing ; 
 he was melancholy, peevish, physically unwell ; and 
 when he was writing, he was wholly absorbed, very 
 impatient of his labour, and most intolerable. 
 Indeed, it does not look as if the home lives of writers 
 have generally been very happy there is too often 
 a patent conspiracy to keep the great irritable 
 babyish giant amused and that's a bad atmosphere 
 for anyone to live in an unreal, a royal sort of 
 atmosphere, of deferential scheming." 
 
 I said something about Walter Scott. " Ah yes," 
 said Father Payne, " but Scott's work was amazing 
 it just seemed to overflow from a gigantic reservoir 
 of vitality. He could do his day's work in the early 
 hours, and then tramp about all day, chattering, 
 farming, planting, entertaining endlessly good- 
 humoured. Of course he wore himself out at last 
 by perfectly ghastly work most of it very poor stuff. 
 Browning and Thackeray were men of the same sort, 
 sociable, genial, exuberant. They overflowed too 
 they didn't batter things out. 
 
 " But, as a rule, most men who want to do good 
 work, must be content to potter about, and seem 
 lazy and even self-indulgent. And one of the 
 reasons why many men who start as promising 
 writers come to nothing is because they can't be 
 inert, acquiescent, easy-going. I have often thought
 
 200 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 that a good novel might be written about the wife 
 of a great writer, who marries him, dazzled by his 
 brilliance, and thenfindshim to be a petty, suspicious, 
 wayward sort of child, with all his force lying in one 
 supreme faculty of vision and expression. It must 
 be a fiery trial to see deep, wise, beautiful things 
 produced by a man who can't live his thoughts 
 can only write them." 
 
 " But what should a man do ? " I said. 
 
 " Well," said Father Payne, " I think, as a practi- 
 cal matter, it would be a good thing to cultivate a 
 hobby of a manual kind and also, above all, the 
 power of genial loafing. Of course, the real pity is 
 that we are not all taught to do some house- work as 
 a matter of course we depend too much on servants, 
 and house- work is the natural and amusing outlet 
 of our physical energies ; as it is, we specialise too 
 much, and half of our maladies and discomforts 
 and miseries are due to that that we work a part of 
 ourselves too hard, and the other parts not hard 
 enough. The thing to aim at is equanimity, and the 
 existence of unsatisfied instincts in us is what poisons 
 life for many people." 
 
 He was silent for a little, and then he said, " And 
 then, too, there is the great danger of all writers 
 the feeling that he has the power of giving people 
 what they want, when he ought to remember that 
 he has only the good fortune of expressing what 
 people feel. Art oughtn't to be a thing sprinkled 
 on life, as you shake sugar out on to a pudding it 
 is just a power of disentangling things ; we suffer 
 most of us from finding life too complicated we 
 don't understand it it's a mass of confused impres- 
 sions. Well, the artist puts it all in order, isolates
 
 OF THE WRITER'S LIFE 201 
 
 the important things, makes the values distinct 
 he helps people to feel clearly that's his only use. 
 And then, if he succeeds, there come silly flatteries 
 and adorations until he gets to feel as if he were 
 handing down pots of jam and bottles of wine from 
 a high shelf out of reach until he grows to believe 
 that he put them there, when he only found them 
 there. It's a dreadful thing for an artist never to 
 succeed at all, because then his life appears the most 
 useless business conceivable ; but it is almost a 
 worse thing to get to depend upon success and it 
 is undeniably pleasant to be a personage, to cause a 
 little stir when you enter a room, to find that 
 people know all about you and like meeting you, 
 and saying they have met you. I never had any of 
 that : and I have sometimes found myself with 
 successful writers who made me thank God I 
 couldn't write such complacency, such lolling 
 among praise, such vexation at not being deferred to ! 
 The best fate for a man is to be fairly successful, 
 and to be at the same time pretty severely criticised. 
 That keeps him modest, while it gives him a degree 
 of confidence that he is doing something useful. 
 The danger is of drifting right out of life into unreal 
 civilities and compliments, which you don't wholly 
 like and yet can't do without. The fact is that 
 writing doesn't generally end in very much happi- 
 ness, except perhaps the happiness of work. That's 
 the solid part of it really, and no one can deprive 
 you of that, whatever happens."
 
 202 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 XL 
 
 OF WASTE 
 
 WE were discussing Keats and his premature death. 
 Someone had said that, beside being one of the best, 
 he was also one of the most promising of poets ; 
 and Father Payne had remarked that reading Keats 's 
 letters made him feel more directly in the presence 
 of a man of genius than any other book he knew. 
 Kaye had added that the death of Keats seemed to 
 him the most ghastly kind of waste, at which Father 
 Payne had smiled, and said that that presupposed 
 that he was knocked out by some malign or indiffer- 
 ent force. "It is possible isn't it? " he added, 
 "that he was needed elsewhere and summoned 
 away." " Then why was he so elaborately tortured 
 first?" said Kaye. "Well," said Father Payne, 
 " I can conceive that if he had recovered his health, 
 and escaped from his engagement with Fanny 
 Brawne, he might have been a much finer fellow 
 afterwards. There were two weak points in Keats, 
 you know his over-sensuousness and a touch of 
 commonness I won't call it vulgarity," he added, 
 " but his jokes are not of the best quality ! I do 
 not feel sure that his suffering might not have cleared 
 away the poisonous stuff." 
 
 " Perhaps, "said Kaye; "but doesn't that make 
 it more wasteful still ? The world needs beauty 
 and for a man to die so young with his best music 
 in him seems to me a clumsy affair." 
 
 " I don't know," said Father Payne ; "it seems to 
 me harder to define the word waste than almost any
 
 OF WASTE 203 
 
 word I know. Of course there are cases when it is 
 obviously applicable if a big steamer carrying a 
 cargo of wheat goes down in a storm, that is a lot of 
 human trouble thrown away and a war is wasteful, 
 because nations lose their best and healthiest paren- 
 tal stock. But it isn't a word to play with. In a 
 middle-class household it is applied mainly to such 
 things as there being enough left of a nice dish for 
 the servants to enjoy ; and, generally speaking, I 
 think it might be applied to all cases in which the toil 
 spent over the making of a thing is out of all propor- 
 tion to the enjoyment derived from it. But the 
 difficulty underlying it is that it assumes a know- 
 ledge of what a man's duty is in this world and I am 
 not by any means sure that we know. Look at the 
 phrase ' a waste of time.' How do we know exactly 
 how much time a man ought to allot to sleep, to 
 work, to leisure ? I had an old puritanical friend 
 who was very fond of telling people that they wasted 
 time. He himself spent nearly two hours of every 
 day in dressing and undressing. That is to say 
 that when he died at the age of seventy-six, he had 
 spent about six entire years in making and unmak- 
 ing his toilet ! Let us assume that everyone is 
 bound to give a certain amount of time to doing the 
 necessary work of the world enough to support, 
 feed, clothe, and house himself, with a margin to 
 spare for the people who can't support themselves 
 and can't work. Then there are a lot of outlying 
 things which must be done the work of statesmen, 
 lawyers, doctors, writers all the people who 
 organise, keep order, cure, or amuse people. Then 
 there are all the people who make luxuries and com- 
 forts things not exactly necessary, but still reason-
 
 204 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 able indulgences. Now let us suppose that anyone 
 is genuinely and sensibly occupied in any one of 
 these ways, and does his or her fair share of the 
 world's work : who is to say how such workers are 
 to spend their margin of time ? There are obviously 
 certain people who are mere drones in the hive rich, 
 idle, extravagant people : we will admit that they 
 are wasters. But I don't admit for a moment that 
 all the time spent in enjoying oneself is wasted, and 
 I think that people have a right to choose what they 
 do enjoy. I am inclined to believe that we are 
 here to live, and that work is only a part of our 
 material limitations. A great deal of the usefulness 
 of work is not its intrinsic value, but its value to 
 ourselves. It isn't only what we perform that 
 matters ; it is the fact that work forces us into rela- 
 tions with other people, which I take to be the 
 experience we all need. In the old dreary books of 
 my childhood, the elders were always hounding the 
 young people into doing something useful useful 
 reading, useful sewing, and so forth. But I am 
 inclined to believe that sociability and talk are more 
 useful than reading, and that solitary musing and 
 dreaming and looking about are useful too. All 
 activity is useful, all interchange, all perception. 
 What isn't useful is anything which hides life from 
 you, any habit that drugs you into inactivity and 
 idleness, anything which makes you believe that 
 life is romantic and sentimental and fatuous. I 
 wouldn't even go so far as to say that all the time 
 spent in squabbling and quarrelling is useless, 
 because it brings you up against people who think 
 differently from yourself. That becomes wasteful 
 the moment it leaves you with the impotent desire
 
 OF WASTE 205 
 
 to hurt your adversary. No, I am inclined to think 
 that the only thing which is wasteful is anything 
 which suspends interest and animation and the love 
 of life ; and I don't blame idle and extravagant 
 people who live with zest and liveliness for doing 
 that. I only blame them for not seeing that their 
 extravagance is keeping people at the other end of 
 the scale in drudgery and dulness. Of course the 
 difficulty of it is, that if we offered the lowest 
 stratum of workers a great increase of leisure, they 
 would largely misuse it ; and that is why I believe 
 that in the future a large part of the education of 
 workers will be devoted to teaching them how to 
 employ their leisure agreeably and not noxiously. 
 And I believe that there are thousands of cases in 
 the world which are infinitely worse than the case of 
 Keats who, after all, had more joy of the finest 
 quality in his short life than most of us achieve. I 
 mean the cases of men and women with fine and 
 sensitive instincts, who by being born under base 
 and down-trodden conditions are never able to get 
 a taste of clean, wholesome, and beautiful life at all 
 that's a much darker problem." 
 
 " But how do you fit that into your theories of 
 life at all ? " said Vincent. 
 
 "Oh, it fits my theory of life well enough," said 
 Father Payne. " You see, I believe it to be a real 
 battle, and not a sham fight. I believe in God as 
 the source of all the fine, beautiful, and free in- 
 stincts, casting them lavishly into the world, against 
 a horribly powerful and relentless but ultimately 
 stupid foe. ' Who put the evil there ? ' you may 
 say, ' and how did it get there first ? ' Ah, I don't 
 know that that is the origin of evil. But I don't
 
 206 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 believe that God put it there first, just for the in- 
 terest of the fight. I don't believe that He is re- 
 sponsible for waste I think it is one of the forces 
 He is fighting. He pushes battalion after battalion 
 to the assault, and down they go. It's cruel work, 
 but it isn't anything like so cruel as to suppose 
 that He arranged it all or even permitted it all. 
 That would indeed sicken and dishearten me. No, 
 I believe that God never wastes anything ; but it's 
 a fearful and protracted battle ; and I believe that 
 He will win in the end. I read a case in the paper 
 the other day of a little child in a workhouse that 
 had learnt a lot of infamous language, and cursed 
 and swore if it was given milk instead of beer or 
 brandy. Am I to believe that God was in any 
 way responsible for putting a little child in that 
 position ? for allowing things to take shape so, 
 if He could have checked it ? No, indeed ! I do 
 not believe in a God as helpless or as wicked as 
 that ! There is something devilish there, for which 
 He is not responsible, and against which He is fight- 
 ing as hard as He can." 
 
 " But doesn't heredity come in there ? " said 
 Vincent. " It isn't the child's fault, and probably 
 no amount of decent conditions would turn that 
 child into anything respectable." 
 
 "Yes," said Father Payne; "heredity is just 
 one of the evil devices but don't you see the stu- 
 pidity of it ? It stops progress, but it also helps 
 it on it hinders, but it also helps ; and nothing 
 in the world seems to me so Divine as the way in 
 which God is using and mastering heredity for good. 
 It multiplies evil, but it also multiplies good ; and 
 God has turned that weapon against the contriver
 
 OF EDUCATION 207 
 
 of it. The wiser that the world grows, the more 
 they will see how to use heredity for happiness, 
 by preventing the tainted from continuing to taint 
 the races. The slow civilisation of the world is 
 the strongest proof I know that the battle is going 
 the right way. The forces of evil are being slowly 
 transformed into the forces of good. The waste 
 of noble things is but the slow arrival of the new 
 armies of light. There is something real in fighting 
 for a General who has a very urgent and terrible 
 business on hand. There is nothing real about 
 fighting for one who has brought both the armies 
 into the field. It doesn't do to sentimentalise 
 about evil, and to say that it is hidden good ! The 
 world is a probation, I don't doubt but it is testing 
 your strength against something which is really 
 there, and can do you a lot of harm, not against 
 something which is only there for the purpose of 
 testing what might have been made and kept both 
 innocent and strong." 
 
 XLI 
 
 OF EDUCATION 
 
 FATHER PAYNE generally declined to talk about 
 education. " Teaching is one of the things, like 
 golf and hunting, which is exciting to do and pleas- 
 ant to remember, but intolerable to talk about," he 
 said one evening. 
 
 " Well," I said, " it is certainly intolerable to listen 
 to people discussing education, or to read about it ; 
 but if you know anything about it, I should have 
 thought it was good fun to talk about it."
 
 208 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 " Ah," said Father Payne, " you say, ' If you know 
 anything about it.' The worst of it is that every- 
 body knows everything about it. A man who is a 
 success, thinks that his own education is the only 
 one worth having ; a man who is a failure thinks 
 that all systems of education are wrong. And as 
 for talking about teaching, you can't talk about it 
 you can only relate your own experience, and 
 listen with such patience as you can muster to 
 another man relating his. That's not talking ! " 
 
 "But it is interesting in a general way," said 
 Vincent, "the kind of thing you are aiming at, 
 what you want to produce, and so on." 
 
 "Yes, my dear Vincent," said Father Payne, 
 " but education isn't that it's an obstinate sort of 
 tradition ; it's a quest, like the Philosopher's Stone. 
 Most people think that it is a sort of charm which, 
 if you could discover it, would transmute all baser 
 metals into gold. The justification of the Philo- 
 sopher's Stone is, I suppose, that different metals 
 are not really different substances, but only different 
 arrangements of the same atoms. But we can't 
 predicate that of human spirits as yet ; and to 
 attempt to find one formula of education is like 
 planting the same crop in different soils. It is the 
 ridiculous democratic doctrine of human equality 
 which is the real difficulty. There is no natural 
 equality in human nature, and the question really 
 is whether you are going to try to reduce all human 
 beings to the same level, which is the danger of 
 discipline, or to let people follow their own instincts 
 unchecked, which is the shadow of liberty. I'm 
 all for liberty, of course." 
 
 " But why ' of course ' ? " said Vincent.
 
 OF EDUCATION 209 
 
 " Because I take the aristocratic view/' said 
 Father Payne, " which is that you do more for the 
 human race by having a few fine people, than by 
 having an infinite number of second-rate people. 
 What the first-rate man thinks to-day, the second- 
 rate people think to-morrow that is how we make 
 progress ; and I would like to take infinite pains 
 with the best material, if I could find it, and leave 
 discipline for the second-rate. The Jews and the 
 Greeks, both first-class nations, have done more 
 for the world on the whole than the Romans and the 
 Anglo-Saxons, who are the best of the second-rate 
 stocks." 
 
 " But how are you going to begin to sort your 
 material ? " said Barthrop. 
 
 " Yes, you have me there," said Father Payne. 
 " But I don't despair of our ultimately finding that 
 out. At present, the worst of men of genius is that 
 they are not always the most brisk and efficient 
 boys. A genius is apt to be perceptive and sensi- 
 tive. His perceptiveness makes him seem be- 
 wildered, because he is vaguely interested in every- 
 thing that he sees ; his sensitiveness makes him 
 hold his tongue, because he gets snubbed if he asks 
 too many questions. Men of genius are not as a 
 rule very precocious they are often shy, awkward, 
 absent-minded. Genius is often strangely like 
 stupidity in its early stages. The stupid boy escapes 
 notice because he is stupid. The genius escapes 
 notice because he is diffident, and wants to escape 
 notice." 
 
 " But how would you set about discovering which 
 was which ? " said Barthrop. 
 
 "Well," said Father Payne, "if you ask me, I 
 
 o
 
 210 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 don't think we discriminate ; I think we go in for 
 teaching children too much, and not trying to make 
 them observe and think more. We give them 
 things to do, and to get by heart ; we imprison them 
 in a narrow round of gymnastics. As Dr. Johnson 
 said once, ' You teach your children the use of the 
 globes, and when they get older you wonder that 
 they do not seek your society ! ' The whole thing 
 is so devilish dull, and it saves the teacher such a 
 lot of trouble ! I myself was fairly quick as a boy, 
 and found that it paid to do what I was told. But 
 I never made the smallest pretence to be interested 
 in what I had to do grammar, Euclid, tiny scraps 
 of Latin and Greek. I used to thank God, in Xeno- 
 phon lessons, when a bit was all about stages and 
 parasangs, because there were fewer words to look 
 out. The idea of teaching languages like that ! 
 If I had a clever boy to teach a language, I would 
 read some interesting book with him, telling him 
 the meaning of words, until he got a big stock of 
 ordinary words ; I would just teach him the common 
 inflexions ; and when he could read an easy book, 
 and write the language intelligibly, then I would try 
 to teach him a few niceties and idioms, and make 
 him look out for differences of style and language. 
 But we begin at the wrong end, and store his memory 
 with exceptions and idioms and niceties first. No 
 sensible human being who wanted, let us say, to 
 know enough Italian to read Dante, would dream 
 of setting to work as we set to work on classics. 
 Well then," Father Payne went on, "I should cul- 
 tivate the imagination of children a great deal 
 more. I should try to teach them all I could about 
 the world as it is the different nations, and how
 
 OF EDUCATION 211 
 
 they live, the distribution of plants and animals, the 
 simpler sorts of science. I don't think that it need 
 be very accurate, all that. But children ought to 
 realise that the world is a big place, with all sorts 
 of interesting and exciting things going on. I 
 would try to give them a general view of history 
 and the movement of civilisation. I don't mean a 
 romantic view of it, with the pomps and shows and 
 battles in the foreground ; but a real view how 
 people lived, and what they were driving at. The 
 thing could be done, if it were not for the bugbear 
 of inaccuracy. To know a little perfectly isn't 
 enough ; of course, people ought to be able to write 
 their own language accurately, and to do arithmetic. 
 Outside of that, you want a lot of general ideas. It 
 is no good teaching everything as if everyone was 
 to end as a Professor." 
 
 "That is a reasonable general scheme," said 
 Barthrop, "but what about special aptitudes?" 
 
 "Why," said Father Payne, "I should go on 
 those general lines till boys and girls, were about 
 fourteen. And I should teach them with a view 
 to the lives they were going to live. I should teach 
 girls a good deal of house-work, and country boys 
 about the country we mustn't forget that the 
 common work of the world has to be done. You 
 must somehow interest people in the sort of work 
 they are going to do. It is hopeless without that. 
 And then we must gradually begin to specialise. 
 But I'm not going into all that now. The general 
 aim I should have in view would be to give people 
 some idea of the world they were living in, and 
 try to interest them in the part they were going 
 to play ; and I should try to teach them how to
 
 212 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 employ their leisure. That seems entirely left 
 out at present. I want to develop people on simple 
 and contented lines, with intelligent interests and, 
 if possible, a special taste. The happy man is 
 the man who likes his work, and all education is 
 a fraud if it turns out people who don't like their 
 work ; and then I want people to have something 
 to fall back upon which they enjoy. No one can 
 live a decent life without having things to look 
 forward to. But, of course, the whole thing turns 
 on Finance, and that is what makes it so infernally 
 dull. You want more teachers and better teachers ; 
 you want to make teaching a profession which 
 attracts the best people. You can't do that without 
 money, and at present education is looked upon 
 as an expensive luxury. That's all part of the 
 stodgy Anglo-Saxon mind. It doesn't want ideas 
 it wants positions which carry high salaries ; and 
 really the one thing which blocks the way in all 
 our education is that we care so much for money 
 and property, and can't think of happiness apart 
 from them. As long as our real aim in England 
 is income, we shall not make progress ; because 
 we persist in thinking of ideas as luxuries in which 
 a man can indulge if he has a sufficient income to 
 afford to do so." 
 
 " You take a gloomy view of our national ideals, 
 Father," said Vincent. 
 
 "Not a gloomy view, my boy," said Father 
 Payne ; " only a dull view ! We are a respectable 
 nation we adore respectability ; and I don't think 
 it is a sympathetic quality. What I want is more 
 sympathy and more imagination. I think they 
 lead to happiness ; and I don't think the Anglo-
 
 OF RELIGION 213 
 
 Saxon cares enough about happiness ; if ho is 
 happy, he has an uneasy idea that he is in for a 
 disaster of some kind." 
 
 XLII 
 
 OF RELIGION 
 
 I FOUND Father Payne one morning reading a letter 
 with knitted brows. Presently he cast it down 
 on the table with a gesture of annoyance. " What 
 a fool one is to argue ! " he said and then stopping, 
 he said, " But you wanted something what is it ? " 
 It was a question about some books which was soon 
 answered. Then he said : " Stay a few minutes, 
 won't you, unless you are pressed ? I have got 
 a tiresome letter, and if you will let me pour out 
 my complaint to you, I shall be all right other- 
 wise I shall go about grumbling and muttering all 
 day, and inventing repartees." 
 
 I sate down in a chair. " Yes, do tell me ! " 
 I said ; " I have really very little to do this morning, 
 but finish up a bit of work." 
 
 He looked at me with a twinkle in his eye. " I 
 expect you ought to be at work," he said, "and 
 if I were conscientious, I should send you away 
 but this is rather interesting, I think." 
 
 He meditated for a moment, and then went on. 
 "It's this ! I have got involved in an argument 
 with an old friend of mine who is a stiff sort of 
 High-Churchman a parson. It's about religion, 
 too, and it's no good arguing about religion. You 
 only confirm your adversary in his opinion. He
 
 214 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 brings forth the bow, and makes ready the arrows 
 within the quiver. I needn't go into the argument. 
 It's the old story. He objected to something I 
 said as 'vague/ and I was ass enough to answer 
 him. He is one of those people who is very strong 
 on dogma, and treats his religion as if it were a sort 
 of trades' union. He thinks I am a kind of black- 
 leg, not true to my principles ; or rather he thinks 
 that I am not a Christian at all, and only call myself 
 one for the sake of the associations. Of course he 
 triumphs over me at every point. He is entrenched 
 in what he calls a logical system, and he fires off 
 texts as if from a machine-gun. Of course my 
 point is that all strict denominations have got a 
 severely logical system, but that they can't all be 
 sound, because they all deduce different conclusions 
 from the same evidence. All denominational posi- 
 tions are drawn up by able men, and I imagine that 
 an old theology like the Catholic theology is one of 
 the most ingenious constructions in the world from 
 the logical point of view. But the mischief of it 
 all is that the data are incomplete, and many of 
 them are not mathematically demonstrable at all. 
 They are all coloured by human ideas and person- 
 alities and temperaments, and half of them are in- 
 tuitions and experiences, which vary at different 
 times and under different circumstances. All 
 precise denominational systems are the outcome 
 of the desire for a precise certainty in the minds 
 of business-like people the people who say that 
 they wish to know exactly where they are. Now 
 I don't go so far as to say, or even to think, that 
 religion will always be as mysterious a thing as it 
 is now. I fully expect that we shall know much
 
 OF RELIGION 215 
 
 more about it some day. But we don't at present 
 know very much about the central things of all 
 the nature of God, the relation of good and evil, 
 life after death, human psychology. We have not 
 reached the point of being able definitely to identify 
 the moral force of the world with the forces which 
 do not appear to be moral, but are undoubtedly 
 active with realities, that is, as we come into 
 contact with them. There are no scientific cer- 
 tainties on these points we simply have not reached 
 that stage. My friend's view is that out of a cer- 
 tain number of denominations, one is undoubtedly 
 right. My view is that all are necessarily incom- 
 plete. But the moment I say this, he says that 
 my religion is so vague as not to be a religion at all. 
 
 " Now my own position is this, that I think re- 
 ligion, by which I mean our relation to the Power 
 behind the world, is the most important fact in 
 the world, as well as the most absorbingly interest- 
 ing. Whatever form of religion I study, I seem 
 to see the same thing going on. The saints, however 
 much they differ in dogma, seem to me to have 
 a strong family likeness. Mysticism is a very 
 definite thing indeed, and I have never any doubt 
 that all mystics have the same or a very similar 
 experience, namely, the perception of some per- 
 fectly definite force as real a force as electricity, 
 for instance with which they are in touch. Some- 
 thing, which is quite clearly there, is affecting them 
 in a particular way. 
 
 " If you ask me what that something is, I don't 
 know. I believe it to be a sort of life-force, which 
 can and does mingle itself with our own life ; and 
 I believe that we are all affected by it, just as every
 
 216 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 drop of water on the earth is affected by the moon's 
 attraction though we can measure that effect in 
 an ocean by observing the tides, when we can't 
 measure it in a basin of water. We are not all 
 equally conscious of it, and I don't know why that 
 is. Sometimes I am aware of it myself, and some- 
 times not. But I have had enough experience of 
 it to feel that something is making signals to me, 
 affecting me, attracting me. And the reason why 
 I am a Christian is because in Christianity and in 
 the teaching of Christ I feel the influence of it in 
 a way that I feel it nowhere else in the same degree. 
 I feel that Christ was closer to what I recognise as 
 God ; knew God better than anyone that ever lived, 
 and in a different kind of way from inside, so to 
 speak. But it's a life that I find in the Gospel, 
 and not a creed : and I believe that this is religion, 
 to be somehow in touch with a higher life and a 
 higher sort of beauty. 
 
 " But I personally don't want this explained and 
 denned and codified. That seems to me only to 
 hem it in and limit it. The moment I find it re- 
 duced to dogma and rule, to definite channels of 
 grace, to particular powers entrusted to particular 
 persons, then I begin to be stifled and, what is worse, 
 bored. I don't feel it to be a logical affair at all 
 I feel it to be a living force, the qualities of which 
 are virtue, beauty, peace, enthusiasm, happiness ; 
 all the things which glow and sparkle in life, and 
 make me long to be different to be stronger, 
 wiser, more patient, more interested, more serene. 
 I want to share my secret with others, not to keep 
 it to myself. But when I argue with my friend, 
 I don't feel it is my secret but his, and that in his
 
 OF RELIGION 217 
 
 mind the force itself is missing, while a lot of rules 
 and logical propositions and arrangements have 
 taken its place. It is just as though I were in love 
 with a girl, and were taken to task by someone, 
 and informed of a score of conventions which I 
 must observe if I wish to be considered really in 
 love. I know what love means to me, and I know 
 how I want to make love ; and the same sort of 
 thing is happening to lovers all the world over, 
 though they don't all make love in the same way. 
 You can't codify the rules of love ! " 
 
 Presently he went on : "It seems to me like this 
 like seeing the reflection of the moon. You may see 
 it in the marble basin of a fountain, clear and dis- 
 tinct. You may see it blurred into ripples on a 
 wind-stirred sea. You may see it moulded into 
 liquid curves on a swift stream. The changing 
 shapes of it matter little you are sure that it is 
 the same thing which is being reflected, however 
 differently it appears. I believe that human nature 
 has a power of reflecting God, and the different 
 denominations seem to me to reflect Him in dif- 
 ferent ways, like the fountain and the stream and 
 the sea. But the same thing is there, though the 
 forms seem to vary. And therefore we must not 
 quarrel with the different attempts to reflect it 
 or even be vexed if the fountain tells the sea that it 
 is not reflecting the moon at all. Take my advice, 
 my boy," he added, smiling, "and never argue 
 about religion only try to make your own spirit 
 as calm and true as you can ! "
 
 218 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 XLIII 
 
 OF CRITICS 
 
 I CAME in from a stroll one day with Father Payne 
 and Barthrop. Father Payne opened a letter 
 which was lying on the hall table, and saying, 
 " Hallo, Leonard, look at this. Gladwin is coming 
 down for Sunday that will be rather fun ! " 
 
 "I don't know about fun," said Barthrop; "at 
 least I doubt if I should find it fun, if I had the 
 responsibility of entertaining him." 
 
 "Yes, it's a great responsibility," said Father 
 Payne. "I feel that. Gladwin is a man who has 
 to be taken as you find him, but who never makes 
 any pretence of taking you as he finds you ! But 
 it will amuse me to put him through his paces a 
 bit ! " 
 
 " Who on earth is Gladwin ? " said I, consumed 
 by curiosity. 
 
 Father Payne and Barthrop laughed. " I should 
 like Gladwin to hear that ! " said Barthrop. 
 
 " Only it would grieve him still more if Duncan 
 had heard of him," said Father Payne; "there 
 would be a commonness about that ! " Then 
 turning to me, he said, " Gladwin ? Well, he's 
 about the most critical man in England, I suppose. 
 He does a little work a very little : and I think 
 he might have been a great man, if he hadn't be- 
 come so fearfully dry. He began by despising 
 everyone else, and ended by despising himself 
 and now it's almost a torture to him to make up 
 his mind. ' There's something base about a
 
 OF CRITICS 219 
 
 decision,' he once said to me. But 'despising' 
 isn't the right word. He doesn't despise that 
 would be coarse. He only feels the coarseness of 
 things in general. He has got too fine an edge on 
 his mind everything blunts it ! " 
 
 " Do you remember Rose's song about him ? " 
 said Barthrop. 
 
 " Yes, what was it ? " said Father Payne. 
 
 " The refrain," said Barthrop, " was 
 
 " ' Not too much of whatever is best, 
 That is enough for me ! ' " 
 
 Father Payne laughed. " Yes, I remember ! " 
 he said ; " ' Not too much ' is a good stroke ! " 
 
 I happened to be with Father Payne when 
 Gladwin arrived. He was a small, trim, compact 
 man, about forty, unembarrassed and graceful, but 
 with an air of dejection. He had a short pointed 
 beard and moustache, and his hair was growing 
 grey. He had fine thin hands, and he was dressed 
 in old but well-fitting clothes. He had an atmos- 
 phere of great distinction about him. I had 
 expected something incisive and clear-cut about 
 him, but he was conspicuously gentle, and even 
 deprecating in manner. He greeted Father Payne 
 smilingly, and shook hands with me, with a cour- 
 teous little bow. We strolled a little in the garden. 
 Father Payne did most of the talking, but Gladwin's 
 silence was sympathetic and impressive. He lis- 
 tened to us tolerantly, as a man might listen to the 
 prattle of children. 
 
 "What are you doing just now ? " said Father 
 Payne after a pause. 
 
 "Oh, nothing worth mentioning," said Gladwin
 
 220 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 softly. " I work more slowly than ever, I believe. 
 It can hardly be called work, indeed. In fact, I 
 want to consult you about a few little bits they 
 can hardly be called anything so definite as ' pieces ' 
 but I am in doubt about their arrangement. 
 The placing of independent pieces is such a difficulty 
 to me, you know ! One must secure some sort of a 
 progression ! " 
 
 "Ah, I shall enjoy that," said Father Payne. 
 " But you won't take my advice, you know you 
 never do ! " 
 
 "Oh, don't say that," said Gladwin. " Of course 
 one must be ultimately responsible. It can't be 
 otherwise. But I always respect your judgment. 
 You always help me to the materials, at all events, 
 for a decision ! " 
 
 Father Payne laughed, and said, "Well, I shall 
 be at your service any time ! " 
 
 A little while after, Gladwin said he thought he 
 would go to his room. " I know your ways here," 
 he said to me with a smile ; " one mustn't interfere 
 with a system. Besides I like it ! It is such a 
 luxury to obliterate oneself ! " When we met 
 again before dinner, Gladwin walked across to a big 
 picture, an old sea-piece, rather effectively painted, 
 which Father Payne had found in a garret, and had 
 had restored and framed. 
 
 " What is this ? " said Gladwin very gently ; " I 
 think this is new ? " 
 
 Father Payne told him the story of its discovery, 
 adding, "I don't suppose it is worth much but it 
 has a certain breeziness about it, I think." 
 
 Gladwin considered it in silence, and then turned 
 away.
 
 OF CRITICS 221 
 
 "Do you like it ? " said Father Payne a little 
 maliciously, I thought. 
 
 " Like it ? " said Gladwin meditatively, " I don't 
 know that I can go as far as that ! I like it in your 
 house." 
 
 Gladwin said very little at dinner. He ate and 
 drank sparingly ; and I noticed that he looked at 
 any dish that was offered him with a quick scruti- 
 nising glance. He tasted his first glass of wine with 
 the same air of suspense, and then appeared to be 
 relieved from a preoccupation. But he joined little 
 in the talk, and exercised rather a sobering effect 
 upon us. Once or twice he spoke out. Mention 
 was made of Gissing's Papers of Henry Ryecroft, 
 and Father Payne asked him if he had read it. 
 " Oh no, I couldn't read it, of course," said Gladwin ; 
 " I looked into it, and had to put it away. I felt as 
 if I had opened a letter addressed to someone else 
 by mistake ! " 
 
 At a later period of the evening, a discussion arose 
 about the laws of taste. Father Payne had said 
 that the one phenomenon in art he could not under- 
 stand was the almost inevitable reaction which 
 seemed to take place in the way in which the work 
 of a great writer or painter or musician is regarded 
 a few years after his vogue declines. " I am not 
 speaking," said Father Payne, " of poor, common- 
 place, merely popular work, but of work which was 
 acclaimed as great by the best critics of the time, 
 and which will probably return to pre-eminence." 
 He instanced, I remember, Mendelssohn and Tenny- 
 son. "Of course," he said, "they both wrote a 
 great deal perhaps too much and some kind of 
 sorting is necessary. I don't mind the Idylls of the
 
 222 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 King, or the Elijah, being relegated to oblivion, be- 
 cause they both show signs of having been done 
 with one eye on the public. But the progressive 
 young man won't hear of Tennyson or Mendelssohn 
 being regarded as serious figures in art at all. Yet 
 I honestly believe that poems like ' Now Sleeps the 
 Crimson Petal/ or ' Come down, O Maid/ have a 
 high and permanent beauty about them ; or, again, 
 the overture to the Midsummer Night's Dream. I 
 can't believe that it isn't a thing full of loveliness 
 and delight. I can't for the life of me see what 
 happens to cause such things to be forgotten. 
 Tennyson and Mendelssohn seem to me to have 
 been penetrated with a sense of beauty, and to have 
 been great craftsmen too : and their work at its 
 best not only satisfied the most exacting and trained 
 critics, but thrilled all the most beauty-loving 
 spirits of the time with ineffable content, as of a 
 dream fulfilled beyond the reach of hope. And yet 
 all the light seems to die out of them as the years 
 go on. The new writers and musicians, the new 
 critics, the new audience, are all preoccupied with 
 a different presentment of beauty. And then, very 
 slowly, the light seems to return to the old things 
 at least to the best of them : but they have to suffer 
 an eclipse, during which they are nothing but 
 symbols of all that is hackneyed and commonplace 
 in music and literature. I think things are either 
 beautiful or not : I can't believe in a real shifting 
 of taste, a merely relative and temporary beauty. 
 If it only happened to the second-rate kinds of 
 goodness, it would be intelligible but it seems to 
 involve the best as well. What do you think, 
 Gladwin ? "
 
 OF CRITICS 223 
 
 Gladwin, who had been dreamily regarding the 
 wine in his glass, gave a little start almost of pain, 
 as if a thorn had pricked him. He glanced round 
 the table, and then said in his gentlest voice, " Well, 
 Payne, I don't quite know from what point of view 
 you are speaking from the point of view of serious 
 investigation, or of edification, or of mere curiosity ? 
 I should have to be sure of that. But, speaking 
 hurriedly and perhaps intemperately, I should be 
 inclined to think that there was a sort of natural 
 revolt against a convention, a spontaneous disgust 
 at deference being taken for granted. Isn't it like 
 what takes place in politics though, of course, I 
 know nothing about politics the way, I mean, in 
 which the electors get simply tired of a political 
 party being in power, and give the other side a 
 chance of doing better ? I mean that the gross 
 and unintelligent laudation of any artist who arrives 
 at what is called assured fame, naturally turns one's 
 mind on to the critical consciousness of his imper- 
 fections. I don't say it's noble or right in fact, I 
 think it is probably ungenerous but I think it is 
 natural." 
 
 " Yes, there is a good deal in that," said Father 
 Payne, " but ought not the trained critics to with- 
 stand it ? " 
 
 " The trained critic," said Gladwin, " the man who 
 sells his opinion of a work of art for money, is, of 
 course, the debased outcome of a degrading system. 
 If you press me, I should consider that both the 
 extravagant laudation and the equally extravagant 
 reaction are entirely vulgar and horrible. Per- 
 sonally, I am not easily pleased : but then what 
 does it matter whether I am pleased or not ? "
 
 224 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 " But you sometimes bring yourself to form, and 
 even express, an opinion?" said Father Payne 
 with a smile. 
 
 "An opinion an opinion" said Gladwin, shaking 
 his head, " I don't know that I ever get so far as 
 that. One has a kind of feeling, no doubt ; but it 
 is so far underground, that one hardly knows what 
 its operations may be." 
 
 " 'Well said, old mole ! Canst work i' the earth 
 so fast ? A worthy pioneer I '" said Payne, laughing. 
 
 Gladwin gave a quick smile: " A good quotation ! ' ' 
 he said, " that was very ready ! I congratulate you 
 on that ! But there's more of the mole than the 
 pioneer about my work, such as it is ! " 
 
 Gladwin drifted about the next day like a tired 
 fairy. 
 
 He had a long conference with Father Payne, 
 and at dinner he seemed aloof, and hardly spoke 
 at all. He vanished the next day with an air of 
 relief. "Well, what did you think of our guest ? " 
 said Father Payne to me, meeting me in the garden 
 before dinner. 
 
 "Well," I said, "he seemed to me an unhappy, 
 heavily-burdened man but he was evidently extra- 
 ordinarily able." 
 
 "Yes," said Father Payne, "that's about it. 
 His mind is too big for him to carry. He sees 
 everything, understands everything, and passes 
 judgment on everything. But he hasn't enough 
 vitality. It must be an awful curse to have no 
 illusions to see the inferiority of everything so 
 clearly. He's awfully lonely, and I must try to 
 see more of him. But it is very difficult. I used
 
 OF CRITICS 225 
 
 to amuse him, and he appointed me, in a way he 
 has, a sort of State Jester Royal Letters Patent, 
 you know. But then he began to detect the 
 commonness of my mind and taste, and, one by one, 
 all the avenues of communication became closed, 
 If I liked a book which he disliked, and praised it 
 to him, he became inflicted with a kind of mental 
 nausea : and it's impossible to see much of a man, 
 with any real comfort, when you realise that you 
 are constantly turning him faint and sick. I had 
 a dreary time with him yesterday. He produced 
 some critical essays of his own, which he was think- 
 ing of making into a book. They were awfully 
 dry, like figs which have been kept too long not 
 a drop of juice in them. They were hideously 
 acute, I saw that. But there wasn't any reason 
 why they should have been written. They were 
 mere dissections : I suggested that he should call 
 them 'Depreciations,' and he shivered, and I 
 felt a brute. But that didn't last long, because he 
 has a way of putting you in your place. I felt 
 like something in a nightmare he was having. He 
 annexes you, and he disapproves of you at the 
 same time. I am awfully sorry for him, but I can't 
 help him. The moment I try, I run up against 
 his disapproval, and my vulgar spirit revolts. He's 
 an aristocrat, through and through. He comes and 
 hoists his flag over a place. I felt all yesterday as 
 if I were a rather unwelcome guest in his house, you 
 know. It's a stifling atmosphere. I can't breathe 
 or speak, because I instantly feel myself suspected 
 of crudity ! The truth is that Gladwin thinks 
 you can live upon light, and forgets that you also 
 want air." 
 
 p
 
 226 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 " It seems rather a ghastly business," I said. 
 
 "Yes," said Father Payne, "it's a wretched 
 business ! That combination of great sensitiveness 
 and great self-righteousness is the most melancholy 
 thing I know. You have to get rid of one or the 
 other and yet that is how Gladwin is made. 
 Now, I have plenty of opinions of my own, but I 
 don't consider them final or absolute. It ends, 
 of course, in poor Gladwin knowing about a 
 hundredth part of what is going on in the world, 
 and thinking that it's d d bad. Of course it is, 
 if you neglect the other ninety- nine parts alto- 
 gether ! " 
 
 XLIV 
 
 OF WORSHIP 
 
 IT was one of those perfectly fine and radiant days 
 of early summer, with a touch of easterly about the 
 breeze, which means perhaps a drier air, and always 
 seems to bring out the true colours of our country- 
 side, as with a touch of ethereal golden-tinged 
 varnish. The humid rain- washed days, so common 
 in England, are beautiful enough, with their rolling 
 cloud-ranges and their soft mistiness : but the 
 clear sparkle of this brighter weather, summer 
 without its haze, intensifying each tone of colour 
 and sharply defining each several tint, has a special 
 beauty of form as well as of hue. 
 
 I walked with Father Payne far among the fields. 
 He was at first in a silent mood, observing and 
 enjoying. We passed a field carpeted with butter- 
 cups, and he said, "That's a beautiful touch, 'the
 
 OF WORSHIP 227 
 
 flower-enamelled field ' it isn't just washed with 
 colour, it is like hammered work of beaten gold, 
 like the letters in old missals ! " Presently he burst 
 out into talk : "I don't want to say anything 
 affected," he began, "but a day like this, out in 
 the country, gives me a stronger feeling of what 
 I can only describe as worship than anything else 
 in the world, because the scene holds the beauty 
 of life so firmly up before you. Worship means 
 the sense of the unmistakable presence of beauty, I 
 am sure a beauty great and overwhelming, which 
 one has had no part in making ' The sea is His, 
 and He made it, and His hands prepared the dry 
 land. O come, let us worship and fall down, and 
 kneel before the Lord our Maker ' it's that ex- 
 actly a sense of joyful abasement in the presence 
 of something great and infinitely beautiful. I do 
 wish that were more clearly stated and understood 
 and believed. Religion, as we know it in its techni- 
 cal sense, is so faint-hearted about it all ! It has 
 limited worship to things beautiful enough, arches 
 and music and ceremony : and it is so afraid of 
 vagueness, so considerate of man's feeble grasp 
 and small outlook, that it is afraid of recognising 
 all the channels by which that sense is communi- 
 cated, for fear of weakening a special effect. I'll 
 tell you two or three of the experiences I mean. 
 You know old Mrs. Chetwynd, who is fading away 
 in that little cottage beyond the churchyard. She 
 is poor, old, ill. She can hardly be said to have 
 a single pleasure, as you and I reckon pleasures. 
 She just lies there in that poky room waiting for 
 death, always absolutely patient and affectionate 
 and sweet-tempered, grateful for everything, never
 
 228 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 saying a hard or cross word. Well, I go to see her 
 sometimes not as often as I ought. She shakes 
 hands with that old knotted-looking hand of hers 
 which has grown soft enough now after its endless 
 labours. She talks a little she is interested in 
 all the news, she doesn't regret things, or complain, 
 or think it hard that she can't be out and about. 
 After I have been with her for two minutes, with 
 her bright old eyes looking at me out of such a 
 thicket, so to speak, of wrinkles, her face simply 
 hacked and seamed by life, I feel myself in the 
 presence of something very divine indeed, a per- 
 fectly pure, tender, joyful, human spirit, suffering 
 the last extremity of discomfort and infirmity, and 
 yet entirely radiant and undimmed. It is then 
 that I feel inclined to kneel down before God, and 
 thank Him humbly for having made and shown 
 me so utterly beautiful a thing as that poor old 
 woman's courage and sweetness. I feel as I suppose 
 the devout Catholic feels before the reserved Sacra- 
 ment in the shrine in the presence of a divine 
 mystery ; and I rejoice silently that God is what 
 He is, and that I see Him for once unveiled. 
 
 " And then the sight of a happy and contented 
 child, kind and spirited and affectionate, like little 
 Molly Akers, never making a fuss, or seeming to 
 want things for herself, or cross, or tiresome that 
 gives me the same feeling ! Then flowers often 
 give me the same feeling, with their cleanness and 
 fresh beauty and pure outline and sweet scent 
 so useless in a way, often so unregarded, and yet 
 so content just to be what they are, so apart from 
 every stain and evil passion. 
 
 " And then in the middle of that you see a man
 
 OF WORSHIP 229 
 
 like Barlow stumbling home tipsy to his frightened 
 wife and children, or you read a bad case in the 
 papers, or a letter from a man of virtue finding 
 fault with everybody and slinging pious Billingsgate 
 about : or I lose my own temper about something, 
 and feel I have made a hash of my life and then 
 I wonder what is the foul poison that has got into 
 things, and what is the dismal ugliness that seems 
 smeared all over life, so that the soul seems like 
 a beautiful bird caught in a slime-pit, and trying 
 to struggle out, with its pinions fouled and dabbled, 
 wondering miserably what it has done to be so 
 filthily hampered. ' ' 
 
 He stopped for a minute, and I could see that his 
 eyes were full of tears. 
 
 "It is no good giving up the game ! " he said. 
 " We are in the devil of a mess, no doubt : and 
 even if we try our best to avoid it, we dip into the 
 slime sometimes ! But we must hold fast to the 
 beautiful things, and be on the look-out for them 
 everywhere. Not shut our eyes in a rapture of 
 sentiment, and think that we can : 
 
 " ' Walk all day, like the Sultan of old, in a garden 
 of spice ! ' 
 
 " That won't do, of course ! We can't get out of 
 it like that ! But we must never allow ourselves 
 to doubt the beauty and goodness of God, or make 
 any mistake about which side He is on. The marvel 
 of dear old Mrs. Chetwynd is just that beauty has 
 triumphed, in spite of everything. With every 
 kind of trouble, every temptation to be dispirited 
 and spiteful and wretched, that fine spirit has got 
 through and, by George, I envy her the awaken-
 
 230 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 ing, when that sweet old soul slips away from the 
 cage where she is caught, and goes straight to the 
 arms of God ! " 
 
 He turned away from me as he said this, and I 
 could see that he struggled with a sob. Then he 
 looked at me with a smile, and put his arm in mine. 
 "Old man," he said, "I oughtn't to behave like 
 this but a day like this, when the world looks 
 as it was meant to look, and as, please God, it will 
 look more and more, goes to my heart ! I seem to 
 see what God desires, and what He can't bring 
 about yet, for all His pains. And I want to help 
 Him, if I can ! 
 
 " ' We too ! We ask no pledge of grace, 
 
 No rain of fire, no heaven-hung sign. 
 Thy need is written on Thy face 
 Take Thou our help, as we take Thine ! ' 
 
 " That's what I mean by worship the desire to 
 be used in the service of a Power that longs to make 
 things pure and happy, with groanings that cannot 
 be uttered. The worst of some kinds of worship is 
 that they drug you with a sort of lust for beauty, 
 which makes you afraid to go back and pick up your 
 spade. We mustn't swoon in happiness or delight, 
 but if we say ' Take me, use me, let me help ! ' 
 it is different, because we want to share whatever 
 is given us, to hand it on, not to pile it up. Of 
 course it's little enough that we can do : but think 
 of old Mrs. Chetwynd again what has she to give ? 
 Yet it is more than Solomon in all his. beauty 
 had to offer. We must be simple, we mustn't be 
 ambitious. Do you remember the old statesman 
 who, praising a disinterested man, said that he was
 
 OF WORSHIP 231 
 
 that rare and singular type of man who did public 
 work for the sake of the public ? That's what I 
 want you to do that is what a writer can do. 
 He can remind the world of beauty and simplicity 
 and purity. He can be 'a messenger, an inter- 
 preter, one among a thousand, to show unto man 
 his uprightness ! ' That's what you have got to 
 do, old boy ! Don't show unto man his nastiness 
 don't show him up ! Keep on reminding him of 
 what he really is or can be." 
 
 He went on after a moment. "I ought not to 
 talk like this," he said, " because I have failed 
 all along the line. ' I put in my thumb and pull 
 out a plum/ like Jack Horner. I try a little to 
 hand it on, but it is awfully nice, you know, that 
 plum ! I don't pretend it isn't." 
 
 "Why, Father," I said, much moved at his 
 kind sincerity, " I don't know anyone in the world 
 who eats fewer of his plums than you ! " 
 
 "Ah, that's a friendly word!" said Father 
 Payne. " But you can't count the plum-stones on 
 my plate." 
 
 We did not say much after this. We walked 
 back in the summer twilight, and my mind began 
 to stir and soar, as indeed it often did when Father 
 Payne showed me his heart in all its strength and 
 cleanness. No one whom I ever met had his power 
 of lighting a flame of pure desire and beautiful 
 hopefulness, in the fire of which all that was base 
 and mean seemed to shrivel away.
 
 232 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 XLV 
 
 OF A CHANGE OF RELIGION 
 
 I WAS walking one day with Father Payne ; he said 
 to me, "I have been reading Newman's Apologia 
 over again I must have read it a dozen times ! 
 It is surely one of the most beautiful and singular 
 books in the whole world ? and I think that the 
 strangest sentence in it is this, ' Who w r ould ever 
 dream of making the world his confidant ? ' Did 
 Newman, do you suppose, not realise that he had 
 done that ? And what is stranger still, did he 
 not know that he had told the world, not the 
 trivial things, the little tastes and fancies which any- 
 one might hear, but the most intimate and sacred 
 things, which a man would hardly dare to say to 
 God upon his knees. Newman seems to me in that 
 book to have torn out his beating and palpitating 
 heart, and set it in a crystal phial for all the world 
 to gaze upon. And further, did Newman really 
 not know that this was what he always desired to 
 do and mostly did to confide in the world, to tell 
 his story as a child might tell it to a mother ? It 
 is clear to me that Newman was a man who did 
 not only desire to be loved by a few friends, but 
 wished everybody to love him. I will not say that 
 he was never happy till he had told his tale, and I 
 will not say that artist-like he loved applause : 
 but he did not wish to be hidden, and he earnestly 
 desired to be approved. He craved to be allowed 
 to say what he thought it is pathetic to hear him 
 say so often how ' fierce ' he was and yet he hated
 
 OF A CHANGE OF RELIGION 233 
 
 suspicion and hostility and misunderstanding : and 
 though he loved a refined sort of quiet, he even 
 more loved, I think, to be the centre of a fuss ! 
 I feel little doubt in my own mind that, even when 
 he was living most retired, he wished people to be 
 curious about what he was doing. He was one of 
 those men who felt he had a special mission, a 
 prophetical function. He was a dramatic creature, 
 a performer, you know. He read the lessons like 
 an actor : he preached like an actor : he was 
 intensely self-conscious. Naturally enough ! If you 
 feel like a prophet, the one sign of failure is that 
 your audience melts away." 
 
 Father Payne paused a moment, lost in thought. 
 
 "But," I said, "do you mean that Newman 
 calculated all his effects ? " 
 
 "Oh, not deliberately," said Father Payne, 
 " but he was an artist pure and simple he was 
 never less by himself than when he was alone, as 
 the old Provost of Oriel said of him. He lived 
 dramatically by a kind of instinct. The unself- 
 conscious man goes his own way, and does not 
 bother his head about other people : but Newman 
 was not like that. When he was reading, it was 
 always like the portrait of a student reading. 
 That's the artist's way he is always living in a sort 
 of picture-frame. Why, you can see from the 
 Apologia, which he wrote in a few weeks, and often, 
 as he once said, in tears, how tenderly and eagerly 
 he remembered all he had ever done or thought. 
 His descriptions of himself are always romantic : 
 he lived in memories, like all poets." 
 
 " But that gives one a disagreeable sense of 
 unreality of pose," I said.
 
 234 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 "Ah, but that's very short-sighted," said Father 
 Payne. " Newman's was a beautiful spirit 
 wonderfully tender-hearted, self-restrained, gentle, 
 sensitive, beauty-loving. He loved beauty as much 
 as any man who ever lived beautiful conduct, 
 beautiful life and then his gift of expression ! 
 There's a marvellous thing. It's pure poetry, most 
 of the Apologia : look at the way he flashes into 
 metaphor, at his exquisite pictures of persons, at 
 his irony, his courtesy, his humour, his pathos. 
 He and Ruskin knew exactly how to confide in 
 the world, how to humiliate themselves gracefully 
 in public, how to laugh at themselves, how to be 
 gay it's all so well-bred, so delicate ! Depend 
 upon it, that's the way to make the world love you 
 to tell it all about yourself like a charming child, 
 without any boasting or bragging. The world is 
 awfully stupid ! It adores well-bred egotism. We 
 are all deeply inquisitive about people ; and if you 
 can reveal yourself without vanity, and are a lovable 
 creature, the world will overwhelm you with love. 
 You can't pay the world a greater compliment than 
 to open your heart to it. You must not bore it, 
 of course, nor must you seem to be demanding its 
 applause. You must just seem to be in need of 
 sympathy and comfort. You must be a little sad, 
 a little tired, a little bewildered. I don't say that 
 is easy to do, and a man must not set out to do it. 
 But if a man has got something childlike and inno- 
 cent about him, and a naive way with him, the 
 world will take him to its heart. The world loves 
 to pity, to compassionate, to sympathise, much 
 more than it loves to admire." 
 
 " But what about the religious side of it all ? " I said. 

 
 OF A CHANGE OF RELIGION 235 
 
 "Ah," said Father Payne, " I think that is more 
 touching still. The people who change their re- 
 ligion, as it is called, there is something extremely 
 captivating about them as a rule. To want to 
 change your form of religion simply means that 
 you are unhappy and uneasy. You want more 
 beauty, or more assurance, or more sympathy, or 
 more antiquity. Have you never noticed how all 
 converts personify their new Church in feminine 
 terms ? She becomes a Madonna, something at 
 once motherly and young. It is the passion with 
 which the child turns away from what is male and 
 rough, to the mother, the nurse, the elder sister. 
 The convert isn't really in search of dogmas and 
 doctrines : he is in love with a presence, a shape, 
 something which can clasp and embrace and love 
 him. I don't feel any real doubt of that. The 
 man who turns away to some other form of faith 
 wants a home. He sees the ugliness, the spite, 
 the malice, the contentiousness of his own Church. 
 He loathes the hardness and uncharitableness of 
 it ; he is like a boy at school sick for home. To 
 me Newman's logic is like the effort of a man des- 
 perately constructing a bridge to escape- to the 
 other side of the river. The land beyond is like 
 a landscape seen from a hill, a scene of woods and 
 waters, of fields and hamlets everything seems 
 peaceful and idyllic there. He wants the wings 
 of a dove, to flee away and be at rest. It is the 
 same feeling which makes people wish to travel. 
 When you travel, the new land is a spectacular 
 thing it is all a picture. It is not that you crave 
 to live in a foreign land : you merely want the 
 luxury of seeing life without living life. No ordinary
 
 236 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 person goes to live in Italy because he has studied 
 the political constitution and organisation of Italy, 
 and prefers it to that of England. So, too, the 
 charm of a religious conversion is that it doesn't 
 seem unpatriotic to do it but you get the feel of a 
 new country without having to quit your own. 
 And the essence of it is a flight from conditions 
 which you dread and dislike. Of course Newman 
 does not describe it so that is all a part of his 
 guilelessness he speaks of the shadow of a hand 
 upon the wall : but I don't doubt that his sub- 
 conscious mind thrilled with the sense of a possible 
 escape that way. His heart was converted long 
 before his mind. What he hated in the English 
 Church was having to decide for himself he wanted 
 to lean on something, to put himself inside a strong- 
 hold : he wanted to obey. Some people dislike 
 the way in which he made himself obey, the way 
 he argued himself into holding things which were 
 frankly irrational. But I don't mind that ! It 
 is the pleasure of the child in being told what to 
 do instead of having to amuse itself." 
 
 He was silent for a little, and then he said : 
 " I see it all so clearly, and yet of course it is in 
 a sense inconceivable to me, because to my mind 
 all the Churches have got a burden of belief which 
 they can't carry. The Gospel is simple enough, 
 and it is as much as I can do to live on those lines. 
 Besides, I don't want to obey I want to obey as 
 little as I can ! The ecclesiastical and the theo- 
 logical tradition is all a world of shadows to me. 
 I can't be bound by the pious fancies of men who 
 knew no science, and very little about evidence 
 of any kind. What I want is just a simple and
 
 OF A CHANGE OF RELIGION 237 
 
 beautiful principle of living, such as I feel thrills 
 through the words of Christ. The Prodigal Son 
 that's almost enough for me ! It is simplifica- 
 tion that I want, and independence. Of course 
 I see that if that isn't what a man wants, if he 
 requires that something or someone should be in- 
 fallible, then he does require a good deal of argu- 
 ment and information and history. But though 
 I don't object to people who want all that, it isn't 
 what I am in search of. I want as much strong 
 emotion and as little system as I can get. By 
 emotion I don't mean sentiment, but real motives 
 for acting or not acting. I want to hear someone 
 saying, ' Come up hither/ and to see something 
 in his face which makes me believe he sees some- 
 thing that I don't see and that I wish to see. I 
 don't feel that with Newman ! He is fifty times 
 better than myself, but I couldn't do the thing 
 in his way, though I love him with all my heart : 
 it's a quiet sort of brotherhood that I want, and 
 not too many rules. In fact, it is laws I want, 
 and not rules, and to feel the laws rather than to 
 know them. I can't help feeling that Newman 
 spent too much of his time in the law-court, plead- 
 ing and arguing : and it's stuffy in there ! But 
 he will remain for ever one of those figures whom 
 the world will love, because it can pity him as 
 well as admire him. Newman goes to one's head, 
 you know, or to one's heart ! And I expect that 
 it was exactly what he wanted to do all the time ! "
 
 238 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 XLVI 
 
 OF AFFECTION 
 
 FATHER PAYNE, on our walks, invariably stopped 
 and spoke to animals. I will not say that animals 
 were always fond of him, because that is a privilege 
 confined to saints, and heroes of romantic legends. 
 But they generally responded to his advances. 
 It used to amuse me to hear the way he used to 
 talk to animals. He would stop to whistle to a 
 caged bird : " You like your little prison, don't you, 
 sweet ? " he would say. Or he would apostro- 
 phise a cat, " Well, Ma'am, you must find it wearing 
 to carry on your expeditions all night, and to live 
 the life of a domestic saint all day ? " I asked 
 him once why he did not keep a dog, when he was 
 so fond of animals. "Oh, I couldn't," he said; 
 "it is so dreadful when dogs get old and ill, and 
 when they die ! It's sentiment, too ; and I can't 
 afford to multiply emotions there are too many 
 as it is ! Besides, there is something rather terrible 
 to me about the affection of a dog it's so un- 
 reasonable a devotion, and I like more critical 
 affections I prefer to earn affection ! I read 
 somewhere the other day," he went on, "that it 
 might easily be argued that the dog was a higher 
 flight of nature even than man ; that man has 
 gone ahead in mind and inventiveness ; but that 
 the dog is on the whole the better Christian, because 
 he does by instinct what man fails to do by intention 
 he is so sympathetic, so unresentful, so trustful ! 
 It is really amazing, if you come to think of it, the
 
 OF AFFECTION 239 
 
 dog's power of attachment to another species. We 
 must seem very mysterious to dogs, and yet they 
 never question our right to use them as we will, 
 while nothing shakes their love. And then there 
 is something wonderful in the way in which the 
 dog, however old he is, always wants to play. Most 
 animals part with that after their first youth ; but 
 a dog plays, partly for the fun of it, and partly 
 to make sure that you like his company and are 
 happy. And yet it is a little undignified to care 
 for people like that, you know ! " 
 
 " How ought one to care for people ? " I said. 
 
 "Ah, that's a large question," said Father 
 Payne, "the duty of loving it's a contradiction 
 in terms ! To love people seems the one thing in 
 the world you cannot do because you ought to do 
 it ; and yet to love your neighbour as yourself 
 can't only mean to behave as if you loved him. 
 And then, what does caring about people mean ? 
 It seems impossible to say. It isn't that you want 
 anything which they can give you it isn't that 
 they need anything you can give them ; it isn't 
 always even that you want to see them. There are 
 people for whom I care who rather bore me ; there 
 are people who care for me who bore me to extinc- 
 tion ; and again there are people whose company 
 I like for whom I don't care. It isn't always by 
 any means that I admire the people for whom I 
 care. I see their faults, I don't want to resemble 
 them. Then, too, there have been people for 
 whom I have cared very much, and wanted to 
 please, who have not cared in the least for me. 
 Some of the best-loved people in the world seem 
 to have had very little love to give away ! I have
 
 240 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 a sort of feeling that the people who evoke most 
 affection are the people who have something of 
 the child always in them something petulant, 
 wilful, self-absorbed, claiming sympathy and atten- 
 tion. It is a certain innocence and freshness that 
 we love, I think ; the quality that seems to say, 
 ' Oh, do make me happy ' ; and I think that caring 
 for people generally means just that you would 
 like to make them happy, or that they have it in 
 their power to make you happy. I think it is a 
 kind of conspiracy to be happy together, if possible. 
 Probably the mistake we make is to think it is one 
 definite thing, when a good many things go to 
 make it up. I have been interested in a very large 
 number of people in fact, I am generally interested 
 in people ; but I haven't cared for all of them, 
 while I have cared for a good many people in whom 
 I have not been at all interested. But it is easier 
 to say what the qualities are that repel affection, 
 than what the qualities are which attract it. I 
 don't think any faults prevent it, if people are 
 sorry for their faults and are sorry to have hurt 
 you. It seems to me impossible to care for spiteful 
 people, or for the people who turn on you in a 
 sudden anger, and don't want to be forgiven, but 
 are glad to have made you fear them. I don't 
 care for people who claim affection as a right, or 
 who bargain for sacrifices. The bargaining element 
 must be wholly absent from affection. The feeling 
 'it is your turn to be nice ' is fatal to it. No, I 
 think that it is a feeling that you can live at peace 
 with the particular person that is the basis of 
 friendship. The element of reproach must be 
 wholly absent : I don't mean the element of criti-
 
 OF AFFECTION 241 
 
 cism that can be impersonal but the feeling 
 ' you ought not to behave like this to me.' " 
 
 Father Payne relapsed into silence. "But," I 
 said, "surely the people who make claims for 
 affection are very often most beloved, even when 
 they are unjust, inconsiderate, ill-tempered ? " 
 
 "By women," said Father Payne, "but not by 
 men and there's another difficulty. Men and 
 women mean such utterly different things by 
 affection, that they can't even discuss it together. 
 Women will do anything for you, if you claim 
 their help, and make it clear that you need them ; 
 they will love you if you do that. A man, on the 
 other hand, will often do his very best to help you, 
 if you appeal to him, but he won't care for you, 
 as a rule, in consequence. Women like emotional 
 surprises, men do not. A man wants to get done 
 with excitement, and to enter on an easy partner- 
 ship women like the excitement more than the 
 ease. And then it is all complicated by the admix- 
 ture of the masculine and feminine temperaments. 
 As a rule, however, women are interested in moody 
 temperaments, and men are bored by them. Per- 
 sonally, my own pleasure in meeting a real friend, 
 or in hearing from a friend, is the pleasure of 
 feeling ' Yes, you are there, just the same,' it's 
 the tranquillity that one values. The possibility 
 of finding a man angry or pettish is unpleasant to 
 me. I feel ' so all this nonsense has to be cleared 
 away again ! ' I don't want to be questioned and 
 scrutinised, with a sense that I am on my trial; 
 I don't mind an ironical letter, which shows that a 
 friend is fully aware of my faults and foibles ; but 
 it's an end of all friendship with me if I feel a man 
 
 Q
 
 242 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 is bent on improving me, especially if it is for his 
 own convenience. I'm sure that the fault-finding 
 element is fatal to affection. That may sound 
 weak, but I can't be made to feel that I am re- 
 sponsible to other people. I don't recognise any- 
 one's right to censure me. A man may criticise me 
 if he likes, but he mustn't impose upon me the 
 duty of living up to his ideal. I don't believe that 
 even God does that ! " 
 
 " I don't understand," I said. 
 
 "Well," said Father Payne, "I don't believe 
 that God says, ' This is my law, and you must 
 obey it because I choose." I believe He says, 
 ' This is the law, for Me as well as for you, and you 
 will not be happy till you obey it.' Yes, I have 
 got it, I believe the essence of affection is equality. 
 I don't mean that you may not recognise superiorities 
 in your friend, and he in you ; but they must not 
 come into the question of affection. Love makes 
 equal, and when there is a real sense of equality, 
 love can begin." 
 
 " But," I said, "the passion of lovers isn't that 
 all based on the worship of something infinitely 
 superior to oneself ? " 
 
 "Yes," said Father Payne, "but that means a 
 sight of something beyond of the thing which we 
 all love beauty. I don't say that equality is the 
 thing we love it's only the condition of loving. 
 The lover can't love, if he feels himself really un- 
 worthy of love. He must believe that at worst 
 he can be loved, though he may be astonished 
 at being loved ; it is in love that it is possible 
 to meet ; it is love that brings beauty within 
 your reach, or down to your level. It is beauty
 
 OF AFFECTION 243 
 
 that you love in your friend, not his right to im- 
 prove you. He is what you want to be ; and the 
 comfort of being loved is the comfort of feeling 
 that there is some touch of the same beauty in 
 yourself. It is so easy to feel dreary, stupid, 
 commonplace and then someone appears, and 
 you see in his glance and talk that there is, after 
 all, some touch of the same thing in yourself which 
 you love in him, some touch of the beauty which 
 you love in God. But the glory of beauty is that 
 it is concerned with being beautiful and becoming 
 beautiful not in mocking or despising or finding 
 fault or improving. Love is the finding your 
 friend beautiful in mind and heart, and the joy of 
 being loved is the sense that you are beautiful to 
 him that you are equal in that ! When you once 
 know that, little quarrels and frictions do not 
 matter what does matter is the recognising of 
 some ugly thing which the man whom you thought 
 was your friend really clings to and worships. 
 Faults do not matter if only the friend is aware of 
 them, and ashamed of them : it is the self-conscious 
 fault, proud of its power to wound, and using 
 affection as the channel along which the envenomed 
 stream may flow, which destroys affection and 
 trust." 
 
 "Then it comes to this," I said, "that affection 
 is a mutual recognition of beauty and a sense of 
 equality ? " 
 
 "It is that, more or less, I believe," said Father 
 Payne. " I don't mean that friends need be aware 
 of that you need not philosophise about your 
 friendships but if you ask me, as an analyst, 
 what it all consists in, I believe that those are
 
 244 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 the essential elements of it and I believe that 
 it holds good of the dog-and-man friendship as 
 well ! " 
 
 XLVII 
 
 OF RESPECT OF PERSONS 
 
 FATHER PAYNE had been out to luncheon one day 
 with some neighbours. He had groaned over the 
 prospect the day before, and had complained that 
 such goings-on unsettled him. 
 
 "Well, Father," said Rose at dinner, "so you 
 have got through your ordejl ! Was it very bad ? " 
 
 "Bad!" said Father Payne, "why should it 
 be bad ? I 'm crammed with impressions I 'm 
 a perfect mine of them." 
 
 " But you didn't like the prospect of going ? " 
 said Rose. 
 
 "No," said Father Payne, "I shrank from the 
 strain you phlegmatic, aristocratic people, men- 
 of-the-world, biases, highly-born and highly- placed, 
 have no conception of the strain these things are 
 on a child of nature. You are used to such things, 
 Rose, no doubt you do not anticipate a luncheon- 
 party with a mixture of curiosity and gloom. But 
 it is good for me to go to such affairs it is like a 
 waterbreak in a stream it aerates and agitates 
 the mind. But you don't realise the amount of 
 observation I bring to bear on such an event the 
 strange house, the unfamiliar food, the new inscru- 
 table people everything has to be observed, dealt 
 with, if possible accounted for, and if unaccountable, 
 then inflexibly faced and recollected. A torrent of
 
 OF RESPECT OF PERSONS 245 
 
 impressions has poured in upon me to say nothing 
 of the anxious consideration beforehand of topics 
 of conversation, and modes of investigation ! To 
 stay in a new house crushes me with fatigue and 
 even a little party like this, which seems, I daresay, 
 to some of you, a negligible, even a tedious thing, 
 is to me rich in far-flung experience." 
 
 " Mayn't we have the benefit of some of it ? " 
 said Rose. 
 
 "Yes," said Father Payne, "you may you 
 must, indeed ! I am grateful to you for intro- 
 ducing the subject it is more graceful than if 
 I had simply divested myself of my impressions 
 unsolicited." 
 
 " What was it all about ? " said Rose. 
 
 " Why," said Father Payne, "the answer to that 
 is simple enough it was to meet an American ! 
 I know that race ! Who but an American would 
 have heard of our little experiment here, and not 
 only wanted to know they all do that but 
 positively arranged to know ? Yes, he was a hard- 
 featured man a man of wealth, I imagine from 
 some place, the grotesque and extravagant name 
 of which I could not even accurately retain, in the 
 State of Minnesota." 
 
 " Did he want to try a similar experiment ? " 
 said Barthrop. 
 
 " He did not," said Father Payne. " I gathered 
 that he had no such intention but he desired to 
 investigate ours. He was full of compliments, of 
 information, even of rhetoric. I have seldom 
 heard a simple case stated more emphatically, or 
 with such continuous emphasis. My mind simply 
 reeled before it. He pursued me as a harpooner
 
 246 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 might pursue a whale. He had the whole thing 
 out of me in no time. He interrogated me as a 
 corkscrew interrogates a cork. That consumed the 
 whole of luncheon. I made a poor show. My 
 experiment, such as it is, stood none of the tests 
 he applied to it. It appeared to be lacking in all 
 earnestness and zeal. I was painfully conscious of 
 my lack of earnestness. 'Well, sir,' he said at 
 the conclusion of my examination-in-chief , ' I 
 seem to detect that this business of yours is con- 
 ducted mainly with a view to your own entertain- 
 ment, and I admit that it causes me considerable 
 disappointment.' The fact is, my boys," said 
 Father Payne, surveying the table, " that we must 
 be more conscious of higher aims here, and we must 
 put them on a more commercial footing ! ' ' 
 
 " But that was not all ? " said Barthrop. 
 
 " No, it was not all," said Father Payne ; " and, 
 to tell you the truth, I was more alarmed by than 
 interested in the Minnesota merchant. I couldn't 
 state my case I failed in that and I very much 
 doubt if I could have convinced him that there was 
 anything in it. Indeed, he said that my conceptions 
 of culture were not as clear-cut as he had hoped." 
 
 " He seems to have been fairly frank," said Rose. 
 
 "He was frank, but not uncivil," said Father 
 Payne. " He did not deride my absence of definite- 
 ness, he only deplored it. But I really got more 
 out of the subsequent talk. We adjourned to a 
 sort of portico, a pretty place looking on to a formal 
 garden : it was really very charmingly done a 
 clever fake of an old garden, but with nothing 
 really beautiful about it. It looked as if no one 
 had ever lived in it, though the illusion of age was
 
 OF RESPECT OF PERSONS 247 
 
 skilfully contrived old paving-stones, old bricks, 
 old lead vases, but all looking as if they were shy, 
 and had only been just introduced to each other. 
 There was no harmony of use about it. But the 
 talk that was the amazing thing ! Such pleasant 
 intelligent people, nice smiling women, courteous 
 grizzled men. By Jove, there wasn't a single writer 
 or artist or musician that they didn't seem to know 
 intimately ! It was a literary party, I gathered : 
 but even so there was a haze of politics and society 
 about it vistas of politicians and personages of 
 every kind, all known intimately, all of them 
 quoted, everything heard and whispered in the 
 background of events we had no foregrounds, I 
 can tell you, nothing second-hand, no concealments 
 or reticences. Everyone in the world worth know- 
 ing seemed to have confided their secrets to that 
 group. It was a privilege, I can tell you ! We 
 simply swam in influences and authenticities. I 
 seemed to be in the innermost shrine of the world's 
 forces where they get the steam up, you know ! " 
 
 "But who are these people, after all?" said 
 Rose. 
 
 "My dear Rose!" said Father Payne. "You 
 mustn't destroy my illusions in that majestic manner! 
 What would I not have given to be able to ask 
 myself that question ! To me they were simply 
 the innermost circle, to whom the writers and 
 artists of the day told their dreams, and from whom 
 they sought encouragement and sympathy. That 
 was enough for me. I stored my memory with 
 anecdotes and noble names, like the man in Pride 
 and Prejudice." 
 
 " But what did it all come to ? " said Rose.
 
 248 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 "Well," said Father Payne, "to tell you the 
 truth, it didn't amount to very much ! At the 
 the time I was dazzled and stupefied but subse- 
 quent reflection has convinced me that the cooking 
 was better than the food, so to speak." 
 
 " You mean that it was mostly humbug ? " said 
 Rose. 
 
 "Well, I wouldn't go quite as far as that," said 
 Father Payne, "but it was not very nutritive 
 no, the nutriment was lacking ! Come, I'll tell 
 you frankly what I did think, as I came away. I 
 thought these pretty people very adventurous, very 
 quick, very friendly. But I don't truly think they 
 were interested in the real thing at all only in- 
 terested in the words of the wise, and in the un- 
 considered trifles of the Major Prophets, so to speak. 
 I didn't think it exactly pretentious but they 
 obviously only cared for people of established 
 reputation. They didn't admire the ideas behind, 
 only the reputations of the people who said the 
 things. They had undoubtedly seen and heard 
 the great people I confess it amazed me to think 
 how easily the men of mark can be exploited 
 but I did not discern that they cared about the 
 things represented, only about the representa- 
 tives. The American was different. He, I think, 
 cared about the ideas, though he cared about them 
 in the wrong way. I mean that he claimed to find 
 everything distinct, whereas the big things are 
 naturally indistinct. They loom up in a shadowy 
 way, and the American was examining them 
 through field-glasses. But my other friends seemed 
 to me to be only interested in the people who had 
 the entree, so to speak the priests of the shrine.
 
 OF RESPECT OF PERSONS 249 
 
 They had noticed everything that doesn't matter 
 about the high and holy ones how they looked, 
 spoke, dressed, behaved. It was awfully clever, 
 some of it ; one of the women imitated Legard 
 the essayist down to the ground the way he pon- 
 tificates, you know but nothing else. They were 
 simply interested in the great men, and not in- 
 terested in what make the great men different 
 from other people, but simply in their resemblance 
 to other people. Even great people have to eat, 
 you know ! Legard himself eats, though it's a 
 leisurely process ; and this woman imitated the 
 way he forked up a bit, held it till the bit dropped 
 off, and put the empty fork into his mouth. It 
 was excruciatingly funny I'll admit that. But 
 they missed the point, after all. They didn't care 
 about Legard's books a bit they cared much more 
 about that funny cameo ring he wears on his tie ! " 
 
 "It all seems to me horribly vulgar," said 
 Kaye. 
 
 "No, it was no more vulgar than a dance of 
 gnats," said Father Payne. "They were all alive, 
 those people. They were just gnats, now I come 
 to think of it ! They had stung all the great men 
 of the dayeven drawn a little blood and they 
 were intoxicated by it. Mind, I don't say that 
 it is worth doing, that kind of thing ! But they 
 were having their fun and the only mistake they 
 made was in thinking they cared about these people 
 for the right reasons. No, the only really rueful 
 part of the business was the revelation to me of 
 what the great people can put up with, in the way 
 of being feted, and the extent to which they seem 
 able to give themselves away to these pretty women.
 
 250 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 It must be enervating, I think, and even exhaust- 
 ing, to be so pawed and caressed ; but it's natural 
 enough, and if it amuses them, I'm not going to 
 find fault. My only fear is that Legard and the 
 rest think they are really living with these people. 
 They are not doing that ; they are only being 
 roped in for the fun of the performance. These 
 charming ladies just ensnare the big people, make 
 them chatter, and then get together, as they did 
 to-day, and compare the locks of hair they have 
 snipped from their Samsons. But it isn't a bit 
 malicious it's simply childish ; and, by Jove, I 
 enjoyed myself tremendously. Now, don't pull 
 a long face, Kaye ! Of course it was very cheap 
 and I don't say that anyone ought to enjoy that 
 sort of thing enough to pursue it. But if it comes 
 in my way, why, it is like a dish of sweetmeats ! I 
 don't approve of it, but it was like a story out of 
 Boccaccio, full of life and zest, even though the 
 pestilence was at work down in the city. We 
 must not think ill of life too easily ! I don't say 
 that these people are living what is called the highest 
 life. But, after all, I only saw them amusing them- 
 selves. There were some children about, nice 
 children, sensibly dressed, well-behaved, full of go, 
 and yet properly drilled. These women are good 
 wives and good mothers ; and I expect they have 
 both spirit and tenderness, when either is wanted. 
 I 'm not going to bemoan their light-mindedness ; 
 at all events, I thought it was very pleasant, and 
 they were very good to me. They saw I wasn't 
 a first-hander or a thoroughbred, and they made 
 it easy for me. No, it was a happy time for me 
 and, by George, how they fed us ! I expect the
 
 OF AMBIGUITY 251 
 
 women looked after all that. I daresay that, as 
 far as economics go, it was all wrong, and that these 
 people are only a sort of scum on the surface of 
 society. But it is a pretty scum, shot with bright 
 colours. Anyhow, it is no good beginning by trying 
 to alter them ! If you could alter everything else, 
 they would fall into line, because they are good- 
 humoured and sensible. And as long as people 
 are kindly and full of life, I shall not complain ; 
 I would rather have that than a dreary high- 
 mindedness." 
 
 Father Payne rose. " Oh, do go on, Father ! " 
 said someone. 
 
 "No, my boy," said Father Payne, "I'm boil- 
 ing over with impressions rooms, carpets, china, 
 flowers, ladies' dresses ! But that must all settle 
 down a bit. In a few days I'll interrogate my 
 memory, like Wordsworth, and see if there is any- 
 thing of permanent worth there ! " 
 
 XLVIII 
 
 OF AMBIGUITY 
 
 FATHER PAYNE had been listening to some work 
 of mine : and he said at the end, " That is graceful 
 enough, and rather attractive but it has a great 
 fault : it is sometimes ambiguous. Several of your 
 sentences can have more than one meaning. I 
 remember once at Oxford," he said, smiling, " that 
 Collins, one of our lecturers, had been going through 
 a translation-paper with me, and had told me three 
 quite distinct ways of rendering a sentence, each
 
 252 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 backed by a great scholar. I asked him, I remember, 
 whether that meant that the original writer it 
 was Livy, I think had been in any doubt as to 
 what his words were meant to convey. He laughed, 
 and said, ' No, I don't imagine that Livy intended 
 to make his meaning obscure. I expect, if we took 
 the passage to him with the three renderings, he 
 would deride at least two of them, and possibly all 
 three, and would point out that we simply did not 
 know the usage of some word or phrase which 
 would have been absolutely clear to a contem- 
 porary reader.' But Collins went on to say that 
 there might also be a real ambiguity about the 
 passage : and then he quoted the supposed remark 
 of the bishop who declined to wear gaiters, and 
 said, ' I shall wear no clothes to distinguish myself 
 from my fellow- Christians.' This was printed in 
 his biography, ' I shall wear no clothes, to distin- 
 guish myself from my fellow-Christians.' 'That 
 sentence may be fairly called ambiguous,' Collins 
 said, ' when its sense so much depends upon punc- 
 tuation.' 
 
 "Now," Father Payne went on, "you must 
 remember, in writing, that you write for the eye, 
 you don't write for the ear. A book isn't primarily 
 meant to be read aloud : and you mustn't resort 
 to tricks of emphasis, such as italics and so forth, 
 which can only be rendered by voice-inflections. 
 It is your first duty to be absolutely clear and 
 limpid. You mustn't write long involved sen- 
 tences which necessitate the mind holding in solu- 
 tion a lot of qualifying clauses. You must break 
 up your sentences, and even repeat yourself rather 
 than be confused. There is no beauty of style like
 
 OF AMBIGUITY 253 
 
 perfect clearness, and in all writing mystification is 
 a fault. You ought never to make your reader 
 turn back to the page before to see what you are 
 driving at." 
 
 "But surely," I said, "there are great writers 
 like Carlyle and George Meredith, for instance, who 
 have been difficult to understand." 
 
 "Yes," said Father Payne, "but that's a fault, 
 though it may be a magnificent fault. It may 
 mean such a pressure of ideas and images that the 
 thing can hardly be written at length and it may 
 give you a sense of exuberant greatness. You may 
 have to forgive a great writer his exuberance you 
 may even have to forgive him the trouble it costs 
 to penetrate his exact thoughts, for the sake of 
 steeping yourself in the rush and splendour of the 
 style. But obscurity isn't a thing to aim at for 
 anyone who is trying to write ; it may be, in the 
 case of a great writer, a sort of vociferousness which 
 intoxicates you : and the man may convey a kind 
 of inspiration by his very obscurities. But it must 
 be an impulse which simply overpowers him it 
 mustn't be an effect deliberately planned. You 
 may perhaps feel the bigness of the thought all the 
 more in the presence of a writer who, for all his 
 power, can't confine the stream, and comes down 
 in a cataract of words. But if you begin trying for 
 an effect, it is like splashing about in a pool to 
 make people believe it is a rushing river. The 
 movement mustn't be your own contortions, but 
 the speed of the stream. If you want to see the 
 bad side of obscurity, look at Browning. The 
 idea is often a very simple one when you get at 
 it ; it's only obscure because it is conveyed by
 
 254 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 hints and jerks and nudges. In Pickwick, for 
 instance, one does not read Jingle's remarks for 
 the underlying thought only for the pleasure of 
 seeing how he leaps from stepping-stone to stepping- 
 stone. You mustn't confuse the pleasure of un- 
 ravelling thought with the pleasure of thought. 
 If you can make yourself so attractive to your 
 readers that they love your explosions and collisions, 
 and say with a half-compassionate delight 'how 
 characteristic but it is worth while unravelling ! ' 
 you have achieved a certain success. But the 
 chance is that future ages won't trouble you much. 
 Disentangling obscurities isn't bad fun for contem- 
 poraries, who know by instinct the nuances of 
 words ; but it becomes simply a bore a century 
 later, when people are not interested in old 
 nuances, but simply want to know what you thought. 
 Only scholars love obscurity but then they are 
 detectives, and not readers." 
 
 "But isn't it possible to be too obvious? " I 
 said " to get a namby-pamby way of writing 
 what a reviewer calls painfully kind ? ' ' 
 
 "Well, of course, the thought must be tough," 
 said Father Payne, "but it's your duty to make a 
 tough thought digestible, not to make an easy 
 thought tough. No, my boy, you may depend 
 upon it that, if you want people to attend to you, 
 you must be intelligible. Don't, for God's sake, 
 think that Carlyle or Meredith or Browning meant 
 to be unintelligible, or even thought they were 
 being unintelligible. They were only thinking too 
 concisely or too rapidly for the reader. But don't 
 you try to produce that sort of illusion. Try to 
 say things like Newman or Ruskin big, beautiful,
 
 OF BELIEF 255 
 
 profound, delicate things, with an almost childlike 
 naivete. That is the most exquisite kind of charm, 
 when you find that half-a-dozen of the simplest 
 words in the language have expressed a thought 
 which holds you spell-bound with its truth and 
 loveliness. That is what lasts. People want to 
 be fed, not to be drugged : That, I believe, is the 
 real difference between romance and realism, and 
 I am one of those who gratefully believe that 
 romance has had its day. We want the romance 
 that comes from realism, not the romance which 
 comes by neglecting it. But that's another sub- 
 ject." 
 
 XLIX 
 
 OF BELIEF 
 
 " I DON'T think there is a single word in the 
 English language," said Father Payne, "which is 
 responsible for such unhappiness as the word 
 ' believe.' It is used with a dozen shades of intensity 
 by people ; and yet it is the one word which is 
 always being used in theological argument, and 
 which, like the ungodly, ' is a sword of thine.' ' 
 
 " I always mean the same thing by it, I believe ! " 
 I said. 
 
 "Excuse me," said Father Payne, "but if you 
 will take observations of your talk, you will find 
 you do not. At any rate, / do not, and I am more 
 careful about the words I use than many people. 
 If I have a heated argument with a man, and 
 think he takes up a perverse or eccentric opinion, 
 I am quite capable of saying of him, ' I believe he
 
 256 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 must be crazy.' Now such a sentence to a foreigner 
 would carry the evidence of a deep and clear con- 
 viction ; but, as I say it, it doesn't really express 
 the faintest suspicion of my opponent's sanity it 
 means little more than that I don't agree with 
 him ; and yet when I say, ' If there is one thing 
 that I do believe, it is in the actual existence of 
 evil/ it means a slowly accumulated and almost 
 unalterable opinion. In the Creed, one uses the 
 word ' believe ' as the nearest that conviction can 
 come to knowledge, short of indisputable evidence ; 
 and some people go further still, and use it as if 
 it meant an almost higher sort of knowledge. The 
 real meaning is just what Tennyson said, 
 
 " ' Believing where we cannot prove,' 
 
 where it signifies a conviction which we cannot 
 actually test, but on which we are content to act." 
 
 "But," I said, "if I say to a friend 'You are 
 a real sceptic you seem to me to believe nothing,' 
 I mean to imply something almost cynical." 
 
 "Yes," said Father Payne, "you mean that he 
 has no enthusiasm or ideals, and holds nothing 
 sacred, because those are just the convictions 
 which cannot be proved." 
 
 "Some people," I said, "seem to me simply to 
 mean by the word ' believe ' that they hold an 
 opinion in such a way that they would be upset 
 if it turned out to be untrue." 
 
 "Yes," said Father Payne, "it is the intrusion 
 of the nasty personal element which spoils the 
 word. Belief ought to be a very impersonal thing. 
 It ought simply to mean a convergence of your 
 own experience on a certain result ; but most
 
 OF BELIEF 257 
 
 people are quite as much annoyed at your dis- 
 believing a thing which they believe, as at your 
 disbelieving a thing which they know. You ought 
 never to be annoyed at people not accepting your 
 conclusions, and still less when your conclusion is 
 partly intuition, and does not depend upon evi- 
 dence. This is the sort of scale I have in my mind 
 ' practically certain, probable, possible, unproved, 
 unprovable.' Now, I am so far sceptical that, 
 apart from practical certainties, which are just 
 the convergence of all normal experience, the fact 
 that any one person or any number of persons 
 believed a thing would not affect my own faith in 
 it, unless I felt sure that the people who believed 
 it were fully as sceptical as and more clear-headed 
 than myself, and had really gone into the evidence. 
 But even so, as I said, the things most worth 
 believing are the things that can't be proved by 
 any evidence." 
 
 " What sort of things do you mean ? " I said. 
 
 "Well, a thing like the existence of God," said 
 Father Payne ; " that at best is only a generali- 
 sation from an immense range of facts, and a 
 special interpretation of them. But the amazing 
 thing in the world is the vast number of people 
 who are content to believe important things on 
 hearsay, because, on the whole, they love or trust 
 the people who teach them. The word ' believing,' 
 when I use it, doesn't mean that a good man says 
 it, and that I can't disprove it, but a sort of vital 
 assent, so that I can act upon the belief almost as 
 if I knew it. It means for me some sort of personal 
 experience. I could not love or hate a man on 
 hearsay, just because people whom I loved or
 
 258 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 trusted said that they either loved or hated him. 
 I might be so far biassed that I should meet him 
 expecting to find him either lovable or hateful, 
 but I could not adopt a personal emotion on hear- 
 say that must be the result of a personal experi- 
 ence ; and yet the adoption of a personal emotion 
 on hearsay is just what most people seem to me to 
 be able to do. I might believe that a man had 
 done good or bad things on hearsay : but I could 
 have no feeling about him unless I had seen him. 
 I could not either love or hate a historical personage : 
 the most I could do would be to like or dislike all 
 stories told about him so much that I could wish 
 to have met him or not to have met him." 
 
 " Isn't it a question of imagination ? " I said. 
 
 "Yes," said Father Payne, "and most ordinary 
 religious belief is simply an imaginative personifi- 
 cation : but that is a childish affair, not a reason- 
 able affair : and that is why most religious teachers 
 praise what they call a childlike faith, but what is 
 really a childish faith. I don't honestly think that 
 our religious beliefs ought to be a dog-like kind of 
 fidelity, unresentful, unquestioning, undignified con- 
 fidence. The love of Bill Sikes' terrier for Bill 
 Sikes doesn't make Bill Sikes an admirable or 
 lovable man : it only proves his terrier a credulous 
 terrier. The only reason why we admire such a 
 faith is because it is pleasant and convenient to be 
 blindly trusted, and to feel that we can behave as 
 badly as we like without alienating that sort of 
 trust. I have sometimes thought that the deepest 
 anguish of God must lie in His being loved and 
 trusted by people to whom He has been unable so 
 far to show Himself a loving and careful Father.
 
 OF BELIEF 259 
 
 I don't believe God can wish us to love Him in an 
 unreasonable way I mean by simply overlooking 
 the bad side of things. A man, let us say, with 
 some hideous inherited disease or vice ought not 
 to love God, unless he can be sure that God has 
 not made him the helpless victim of disease or 
 vice." 
 
 " But may the victim not have a faith in God 
 through and in spite of a disease or a vice ? " I 
 said. 
 
 "Yes, if he really faces the fact of the evil," 
 said Father Payne ; " but he must not believe in a 
 muddled sort of way, with a sort of abject timidity, 
 that God may have brought about his weakness 
 or his degradation. He ought to be quite clear 
 that God wishes him to be free and happy and 
 strong, and grieves, like Himself, over the miserable 
 limitation. He must have no sort of doubt that 
 God wishes him to be healthy or clean-minded. 
 Then he can pray, he can strive for patience, he 
 can fight his fault : he can't do it, if he really thinks 
 that God allowed him to be born with this horror 
 in his blood. If God could have avoided evil 
 I don't mean the sharp sorrows and trials which 
 have a noble thing behind them, but the ailments 
 of body or soul that simply debase and degrade 
 if He could have done without evil, but let it creep 
 in, then it seems to me a hopeless business, trying 
 to believe in God's power or His goodness. I 
 believe in the reality of evil, and I believe too in 
 God with all my heart and soul. But I stand with 
 God against evil : I don't stand facing God, and 
 not knowing on which side He is fighting. Every- 
 thing may not be evil which I think evil : but there
 
 260 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 are some sorts of evil cruelty, selfish lust, spite, 
 hatred, which I believe that God detests as much 
 as and far more than I detest them. That is what 
 I mean by a belief, a conviction which I cannot prove, 
 but on which I can and do act." 
 
 " But am I justified in not sharing that belief ? " 
 I said. 
 
 "Yes," said Father Payne; "if you, in the 
 light of your experience, think otherwise, you need 
 not believe it you cannot believe it ! But it is 
 the only interpretation of the facts which sets me 
 free to love God, which I do not only with heart 
 and soul, but with mind and strength. If I could 
 believe that God had ever tampered with what 
 I feel to be evil, ever permitted it to exist, ever 
 condoned it, I could fear Him I should fear Him 
 with a ghastly fear but I could not believe in 
 Him, or love Him as I do." 
 
 OF HONOUR 
 
 " No, I couldn't do that," said Lestrange to Bar- 
 throp, in one of those unhappy little silences which 
 so often seemed to lie in wait for Lestrange' s most 
 platitudinal utterances. " It wouldn't be consis- 
 tent with a sense of honour." 
 
 Father Payne gave a chuckle, and Lestrange 
 looked pained. " Oughtn't one to have a code of 
 honour ? " he said. 
 
 " Why, certainly ! " said Father Payne, " but you 
 mustn't impose your code on other people. You 
 mustn't take for granted that your idea of honour
 
 OF HONOUR 261 
 
 means the same thing to everyone. Suppose you 
 lost money at cards, and called it a debt of honour, 
 and thought it dishonourable not to pay it ; while 
 at the same time you didn't think it dishonourable 
 not to pay a poor tradesman whose goods you had 
 ordered and consumed, am I bound to accept your 
 code of honour ? " 
 
 " But there is a difference there," said Rose, " be- 
 cause the man to whom you owe a gambling debt 
 can't recover it by law, while a tradesman can. All 
 that a debt of honour means is that you feel bound 
 to pay it, though you are not legally compelled to 
 do so." 
 
 " Yes," said Father Payne, " that is so, in a sense, 
 I admit. But still, one mustn't shelter oneself be- 
 hind big words unless one is certain that they mean 
 exactly the same to one's opponent. When I was 
 at school there was a master who used to be fond, as 
 he said, of putting the boys on their honour : but 
 he never asked if we accepted the obligation. If I 
 say, ' I give you my honour not to do a thing,' then 
 I can be called dishonourable if I don't do it ; but 
 you can't put me on my honour unless I consent." 
 
 " But surely honour means something quite de- 
 finite ? " said Lestrange. 
 
 " Tell me what it is, then," said Father Payne. 
 " Rose, you seem to have ideas on the subject. 
 What do you mean by honour ? " 
 
 " Isn't it one of the ultimate things," said Rose, 
 " which can't be defined, but which everyone re- 
 cognises like blue and green, let me say, or sweet 
 and bitter ? " 
 
 " No," said Father Payne ; " at least I don't think 
 so. It seems to me rather an artificial thing, because
 
 262 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 it varies at different dates. It used, not so long ago, 
 to be considered an affair of honour to fight a duel 
 with a man if he threw a glass of wine in your face. 
 And what do you make of the old proverb, ' All is 
 fair in love and war ' ? That seems to mean that 
 honour is not a universal obligation. Then there's 
 the phrase, ' Honour among thieves,' which isn't a 
 very exalted one ; or the curious thing, schoolboy 
 honour, which dictates that a boy may know that 
 another boy is being disgracefully and cruelly bullied, 
 and yet is prevented by his sense of honour from 
 telling a master about it. I admit that honour is a 
 fine idea ; but it seems to me to cover a lot of things 
 in human nature which are very bad indeed. It may 
 mean only a sort 'of prudential arrangement which 
 binds a set of people together for a bad purpose, be- 
 cause they do not choose to be interfered with, and 
 yet call the thing honour for the sake of the asso- 
 ciations." 
 
 " Yes, I don't think it is necessarily a moral thing," 
 said Rose, " but that doesn't seem to me to matter. 
 It is simply an obligation, pledged or implied, that 
 you will act in a certain way. It may conflict with a 
 moral obligation, and then you have to decide which 
 is the greater obligation." 
 
 " Yes, that is perfectly true," said Father Payne, 
 " and as long as you admit that honour isn't in 
 itself bound to be a good thing, that is all I want. 
 Lestrange seemed to use it as if you had only got 
 to say that a motive was honourable, to have it 
 recognised by everyone as right. Take the case of 
 what are called ' national obligations.' A certain 
 party in the State, having secured a majority of votes, 
 enters into some arrangement a treaty, let us say
 
 OF HONOUR 263 
 
 without consulting the nation. Is that held to be 
 for ever binding on a nation till it is formally re- 
 pealed ? Is it dishonourable for a citizen belonging, 
 let us say, to the minority which is not represented 
 by the particular Government which makes the 
 treaty, to repudiate it ? " 
 
 " Yes, I think it may be fairly called dishonour- 
 able," said Rose ; " there is an obligation on a citizen 
 to back up his Government." 
 
 " Then I should feel that honour is a very com- 
 plicated thing," said Father Payne. " If a citizen 
 thinks a treaty dishonourable, and if it is also dis- 
 honourable for him to repudiate it, it seems to me he 
 is dishonourable whatever he does. He is obliged 
 to consent for the sake of honour to a dishonourable 
 thing being done. It seems to me perilously like a 
 director of a firm having to condone fraudulent 
 practices, because it is dishonourable to give his 
 fellow-directors away. It is this conflict between 
 individual honour and public honour which puzzles 
 me, and which makes me feel that honour isn't a 
 simple thing at all. A high conception of private 
 honour seems to me a very fine thing indeed. I 
 mean by it a profound hatred of anything false or 
 cowardly or perfidious, and a loathing of anything in- 
 sincere or treacherous. That sort of proud and stain- 
 less chivalry seems to me to be about the brightest 
 thing we can discern, and the furthest beauty we 
 can recognise. But honour seems also, according 
 to you, to be a principle to which you can be com- 
 mitted by a majority of votes, whether you approve 
 of it or not ; and then it seems to me a merely de- 
 testable thing, if you can be bound by honour to 
 acquiesce in something which you honestly believe
 
 264 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 to be base. It seems to me a case of what Tennyson 
 describes : 
 
 " ' His honour rooted in dishonour stood, 
 
 And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true.' " 
 
 " But surely social obligations must often con- 
 flict with private beliefs," said Rose. "A nation or 
 a society has got to act collectively, and a minority 
 must be over-ridden." 
 
 " I quite agree," said Father Payne, " but why 
 mix up honour with it at all ? I don't object to a 
 man who conscientiously dissents to some national 
 move being told that he must lump it. But if he 
 is called dishonourable for dissenting, then honour 
 does not seem to me to be a real word at all, but 
 only a term of abuse for a man who objects to some 
 concerted plan. You can't make a dishonest thing 
 honest because a majority choose to do it at least 
 I do not believe that morality is purely a matter of 
 majorities, or that the dishonour of one century can 
 become the honour of the next. I am inclined to 
 believe just the opposite. I believe that the man 
 who has so sensitive a conscience about what is 
 honourable or not, that he is called a Quixotic fool 
 by his contemporaries, is far more likely to be right 
 than the coarser majority who only see that a cer- 
 tain course is expedient. I should believe that he 
 saw some truth of morality clearly which the rougher 
 sort of minds did not see. The saint call him what 
 you like is only the man who stands higher up, 
 and sees the sunrise before the people who stand 
 lower down." 
 
 " But everyone has a right to his own sense of 
 honour," said Rose.
 
 OF WORK 265 
 
 " Certainly," said Father Payne, " but you must 
 be certain that a man's sense of honour is lower than 
 your own before you call him dishonourable for 
 differing from you. If a man is less scrupulous than 
 myself, I may think him dishonourable, if I also 
 think that he knows better. But what I do not 
 think that any of us has a right to do is to call a man 
 dishonourable if he has more scruples than oneself. 
 He may be over-scrupulous, but the chances are 
 that any man who sacrifices his convenience to a 
 scruple has a higher sense of honour than the man 
 who throws over a scruple for the sake of his con- 
 venience. That is why I think honour is a danger- 
 ous word to play with, because it is so often used to 
 frighten people who don't fall in with what is for the 
 convenience of a gang." 
 
 " But surely," said Rose, " morality is after all only 
 a word for what society agrees to consider moral." 
 
 " Yes, in a sense that is so," said Father Payne ; 
 "it is only a word to express a phenomenon. But 
 I believe that morality is a real thing, for all that ; 
 and that our conceptions of it get clearer, as the 
 world goes on. It is something outside of us a law 
 of nature if you like which we are learning ; not 
 merely a thing which we invent for our convenience. 
 But that is too big a business to go into now." 
 
 LI 
 
 OF WORK 
 
 I CANNOT remember now what public man it was 
 who had died of a breakdown from overwork, but 
 I heard Father Payne say after dinner, referring
 
 266 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 to the event, " I wish it to be clearly understood 
 that I think a man who dies of deliberate or reck- 
 less overwork is a victim of self-indulgence. It is 
 nothing more or less than giving way to a passion. 
 I am as sure as I can be of anything," he went on, 
 "that a thousand years hence that will be recog- 
 nised by human beings, and that they will feel it 
 to be as shameful for a man to die of spontaneous 
 overwork as for him to die of drink or gluttony or 
 any other vice. I don't of course mean," he added, 
 " the cases of men who have had some definite 
 and critical job to carry through, and have de- 
 cided that the risk is worth running. A man has 
 always the right to risk his life for a definite aim 
 but I mean the men you can see it in bio- 
 graphies, and the worst of it is that they are often 
 the biographies of clergymen who, in spite of 
 physical warnings, and entreaties from their friends, 
 and definite statements by their doctors that they 
 are shortening their lives by labour, still cannot 
 stop, or, if they stop, begin again too soon. No 
 man has any right to think his work so important 
 as that to take unimportant things too seriously 
 is the worst sort of frivolity." 
 
 " But isn't it the finer kind of people," said 
 Kaye, " who make the mistake ? " 
 
 "Yes, of course," said Father Payne, "but so, 
 too, if you look into it, you will too often find that 
 it is the finer kinds of imaginative people who take 
 to drink and drugs. I remember," he added, " once 
 going to see a poor friend of mine in an asylum, 
 and the old doctor at the head of it said, ' It isn't 
 the stupid people who come here, Mr. Payne ; it 
 is the clever people ! '
 
 OF WORK 267 
 
 " But does not your principle about the right 
 to risk one's life hold good here too ? " said 
 Barthrop. 
 
 "No, I think not," said Father Payne. "A 
 man may choose to try a dangerous thing, climb 
 a mountain, explore a perilous country, go up in 
 a balloon, where an element of risk is inseparable 
 from the experiment ; but ordinary work isn't 
 risky in itself. Why," he added, "I was reading 
 a book the other day, the life of Fitzherbert, you 
 know, who was a man of prodigious laboriousness, 
 who died early, worn out. He had an impossible 
 standard of perfection. If he had to write an 
 article, he read all the literature on the subject 
 over and over; he wrote and re- wrote his stuff. 
 There was a case quoted in the book, as if it were 
 to Fitzherbert 's credit, when he had to send in an 
 article by a certain date just a Quarterly article. 
 It had to go in on the Friday. He had finished 
 it on the Monday before, when his mind misgave 
 him. He destroyed the article, began again, sate 
 up all Monday night and all Wednesday night, 
 and wrote the whole thing afresh. He was laid 
 up for a month after it. That is simply the act 
 of an unbalanced mind." 
 
 "I can't help feeling that there is something 
 fine about it," said Vincent. 
 
 " There is always something fine about unreason- 
 able things," said Father Payne, "or in a man 
 making a sacrifice for an idea. But there is an 
 entire lack of proportion about this performance ; 
 and if Fitzherbert thought his work so valuable as 
 that, then he ought to have reflected that he was 
 simply limiting his future output by this reckless
 
 268 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 expenditure of force. But the whole case was 
 a sad one Fitzherbert worked in a ghastly way as 
 a boy and as a young man. He had a very broad 
 outlook, he was interested in everything ; and 
 when he was at Oxford, he told a friend that he 
 was discovering a hundred subjects on which he 
 hoped to have a say. Well, then, the middle part 
 of his life was spent in preparing himself, under the 
 same sort of pressure, to entitle himself to have 
 his say : and then came his first bad break-down 
 and the end of his life, which was a wretched period, 
 was spent in finding elaborate reasons why he should 
 not commit himself to any opinion whatever. If 
 he was asked his opinion, he always said he had 
 not studied the subject adequately. That seems 
 to me the life of a man suffering from a sort of 
 nightmare. Things are not so deep as all that 
 at least, if no one is to give an opinion on any point 
 until he has mastered the whole sum of human 
 opinion on the point, then we shall never make any 
 progress at all. I remember Fitzherbert 's strong 
 condemnation of Ruskin, for giving his opinion 
 cursorily on all subjects of importance. Yet Ruskin 
 did a greater work than Fitzherbert, because he at 
 least made people think, while Fitzherbert only 
 prevented them from daring to think. I don't 
 mean that people ought to feel competent to ex- 
 press an opinion on everything yet even that 
 habit cures itself, because, if you do it, no one pays 
 any attention. But if a man has gone into a 
 subject with decent care, or if he has reflected upon 
 problems of which the data are fairly well known, 
 I think there is every reason why he should give 
 an opinion. It is very easy to be too conscien-
 
 OF WORK 269 
 
 tious. There are plenty of fine hints of opinions 
 in Fitzherbert's letters. You could make a very 
 good book of Pensees out of them he had a clear, 
 forcible, and original mind ; but he did not dare to 
 say what he thought ; and you may remember 
 that if he was ever sharply criticised, he felt it 
 deeply, as a sort of imputation of dishonesty. A 
 man must not go down before criticism like that." 
 
 " But everyone must do their work in their own 
 way ? " said I. 
 
 "Yes," said Father Payne, "but Fitzherbert 
 ended by doing nothing he only snubbed and 
 silenced his own fine mind, by giving way to this 
 unholy passion for examining things. No, I want 
 you fellows to have common-sense about these 
 matters. There is a great deal too much sanctity 
 attached to print. The written word there's a 
 dark superstition about it ! A man has as much 
 right to write as he has to talk. He may say to 
 the world, to his unseen and unknown friends in 
 it, whatever he may say to his intimates. You 
 should write just as you could talk to any gentle- 
 man, with the same courtesy and frankness. Of 
 course you must run the risk of your book falling 
 into the hands of ill-bred people that can't be 
 helped and of course you must not pretend that 
 your book is the result of deep and copious labour, 
 if it is nothing of the kind. But heart-breaking toil 
 is not the only qualification for speaking. There 
 are plenty of complicated little topics all the prob- 
 lems which arise from the combination of in- 
 dividuals into societies which people ought to 
 think about, and which are really everyone's con- 
 cern. The interplay, I mean, of human relations
 
 270 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 the moral, religious, social, intellectual ideas which 
 have all got to be co-ordinated. A man does 
 not need immense knowledge for that ; in fact if 
 he studies the history of such things too deeply, he 
 is often apt to forget that old interpreters of such 
 things had not got all the present data. There 
 is an immense future before writers who will interest 
 people in and familiarise them with ideas. Some 
 people get absorbed in life in the wrong way, 
 just bent on acquisition and comfort some people, 
 again, live as if they were staying in somebody 
 else's house but what you want to induce men 
 and women to do is to realise the sort of thing that 
 life really is, and to attempt to put it in some kind 
 of proportion. The mischief done by men like 
 Fitzherbert, who was fond of snapping at people 
 who produced ideas for inspection, is that ordinary 
 people get to confuse wisdom with knowledge ; and 
 that won't do ! And so the man who sets to work 
 like Fitzherbert loses his alertness and his obser- 
 vation, with the result that instead of bringing a 
 very fresh and incisive mind to bear on life, he 
 loses his way in books, and falls a victim to the 
 awful passion for feeling able to despise other 
 people's opinions." 
 
 "But isn't it possible," said Vincent, "for a 
 man to get the best out of life for himself by a sort 
 of passion for exact knowledge like the man in 
 the Grammarian's funeral, I mean ? " 
 
 "Personally," said Father Payne, "I always 
 think that Browning did a lot of harm by that 
 poem. He was glorifying a real vice, I think. If 
 the Grammarian had said to himself, ' There is all 
 this nasty work to be done by someone ; I can do
 
 OF WORK 271 
 
 it, and I can save other people having to waste 
 their time over it, by doing it once and for all,' 
 it would have been different. But I think he was 
 partly indulging a poor sort of vanity by just 
 determining to know what no other man knew. 
 The point of work is twofold. It is partly good 
 for the worker, to tranquillise his life and to reduce 
 it to a certain order and discipline ; but you 
 mustn't do it only for the sake of your own tran- 
 quillity, any more than the artist must work for 
 the sake of luxuriating in his own emotions. You 
 must have something to give away : you must 
 have some idea of combination, of helping other 
 people to find each other and to understand 
 each other. It is vicious to isolate yourself for 
 your own satisfaction. Fitzherbert and the Gram- 
 marian were really misers. They just accumulated, 
 and enjoyed the pleasure of having their own 
 minds clear. That doesn't seem to me in itself 
 to be a fine thing at all. It is simply the 
 oldest of temptations, ' Ye shall be as gods, know- 
 ing good and evil.' That is the danger of the 
 critical mind, that it says, ' I will know within 
 myself what is good.' The only excuse for the 
 critical mind is to help people not to be taken in 
 by what is bad. It is better to be like Plato and 
 Ruskin, to make mistakes, to have prejudices, to 
 be unfair, even to be silly, because at least you 
 encourage people to think that life is interesting 
 and that is about as much as any of us can do."
 
 272 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 LII 
 
 OF COMPANIONSHIP 
 
 "ISN'T it rather odd," said someone to Father 
 Payne after dinner, " that great men have as a 
 rule rather preferred the company of their inferiors 
 to the company of their equals ? " 
 
 "I don't know," said Father Payne; "I think 
 it's rather natural ! By Jove, I know that a very 
 little of the society of a really superior person goes 
 a very long way with me. No, I think it is what 
 one would expect. When the great man is at work, 
 he is on the strain and doing the lofty business for 
 all he is worth ; when he is at leisure, he doesn't 
 want any more strain he has done his full share." 
 
 "But take the - big groups," said someone, 
 " like the Wordsworth set, or the pre-Raphaelite 
 set or take any of the great biographies the 
 big men of any time seem always to have been 
 mutual friends and correspondents. You have 
 letters to and from Ruskin from and to all the 
 great men of his day." 
 
 " Letters, yes ! " said Fa '.her Payne ; " of course 
 the great men know each other, and respect each 
 other ; but they don't tend to coagulate. They 
 relish an occasional meeting and an occasional 
 letter, and they say how deeply they regret not 
 seeing more of each other but they tend to seek 
 the repose of their own less exalted circle. The 
 man who has fine ideas prefers his own disciples 
 to the men who have got a different set of fine 
 ideas. That is natural enough ! You want to
 
 OF COMPANIONSHIP 273 
 
 impart the ideas you believe in you don't want 
 to argue about them, or to have them knocked 
 out of your hand. Depend upon it, the society 
 of an intelligent person, who can understand you 
 enough to stimulate you, and who is grateful for 
 your talk, is much pleasanter, and indeed more 
 fruitful, than the society of a man who is fully as 
 intelligent as yourself, and thinks some of your 
 conclusions to be rot ! " 
 
 " But doesn't all that encourage people to be 
 prophets ? " Vincent said. " One of the depressing 
 things about great men is that they grow to consider 
 themselves a sort of special providence the origi- 
 nators of great ideas rather than the interpreters." 
 
 " Yes," said Father Payne, " of course the little 
 coteries and courts of great men are rather re- 
 pulsive. But the best people don't do that. They 
 live contentedly in a circle which combines with 
 its admiration for the hero a comfortable feeling 
 that, if other people knew what they know, they 
 wouldn't feel genius to be quite so extraordinary 
 as is commonly believed. And we must remem- 
 ber, too, that most great men seem greater after- 
 wards than they did at the time. More of a treat 
 and a privilege, I mean." 
 
 " Do you think one ought to try to catch a sight 
 of great men who are contemporaries ? " said I. 
 
 " Yes, a sight, I think," said Father Payne. 
 " It's a pleasant thing to realise how your big man 
 sits and looks and talks, what his house is like, 
 and so forth. I have often rather regretted I 
 haven't had the curiosity to get a sight of the giants. 
 It helps you to understand them. I remember a 
 pleasant old gentleman, Vinter by name, who lived 
 
 s
 
 274 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 in London. Vinter the novelist was his son. When 
 young Vinter became famous for a bit, and people 
 wanted to know him, old Vinter made a glorious 
 rule. He told his son that he might invite any 
 well-known person he liked to the house, to luncheon 
 or dinner but that unless he made a special ex- 
 ception in any one's favour, they were not to be 
 invited again. There's a fine old Epicurean ! He 
 liked to realise what the bosses looked like, but 
 he wasn't going to be bothered by having to talk 
 respectfully to them time after time." 
 
 "But that's rather tame," said Vincent. "The 
 point surely would be to get to know a big man 
 well." 
 
 "Why, yes," said Father Payne, "but Vinter 
 was a wise old man ; now I should say to any young 
 man who had a chance of really having a friendship 
 with a great man, ' Of course, take it and thank 
 your stars ! ' But I shouldn't advise any young 
 man to make a collection of celebrities, or to go 
 about hunting them. In fact I think for an original 
 young man, it is apt to be rather dangerous to 
 have a real friendship with a great man. There's 
 a danger of being diverted from your own line, 
 and of being drawn into imitative worship. A 
 very moderate use of great men in person should 
 suffice anyone. Your real friends ought to be 
 people with whom you are entirely at ease, not 
 people whom you reverence and defer to. It's 
 better to learn to bark than to wag your tail. I 
 don't think the big men themselves often begin 
 by being disciples." 
 
 "Then who is worth seeing?" said Vincent. 
 " There must be somebody ! "
 
 OF COMPANIONSHIP 275 
 
 " Why, to be frank," said Father Payne, " agree- 
 able men like me, who haven't got too much autho- 
 rity, and are not surrounded by glory and worship ! 
 I 'm interested in most things, and have learnt more 
 or less how to talk you look out for ingenious 
 and kindly elderly men, who haven't been too 
 successful, and haven't frozen into Tories, and yet 
 have had some experience ; men of humour and 
 liveliness, who have a rather more extended horizon 
 than yourself, and who will listen to what you 
 say instead of shutting you up, and saying ' Very 
 likely ' as Newman did after which you were 
 expected to go into a corner and think over your 
 sins ! Or clever, sympathetic, interesting women 
 not too young. Those are the people whom it is 
 worth taking a little trouble to see." 
 
 "But what about the young people!" said 
 Vincent. 
 
 "Oh, that will look after itself," said Father 
 Payne. " There's no difficulty about that ! You 
 asked me whom it was worth while taking some 
 trouble to see, and I prescribe a very occasional 
 great man, and a good many well-bred, cultivated, 
 experienced, civil men and women. It isn't very 
 easy to find, that sort of society, for a young man ; 
 but it is worth trying for." 
 
 " But do you mean that you should pursue good 
 talk ? " said Vincent. 
 
 " A little, I think," said Father Payne ; " there's 
 a good deal of art in it unconscious art in England, 
 probably but much of our life is spent in talking, 
 and there's no reason why we shouldn't learn how 
 to get the best and the most out of talk how to 
 start a subject, and when to drop it how to say
 
 276 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 the sort of things which make other people want 
 to join in, and so on. Of course you can't learn 
 to talk unless you have a lot to say, but you can 
 learn how to do it, and better still how not to do it. 
 I used to feel in the old days, when I met a clever 
 man it was rare enough, alas ! how much more 
 I could have got out of him if I had known how 
 to do the trick. It's a great pleasure, good talk ; 
 and the fact that it is so tiring shows what a real 
 pleasure it must be. But a man with whom you 
 can only talk hard isn't a "companion he's an 
 adversary in a game. There have been times in 
 my life when I have had a real tough talker staying 
 here with me, when I have suffered from crushing 
 intellectual fatigue, and felt inclined to say, like 
 Elijah, ' Take away my life, for I am not better 
 than my fathers.' That is the strange thing to 
 me about most human beings the extent to 
 which they seem able to talk without being tired. 
 I agree with Walter Scott, when he said, ' If the 
 question was eternal company without the power 
 of retiring within myself, or solitary confinement 
 for life, I should say, " Turnkey, lock the cell ! " 
 Companionship doesn't seem to me the normal 
 thing. Solitude is the normal thing, with a few 
 bits of talk thrown in, like meals, for refreshment. 
 But you can't lay down rules for people about it. 
 Some people are simply gregarious, and twitter 
 together like starlings in a shrubbery : that isn't 
 talk it's only a series of signals and exclamations. 
 The danger of solitude is that the machinery runs 
 just as you wish it to run and that wears it out." 
 " But isn't your whole idea of talk rather strenuous 
 a little artificial ? " said Vincent.
 
 OF MONEY 277 
 
 "Not more so than fixed meals," said Father 
 Payne, " or regular exercise. But, of course silent 
 companionship is the greatest boon of all. I have 
 a belief that even in silent companionship there is 
 a real intermingling of vital and mental currents, 
 and that one is much pervaded and affected by the 
 people one lives with, even if one does not talk to 
 them. The very sight of some people is as bad as 
 an argument ! The ideal thing, of course, is to 
 have a few intimate friends and some comfortable 
 acquaintances. But I am rather a fatalist about 
 friendship, and I think that most of us get about 
 as much as we deserve. Anyhow, it's all worth 
 taking some trouble about ; and most people make 
 the mistake of not taking any trouble or putting 
 themselves about ; and that's not the way to 
 behave ! " 
 
 LIII 
 
 OF MONEY 
 
 I SUPPOSE I had said something high-minded, 
 showing a supposed contempt of money, for Father 
 Payne looked at me in silence. 
 
 " You mustn't say such things," said he, at last. 
 "I'll tell you why ! What you said was perfectly 
 genuine, and I have no doubt you feel it but, if 
 if I may say so, it's like talking about a place where 
 you have never been, as if you had visited it, when 
 you have only read about it in the guide-book. I 
 don't mean that you wish to deceive for an instant 
 but you simply don't know ! That's the tragic 
 thing about money that it is both so important
 
 278 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 and so unimportant. If you have enough money, 
 you need never give it a thought ; if you haven't, 
 it's the devil ! It's like health no one who hasn't 
 been on the wrong side of the dividing line knows 
 what a horrible place the wrong side is. Those 
 two things I daresay there are others poverty 
 and ill-health put a man on the rack. The 
 healthy man, and the man with a sufficient income, 
 are apt to think that the poor man and the ill man 
 make a great fuss about very little. I don't know 
 about ill-health, but by George, I know all about 
 poverty and I'll tell you once for all. For twenty 
 years I was poor, and this is what that means. 
 To be tied hand and foot to a piece of hideous 
 drudgery morning by morning, month by month, 
 and with the consciousness too that, if health fails 
 you, or if you lose your work, you will either starve 
 or have to sponge on your friends never to be able 
 to do what you like or go where you like to know 
 that the world is full of beautiful places, delightful 
 people, interesting ideas, books, talk, art, music 
 to sicken for all these things, and not even to 
 have the time or energy to get hold of such scraps 
 of them as can be found cheap in London to feel 
 time slipping away, and all your instincts for 
 beautiful things unused and unsated to live a 
 solitary, grubby, nasty life never able to enter- 
 tain a friend, or to go a trip with a friend, or to do 
 a kindness, or to help anyone generously and yet 
 to feel that with an income which many people 
 would regard as ridiculously inadequate, you could 
 do most of these things the slavery, the bondage, 
 the dreariness of it ! " He broke off, much moved. 
 "But," said I, "don't many quite poor people
 
 OF MONEY 279 
 
 live happily and contentedly and kindly with 
 minute incomes ? " 
 
 "Why, yes," said Father Payne, "of course 
 they do ! and I 'm willing enough to admit that I 
 ought to have done better than I did. But then I 
 had been brought up differently, and by the time 
 I had done with Oxford, I had all the tastes and 
 instincts of the well-to-do man. That was the 
 mischief, that I had tasted freedom. Of course, 
 if I had been cast in a stronger and nobler mould, 
 it would have been different but all my senses 
 had been acutely developed, my faculties of interest 
 and enjoyment and appreciation not gross things, 
 mind you, nor feelings that ought to be starved, 
 but just the wholesome delights of the well-educated 
 man. I did not want to be extravagant, and I 
 knew too that there were millions of people in the 
 same case as myself. There was every reason why 
 I should behave decently about it ! If I had been 
 really interested in my work, I could have done 
 better but I did not believe in the value of my 
 work I taught men, not to educate them, but 
 that they might pass an examination and never 
 look at the beastly stuff again. Whenever I 
 reached the point at which I became interested, I 
 had to hold my hand. And then, too, the work 
 tired me without exercising my mind. There were 
 the vacations, of course but I couldn't afford to 
 leave London I simply lived in hell. I don't say 
 that I didn't get some discipline out of it and my 
 escape gave me a stock of gratitude and delight that 
 has been simply inexhaustible. The misery of it 
 for me was that I had to live an unreal life. If I 
 had been poor, and had had my leisure, and had
 
 280 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 worked at things I cared about, with a set, let us 
 say, of young artists, all working too at things 
 which they cared about, it would have been differ- 
 ent but I hadn't the energy left to make friends, 
 or the time to find any congenial people. I can't 
 describe what a nightmare it all was so that when 
 I hear you speaking as if money didn't really matter, 
 I simply feel that you don't know what a tragedy 
 it can be, or what your own income saves you from. 
 You and I have the Epicurean temperament, my 
 boy; it's no good pretending we haven't things 
 appeal to our mind and senses in a way they don't 
 appeal to everyone. So I don't think that people 
 ought to talk lightly about money, unless they 
 have known poverty and not suffered under it. I 
 used to ask myself in those days if it was possible 
 to suffer more, when every avenue reaching away 
 out of my life to the things I loved and cared for 
 seemed to be closed to me by an impassable barrier." 
 
 " But one can practise oneself in doing without 
 things ? " I said. 
 
 "With about as much success," said Father 
 Payne, "as you can practise doing without food." 
 
 " But isn't it partly that people are unduly 
 reticent about money ? " I said. "If people could 
 only say frankly what they can and what they 
 can't afford, it would simplify things very much." 
 
 "I don't know," said Father Payne. "Money 
 is one of those curious things uninteresting if you 
 have enough, tragic if you haven't. I don't think 
 talking about money is vulgar I think it is 
 simply dull : to discuss poverty is like discussing 
 a disease to discuss wealth is like talking about 
 food or wine. The poverty that simply humiliates
 
 OF MONEY 281 
 
 and pinches can't be joked about it's far too serious 
 for that ! Of course, there are men who don't 
 really feel the call of life. Look at our friend Kaye ! 
 If Kaye had to live in London lodgings, he wouldn't 
 mind a bit, if he could get to the Museum Reading- 
 Room he only wants books and his own work 
 he doesn't want company or music or art or talk 
 or friends. He is wholly indifferent to nasty food 
 or squalor. Poverty is not a real evil to him. If 
 he had money he wouldn't know how to spend it. 
 I read a book the other day about a priest who 
 lived a very devoted life in the slums he had two 
 rooms in a clergy-house and there was a chapter 
 in praise of the way in which he endured his 
 poverty. But it was all wrong ! What that man 
 really enjoyed was preaching and ceremonial and 
 company he had a real love of human beings. 
 Well, that man's life was crammed with joy he 
 got exactly what he wanted all day long. It 
 wasn't a self-sacrificing life it would have been to 
 you and me but he no doubt woke day after day, 
 with a prospect of having his whole time taken up 
 with things he thoroughly enjoyed." 
 
 "But what about the people," I said, "who 
 really enjoy just the sense of power which money 
 gives them, without using it or the people whose 
 only purpose in using it is the pleasure of being 
 known to have it ? " 
 
 " Oh, of course, they are simply barbarians," 
 said Father Payne, "and it doesn't do them any 
 harm to be poor. No, the tragedy lies in the case 
 of a man with really expansive, generous, civilised 
 instincts, to whom the world is full of wholesome 
 and urgent delights, and whose life is simply
 
 282 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 starved out of him by poverty. I have a great 
 mind to send you to London for a couple of months, 
 to live on a pound a week, and see what you make 
 of it." 
 
 "I'll go if you wish it," I said. 
 
 "It might bring things home to you," said 
 Father Payne, smiling, " but again it probably 
 would not, because it would only be a game the 
 real pinch would not come. Most people would 
 rather enjoy migrating to Jiell from heaven for a 
 month it would just give them a sharper relish 
 for heaven." 
 
 " But do you really think your poverty hurt 
 you ? " I said. 
 
 "I have no doubt it did," said Father Payne. 
 " Of course I was rescued in time, before the bitter- 
 ness really sank down into my soul. But I think it 
 prevented my ever being more than a looker-on. 
 I believe I could have done some work worth 
 doing, if I could have tried a few experiments. I 
 don't know ! Perhaps I am ungrateful after all. 
 My poverty certainly gave me a wish to help 
 things along, and I doubt if I should have learnt 
 that otherwise. And I think, too, it taught me not 
 to waste compassion on the wrong things. The 
 people to be pitied are simply the people whose 
 minds and souls are pinched and starved the 
 over-sensitive, responsive people, who feel hunted 
 and punished without knowing why. It's tem- 
 perament always, and not circumstance, which is the 
 happy or the unhappy thing. I felt, when you said 
 what you did about poverty, that you neither knew 
 how harmless it could be, or how infinitely noxious 
 it might be. I don't take a high-minded view of
 
 OF MONEY 283 
 
 money myself. I don't tell people to despise it. 
 I always tell the fellows here to realise what they 
 can endure and what they can't. The first re- 
 quisite for a sensible man is to find work which he 
 enjoys, and the next requisite is for him to earn 
 as much as he really needs that is to say without 
 having to think daily and hourly about money. 
 I don't over-estimate what money can do, but it is 
 foolish to under-estimate what the want of it can do. 
 I have seen more fine natures go to pieces under the 
 stress of poverty than under any other stress that 
 I know. Money is perfectly powerless as a shield 
 against many troubles and on the other hand it 
 can save a man from innumerable little wretched- 
 nesses and horrors which destroy the beauty and 
 dignity of life. I don't believe . mechanically in 
 humiliation and renunciation and ignominy and 
 contempt, as purifying influences. It all depends 
 upon whether they are gallantly and adventurously 
 and humorously borne. They often make some 
 people only sore and diffident, and I don't believe 
 in learning to hate life. Not to learn your own 
 limitations is childish : and one of the insolences 
 which is most heavily punished is that of making 
 a sacrifice without knowing if you can endure the 
 consequences of it. The people who begin by 
 despising money as vulgar are generally the people 
 who end by making a mess which other people 
 have to sweep up. So don't be either silly or 
 prudent about money, my boy ! Just realise that 
 your first duty is not to be a burden on yourself or 
 on other people. Find out your minimum, and 
 secure it if you can ; and then don't give the matter 
 another thought. If it is any comfort to you,
 
 284 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 reflect that the best authors and artists have almost 
 invariably been good men of business, and don't 
 court squalor of any kind unless you really enjoy it." 
 
 LIV 
 
 OF PEACEABLE NESS 
 
 FATHER PAYNE, talking one evening, made a 
 statement which involved an assumption that the 
 world was progressing. Rose attacked him on this 
 point. " Isn't that just one of the large generali- 
 sations," he said, " which you are always telling 
 us to beware of ? " 
 
 "It isn't an assumption," said Father Payne, 
 " but a conviction of mine, based upon a good deal 
 of second-hand evidence. I don't think it can be 
 doubted. I can't array all my reasons now, or we 
 should sit here all night but I will tell you one 
 main reason, and that is the immensely increased 
 peaceableness of the world. Fighting has gone out 
 in schools, and none but decayed clubmen dare to 
 deplore it : corporal punishment has diminished, 
 and isn't needed, because children don't do savage 
 things ; bullying is extinct in decent schools ; 
 crimes of violence are much more rare ; duelling is 
 no longer a part of social life, except for an occa- 
 sional farcical performance between literary men 
 or politicians in France I saw an account of one 
 in the papers the other day. It was raining, and 
 one of the combatants would not furl his umbrella : 
 his seconds said that it made him a bigger target. 
 "I may be shot," he said, "but that is no reason
 
 OF PEACEABLENESS 285 
 
 why I should get wet ! " Then there is the mediaeval 
 nonsense among students in Germany, where they 
 fence like Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Generally 
 speaking, however, the belief that a blow is an 
 argument has gone out. Then war has become 
 more rare, and is more reluctantly engaged in. I 
 suppose that till the date of Waterloo there was 
 hardly a year in history when some fighting was 
 not going on. No, I think it is impossible not to 
 believe that the impulse to kick and scratch and 
 bite is really on the decline." 
 
 "But need that be a proof of progress ? " said 
 Rose. "May it not only mean a decrease of 
 personal courage, and a greater sensitiveness to 
 pain ? " 
 
 "I think not," said Father Payne, "because 
 when there is fighting to be done, it is done just 
 as courageously indeed I think more courageously 
 than used to be the case. No, I think it is the 
 training of an instinct the instinct of self-restraint. 
 I believe that people have more imagination and 
 more sympathy than they used to have ; there is 
 more tolerance of adverse opinion, a greater sense 
 of liberty in the air : opponents have more respect 
 for each other, and do not attribute bad motives 
 so easily. Why, consider how much milder even 
 the newspapers are. If one reads old reviews, old 
 books of political controversy, old pamphlets how 
 much more blackguarding and calling names one 
 sees. Anonymous journalists, anonymous re- 
 viewers, are now the only people who keep up the 
 tradition of public bad manners all signed articles 
 and criticisms are infinitely politer than they used 
 to be."
 
 286 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 "But," persisted Rose, "isn't that simply 
 a possible proof of the general declension of 
 force ? " 
 
 "Certainly not," said Father Payne, "it only 
 means more equilibrium. You must remember that 
 equilibrium means a balance of forces, not a mere 
 diminution of them. There is more force present 
 in a banked-up reservoir than in a rushing stream. 
 The rushing stream merely means a force making 
 itself felt without a counterbalancing force but 
 that isn't nearly as strong as* the pressure in a reser- 
 voir exerted by the water which is trying to get 
 out, and the resistance of the dam which is trying 
 to keep it in. You must not be taken in by apparent 
 placidity : it often means two forces at work in- 
 stead of one. Peace, as opposed to war, is a tre- 
 mendous counterpoising of forces, and it simply 
 means an organised resistance. In old days, there 
 was no cohesion of the forces which desire peace, 
 and violence was unresisted. There can be no 
 doubt, I think, that in a civilised country there are 
 many more forces at work than in a combative 
 country. I do not suppose that we can either of 
 us prove whether the forces at work in the world 
 have increased or diminished. Let us grant that 
 the amount is constant. If so, a great deal of the 
 force that was combative has now been transformed 
 to the force which resists combat. But I imagine 
 that on the whole most people would grant that 
 human energies have increased : if that is so, cer- 
 tainly the combative element has not increased in 
 proportion, while the peaceful element has increased 
 out of all proportion." 
 
 "But," said Vincent, "you often talk in the
 
 OF PEACEABLENESS 287 
 
 most bellicose way, Father. You say that we 
 ought all to be fighting on the side of good." 
 
 "Yes," said Father Payne, "on the side of 
 resistance to evil, I admit ; but you can fight with- 
 out banging and smashing things, as the dam 
 fights the reservoir by silent cohesion. There is 
 a temptation, from which some people suffer, to 
 think that one can't be fighting for God at all, 
 unless one is doing it furiously, and all the time, 
 and successfully, and on a large and impressive 
 scale. That is a fatal blunder. To hide your ad- 
 versary's sword is often a very good way of fighting. 
 To have an open tussle often makes the bystanders 
 sympathise with the assailant. It is really a far 
 more civilised thing, and often stands for a higher 
 degree of force and honour, to be able to bear 
 contradiction not ignobly. Direct conflict is a 
 mistake, as a rule blaming, fault-finding, censuring, 
 snapping, punishing. The point is to put all your 
 energy into your own life and work, and make 
 it outweigh the energy of the combative critic. 
 Do not fight by destroying faulty opinion, but 
 by creating better opinion. You fight darkness 
 by lighting a candle, not by waving a fan to 
 clear it away. Look at one of the things we 
 have been talking about bullying in schools. 
 That has not been conquered by expelling or 
 whipping boys, or preaching about it it has 
 been abolished by kindlier and gentler family 
 life, by humaner school-masters living with and 
 among their boys, till the happiness of more 
 peaceful relations all round has been instinctively 
 perceived." 
 
 " But isn't it right to show up mean and dis-
 
 288 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 honest people, to turn the light of publicity upon 
 cruel and detestable things ? " said Vincent. 
 
 " Exactly, my dear Vincent," said Father Payne ; 
 " but you can't turn the light of publicity on evil 
 unless the light is there to turn. The reason why 
 bullying continued was because people believed in 
 it as inseparable from school life, and even, on the 
 whole, bracing. What has got rid of it is a kinder 
 and more tender spirit outside. I don't object to 
 showing up bad things at all. By all means put 
 them, if you can, in a clear light, and show their 
 ugliness. Show your shame and disgust if you 
 like, but do not condescend to personal abuse. 
 That only weakens your case, because it merely 
 proves that you have still some of the bully left 
 in you. Be peaceable writers, my dear boys," 
 said Father Payne, expanding in a large smile. 
 " Don't squabble, don't try to scathe, don't be 
 affronted ! If your critic reveals a weak place in 
 your work, admit it, and do better ! I want to 
 turn you out peace-makers, and that needs as much 
 energy and restraint as any other sort of fighting. 
 Don't make the fact that your opponent may be 
 a cad into a personal grievance. Make your own 
 idea clear, stick to it, repeat it, say it again in a 
 more attractive way. Don't you see that not 
 yielding to a bad impulse is fighting ? The positive 
 assertion of good, the shaping of beauty, the pre- 
 sentment of a fruitful thought in so desirable a 
 light that other people go down with fresh courage 
 into the dreariness and dullness of life, with all 
 the delight of having a new way of behaving in 
 their minds and hearts that's how I want you 
 to fight ! It requires the toughest sort of courage,
 
 OF LIFE-FORCE 289 
 
 I can tell you. But instead of showing your spirit 
 by returning a blow, show your spirit by pro- 
 pounding your idea in a finer shape. Don't be 
 taken in by the silly and ugly old war-metaphors 
 the trumpet blown, the gathering of the hosts. 
 That's simply a sensational waste of your time ! 
 Look out of your window, and then sit down to 
 your work. That's the way to win, without noise 
 or fuss." 
 
 LV 
 
 OF LIFE-FORCE 
 
 I WALKED one afternoon with Father Payne just 
 as winter turned to spring, in the pastures. There 
 was a mound at the corner of one of his fields, on 
 which grew a row of beech trees of which Father 
 Payne was particularly fond. He pointed out to 
 me to-day how the most southerly of the trees, 
 exposed as it was to the full force of the wind, grew 
 lower and sturdier than the rest, and how as the 
 trees progressed towards the north, each one pro- 
 fiting more by the shelter of his comrades, they 
 grew taller and more graceful. " I like the way 
 that stout little fellow at the end grows," said 
 Father Payne. " He doesn't know, I suppose, that 
 he is protecting the rest, and giving them room to 
 expand. But he holds on : and though he isn't 
 so tall, he is bulkier and denser than his brethren. 
 He knows that he has to bear the brunt of the wind, 
 so he puts out no sail. He just devotes himself 
 to standing four-square he is not going to be 
 bullied ! He would like to be as smooth and as 
 
 T
 
 290 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 shapely as the rest, but he knows his own business, 
 and he has adapted himself, like a sensible fellow, 
 to his rough conditions." 
 
 A little later Father Payne stopped to look at a 
 great sow-thistle that was growing vigorously under 
 a hedge-row. " Did you ever see such a bit of 
 pure force? " said Father Payne. "I see a fierce 
 conscious life in every inch of that plant. Look 
 at the way he clips himself in, and strains to the 
 earth : look at his great rays of leaves, thrust out 
 so geometrically from the centre, with the sharp, 
 horny, uncompromising thorns. And see how he 
 flattens down his leaves over the surrounding 
 grasses : they haven't a chance ; he just squeezes 
 them down and strangles them. There is no mild 
 and delicate waving of fronds in the air. He means 
 to sit down firmly on the top of his comrades. I 
 don't think I ever saw anything with such a mus- 
 cular pull on you can't lift his leaves up ; look, 
 he resists with all his might ! Just consider the 
 immense force which he is using : he is not merely 
 snuggling down : he is just hauling things about. 
 You don't mean to tell me that this thistle isn't 
 conscious ! He knows he has enemies, but he is 
 going to make the place his very own and all 
 that out of a drifting little arrow of down ! " 
 
 " Now that may not be a sympathetic or even 
 Christian way of doing things," he went on presently, 
 " but for all that, I do love to see the force of life, 
 the intentness of living. I like our friend the beech 
 a little better, because he is helping his friends, 
 though he doesn't know it, and the thistle is only 
 helping himself. But I am sure that it is the right 
 way to go at it ! We mustn't be always standing
 
 OF LIFE-FORCE 291 
 
 aside and making room : we mustn't obliterate 
 ourselves. We have a right to our joy in life, and 
 we mustn't be afraid of it. If we give away what 
 we have got, it must cost us something it must 
 not be a mere relinquishing." 
 
 " It is rather hard to combine the two principles," 
 I said " the living of life, I mean, and the giving 
 away of life." 
 
 " Well, I think that devotion is better than self- 
 sacrifice," said Father Payne. " On the whole I 
 mistrust weakness more than I mistrust strength. 
 It's easy to dislike violence but I rather worship 
 vitality. I would almost rather see a man forcing 
 his way through with some callousness, than backing 
 out, smiling and apologising. You can convert 
 strength, you can't do anything with weakness. 
 Take the sort of work you fellows do. I always 
 feel I can chasten and direct exuberance : what 
 I can't do is to impart vigour. If a man says his 
 essay is short because he can't think of anything 
 to write, I feel inclined to say, ' Then for goodness' 
 sake hold your tongue ! ' It's the people who 
 can't hold their tongue, who go on roughly pointing 
 things out, and commenting, and explaining, and 
 thrusting themselves in front of the show, who 
 do something. Of course force has to be kept in 
 order, but there it is it lives, it must have its say. 
 What you have to learn is to insinuate yourself 
 into life, like ivy, but without spoiling other people's 
 pleasure. That's liberty ! The old thistle has no 
 respect for liberty, and that is why he is rooted 
 up. But it's rather sad work doing it, because 
 he does so very much want to be alive. But it 
 isn't liberty simply to efface yourself, because you
 
 292 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 may interfere with other people. The thing is to 
 fit in, without disorganising everything about you." 
 He mused for a little in silence : then he said, 
 "It's like almost everything else it's a weighing 
 of claims ! I don't want you fellows to be either 
 tyrannical or slavish. It's tyrannical to bully, it's 
 slavish to defer. The thing is to have a firm 
 opinion, not to be ashamed of it or afraid of it ; 
 to say it reasonably and gently, and to stick to it 
 amiably. Good does not attack, though if it is 
 attacked it can slay. Good fights evil, but it 
 knows what it is fighting, while evil fights good 
 and evil alike. I think that is true. I don't want 
 you people to be controversial or quarrelsome in 
 what you write, and to go in for picking holes 
 in others' work. If you want to help a man to do 
 better, criticise him privately don't slap him in 
 public, to show how hard you can lay on. Make 
 your own points, explain if you like, but don't 
 apologise. The great writers, mind you, are the 
 people who can go on. It's volume rather than 
 delicacy that matters in the end. It must flow like 
 honey good solid stuff not drip like rain, out of 
 mere weakness. But the thing is to flow, and large- 
 ness of production is better than little bits of over- 
 handled work. Mind that, my boy ! It's force 
 that tells : and that's why I don't want you to be 
 over-interested in your work. You must go on 
 filling up with experience : but it doesn't matter 
 where or how you get it, as long as it is eagerly 
 done. Be on the side of life ! Amor fati, that's 
 the motto for a man to love his destiny passion- 
 ately, and all that is before him : not to droop, or 
 sentimentalise, or submit, but to plunge on, like a
 
 OF CONSCIENCE 293 
 
 ' sea-shouldering whale ' ! You remember old 
 Kit Smart 
 
 ' Strong against tide, the enormous whale 
 Emerges as he goes.' 
 
 " Mind you emerge ! Never heed the tide : there's 
 plenty of room for it as well as for you ! " 
 
 LVI 
 
 OF CONSCIENCE 
 
 LESTRANGE was being genially bantered by Rose 
 one day at dinner on what Rose called " problems 
 of life and being," or "springs of action," or even 
 "higher ground." Lestrange was oppressively 
 earnest, but he was always good-natured. 
 
 "Ultimately? " he had said, "why, ultimately, 
 of course, you must obey your conscience." 
 
 "No, no ! " said Father Payne, "that won't do, 
 Lestrange ! Who are you, after all ? I mean that 
 the ' you ' you speak of has something to say 
 about it, to decide whether to disobey or to obey. 
 And then, too, the same ' you ' seems to have 
 decided that conscience is to be obeyed. The 
 thing that you describe as ' yourself ' is much 
 more ultimate than conscience, because if it is not 
 convinced that conscience is to be obeyed, it will 
 not obey. I mean that there is something which 
 criticises even the conscience. It can't be reason, 
 because your conscience over-rides your reason, 
 and it can't be instinct, generally speaking, because 
 conscience often over-rides instinct."
 
 294 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 "I am confused," said Lestrange. "I mean by 
 conscience the thing which says ' You ought ! ' 
 That is what seems to me to prove the existence of 
 God, that there is a sense of a moral law which 
 one does not invent, and which is sometimes very 
 inc onveniently aggressive . ' ' 
 
 ; ' Yes, that is all right," said Father Payne, 
 "but how is it when there are two 'oughts,' as 
 there often are ? A man ought to work and he 
 ought not to overwork something else has to be 
 called in to decide where one ' ought ' begins and 
 the other ends. There is a perpetual balancing of 
 moral claims. Your conscience tells you to do 
 two things which are mutually exclusive both 
 are right in the abstract. What are you to do 
 then ? " 
 
 "I suppose that reason comes in there," said 
 Lestrange. 
 
 "Then reason is the ultimate guide?" said 
 Father Payne. 
 
 "Oh, Father, you are darkening counsel," said 
 Lestrange. 
 
 "No, no," said Father Payne, "I am just trying 
 to face facts." 
 
 "Well, then," said Lestrange, "what is the 
 ultimate thing ? ' ' 
 
 "The ultimate thing," said Father Payne, "is 
 of course the thing you call yourself but the 
 ultimate instinct is probably a sense of proportion 
 a sense of beauty, if you like ! " 
 
 "But how does that work out in practice? " 
 said Vincent. "It seems to me to be a mere argu- 
 ment about names and titles. You are using con- 
 science as the sense of right and wrong, and, as you
 
 OF CONSCIENCE 295 
 
 say, they often seem to have conflicting claims. 
 Lestrange used it in the further sense of the thing 
 which ultimately decides your course. It is right 
 to be philanthropic, it is right to be artistic they 
 may conflict ; but something ultimately tells you 
 what you can do, which is really more important 
 than what you ought to do." 
 
 "That is right/' said Father Payne. "I think 
 the test is simply this that whenever you feel 
 yourself paralysed, and your natural growth arrested 
 by your obedience to any one claim instinct, 
 reason, conscience, whatever it is the ultimate 
 power cuts the knot, and tells you unfailingly where 
 your real life lies. That is the real failure, when 
 owing to some habit, some dread, some shrinking, 
 you do not follow your real life. That, it seems to 
 me, is where the old unflinching doctrines of sin 
 and repentance have done harm. The old self- 
 mortifying saints, who thought so badly of human 
 nature, and who tore themselves to pieces, resisting 
 wholesome impulses celibate saints who ought to 
 have been married, morbidly introspective saints 
 who needed hard secular work, those were the 
 people who did not dare to trust the sense of pro- 
 portion, and were suspicious of the call of life. 
 Look at St. Augustine in the wonderful passage 
 about light, ' sliding by me in unnumbered guises ' 
 he can only end by praying to be delivered from 
 the temptation to enjoy the sight of dawn and 
 sunset, as setting his affections too much upon 
 the things of earth. I mistrust the fear of life 
 I mistrust all fear at least I think it will take 
 care of itself, and must not be cultivated. I think 
 the call of God is the call of joy and I believe that
 
 296 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 the superstitious dread of joy is one of the most 
 potent agencies of the devil." 
 
 " But there are many joys which one has to 
 mistrust," said Lestrange; "mere sensual delights, 
 for instance." 
 
 "Yes," said Father Payne, "but most healthy 
 and normal people, after a very little meddling 
 with such delights, learn certainly enough that 
 they only obscure the real, wholesome, temperate 
 joys. You have to compromise wisely with your 
 instincts, I think. You mustn't spend too much 
 time in frontal attacks upon them. You have a 
 quick temper, let us say. Well, it is better to lose 
 it occasionally and apologise, than to hold your 
 tongue about matters in which you are interested 
 for fear of losing it. You are avaricious well, 
 hoard your money, and then yield on occasions 
 to a generous impulse. That's a better way to 
 defeat evil, than by dribbling money away in giving 
 little presents which no one wants. I don't believe 
 in petty warfare against faults. You know the 
 proverb that if you knock too long at a closed door, 
 the Devil opens it to you ? Just give your sins a 
 knock-down blow every now and then. I believe 
 in the fire of life more than I believe in the cold 
 water you use to quench it. Everything can be 
 forgiven to passion ; nothing can be forgiven to 
 chilly calculation. The beautiful impulse is the 
 thing that one must not disobey ; and when I see 
 people do big, wrong-headed, unguarded, unwise 
 things, get into rows, sacrifice a reputation or a 
 career without counting the cost, I am inclined to 
 feel that they have probably done better for them- 
 selves than if they had been prudent and cautious.
 
 OF RANK 297 
 
 I don't say that they are always right, because 
 people yield sometimes to a mere whim, and some- 
 times to a childishly overwhelming desire ; but if 
 there is a real touch of unselfishness about a sacri- 
 fice that's the test, that some one else's joy should 
 be involved then I feel that it isn't my business 
 to approve or disapprove. I feel in the presence 
 of a force an ' ought ' as Lestrange says, which 
 makes me shy of intervening. It's the wind of 
 the Spirit it blows where it will and I know this, 
 that I'm thankful beyond everything when I feel 
 it in my own sails." 
 
 "Tell me when you feel it next, Father," said 
 Vincent. 
 
 "I feel it now," said Father Payne, "now and 
 here." And there was something in his face which 
 made us disinclined to ask him any further questions. 
 
 LVII 
 
 OF RANK 
 
 SOMEONE had been telling a curious story about 
 a contested peerage. It was a sensational affair, 
 involving the alteration of registers, the burning 
 down of a vestry, and the flight of a clergyman. 
 
 "I like that story," said Father Payne, "and 
 I like heraldry and rank and all that. It's de- 
 cidedly picturesque. I enjoy the zigzagging of 
 a title through generations. But the worst of it 
 is that the most picturesque of all distinctions, like 
 being the twentieth baron, let us say, in direct 
 descent, is really of the nature of a stigma ; a man
 
 298 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 whose twentieth ancestor was a baron has no 
 excuse for not being a duke." 
 
 "But what I don't like," said Rose, "is the 
 awful sense of sanctity which some people have 
 about it . I read a book the other day where the hero 
 sacrificed everything in turn, a career, a fortune, 
 an engagement to a charming girl, a reputation, and 
 last of all an undoubted claim to an ancient barony. 
 I don't remember exactly why he did all these 
 things it was noble, undoubtedly it was noble ! 
 But there was something which made me vaguely 
 uncomfortable about the order in which he spun 
 his various advantages." 
 
 "It's only a sense of beauty slightly awry," 
 said Father Payne ; " names are curiously sacred 
 things they often seem to be part of the inner- 
 most essence of a man. I confess I would rather 
 change most things than change my name. I 
 would rather shave my head, for instance." 
 
 " But my hero would have had to change his 
 name if he had claimed the peerage," said Rose. 
 
 "Yes, but you see the title was his right name," 
 said Father Payne; "he was only masquerading 
 as a commoner, you must remember. Why I should 
 value an ancient peerage is because I think it might 
 improve my manners." 
 
 " Impossible ! " said Vincent. 
 
 "Thank you," said Father Payne. "Yes, my 
 manners are very good for a commoner but I 
 should like to be a little more in the grand style. 
 I should like to be able to look long at a person, who 
 said something of which I disapproved, and then 
 change the subject. That would be fine ! But I 
 daren't do that now. Now I have to argue. Do
 
 OF RANK 299 
 
 you remember in Daniel Deronda, Grandcourt's 
 habit of looking stonily at smiling persons. I have 
 often envied that ! Whereas my chief function 
 in life is looking smilingly at stony persons, and 
 that's very bourgeois." 
 
 " We must show more animation," said Barthrop 
 to his neighbour. 
 
 "I mean it ! " said Father Payne, "but come, 
 I won't be personal ! Seriously, you know, the 
 one thing I have admired in the very few great 
 people I have ever met is the absence of embar- 
 rassment. They don't need to explain who they 
 are, they haven't got to preface their statements 
 of opinion by fragments of autobiography, to show 
 their right to speak. It is convenient to feel that 
 if people don't know who you are, they will feel 
 slightly foolish afterwards when they discover, like 
 the man who shook hands warmly with Queen 
 Victoria, and said, "I know the face quite well, 
 but I can't put a name to it." It did not show any 
 pride of birth in the Queen to be extremely amused 
 by the incident. But even more than that I admire 
 the ease which people of that sort get by having 
 had, from childhood onwards, to meet all sorts 
 of persons, and to behave themselves, and to see 
 that people do not feel shy or uncomfortable. I 
 sometimes go about the village simply teeming with 
 benevolence, and I pass some one, and can't think 
 of anything to say. If I had the great manner, 
 I should say, "Why, Tommy, is that you? " or 
 some such human signal, which would not mean 
 anything in particular, but would after all express 
 exactly what is in my mind. But I can't just do 
 that. I rack my brains for an appropriate remark,
 
 300 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 because I am bourgeois, and have not the point 
 of honour, as the French say. And by the time 
 I have elaborated it, Tommy is gone, and Jack is 
 passing, and I begin elaborating again ; whereas 
 I should simply add, if I were aristocratic, ' And 
 that's you, Jack, isn't it ? ' That's the way to 
 talk." 
 
 We all laughed ; and Barthrop said, " Well, I 
 must say, Father, that I have often envied you 
 your power of saying something to everyone." 
 
 " I have spent more trouble on it than it is worth," 
 said Father Payne ; " and that's my point, that 
 if I were only a great man, I should have learnt 
 it all in childhood, and should not have to waste 
 time over it at all. That's the best of rank ; it's 
 a device for saving trouble ; it saves introduction 
 and explanation and autobiography and elaborate 
 civility, and makes people willing to be pleased by 
 the smallest sign of affability. You may depend 
 upon it that it was a very true instinct which made 
 the Scotch minister pray that all might have honour- 
 able ancestors. It isn't a sacred thing, rank, and 
 it isn't a magnificent thing but it's a pleasant 
 human sort of thing in the right hands. What 
 is more, in these democratic days, it tends to make 
 people of rank additionally anxious not to parade 
 the fact and I doubt if there is anything on the 
 whole happier than having advantages which you 
 don't want to parade it gives a tranquil sort of 
 contentment, and it removes all futile ambitions. 
 To be, by descent, what a desperately industrious 
 lawyer or a successful general feels himself amply 
 rewarded for his toil by becoming, isn't nothing. 
 I'm always rather suspicious of the people who
 
 OF BIOGRAPHY 301 
 
 try to pretend that it is nothing at all. The rank 
 is but the guinea stamp, of course. But after all 
 the stamp is what makes it a guinea instead of an 
 unnegotiable disc of metal ! " 
 
 LVIII 
 
 OF BIOGRAPHY 
 
 FATHER PAYNE used often to say that he was more 
 interested in biography than in any other form of 
 art, and believed that there was a greater future 
 before it than before any other sort of literature. 
 "Just think," I remember his saying, "human 
 portraiture the most interesting thing in the 
 world by far what the novel tries to do and can't 
 do!" 
 
 "What exactly do you mean by ' can't do ' ? " 
 I said. 
 
 "Why, my boy," said Father Payne, "because 
 we are all so horrified at the idea of telling the 
 truth or looking the truth in the face. The novel 
 accommodates human nature, patches it up, varnishes 
 it, puts it in a good light : it may be artistic and 
 romantic and poetical but it hasn't got the beauty 
 of truth. Life is much more interesting than any 
 imaginative fricassee of it ! These realistic fellows 
 they are moving towards biography, but they 
 haven't got much beyond the backgrounds yet." 
 
 "But why shouldn't it be done?" I said. 
 "There's Boswell's Johnson why does that stand 
 almost alone ? ' ' 
 
 "Why, think of all the difficulties, my boy,"
 
 302 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 said Father Payne. "There's nothing like Bos- 
 well's Johnson, of course but what a subject ! 
 There's nothing that so proves Boswell's genius 
 we mustn't forget that as the other wretched 
 stuff written about Johnson. There's a passage in 
 Boswell, when he didn't see Johnson for a long 
 time, and stuck in a few stories collected from 
 other friends. They are awfully flat and flabby 
 they have all been rolled about in some one's 
 mind, till they are as smooth as pebbles some 
 bits of the crudest rudeness, not worked up to 
 some knock-down schoolboy retorts which most 
 civilised men would have had the decency to re- 
 press and then we get back to the real Boswell 
 again, and how fresh and lively it is ! " 
 
 " But what are the difficulties you spoke of ? " 
 I said. 
 
 "Why, in the first place," said Father Payne, 
 "a biography ought to be written during a man's 
 life and not after it and very few people will take 
 the trouble to write things down day after day 
 about anyone else, as Boswell did. If it waits 
 till after a man's death, a hush falls on the scene 
 everyone is pious and sentimental. Of course, 
 Boswell's life is inartistic enough it wanders along, 
 here a letter, there a lot of criticism, here a talk, 
 there a reminiscence. It isn't arranged it has 
 no scheme : but how full of zest it is ! And then 
 you have to be pretty shameless in pursuing your 
 hero, and elbowing other people away, and drawing 
 him out : and you have to be prepared to be kicked 
 and trampled upon, when the hero is cross : and 
 then you have to be a considerable snob, and say 
 what you really value and admire, however vulgar
 
 OF BIOGRAPHY 303 
 
 it is. And then you must expect to be called hard 
 names when the book appears. I was reading a 
 review the other day of what seemed to me to be 
 a harmless biography enough a little frank and 
 enthusiastic affair, I gathered : and the reviewer 
 wrote in the style of Pecksniff, caddish and priggish 
 at the same time : he called the man to task for 
 botanising on his friend's grave that unfortunate 
 verse of Wordsworth's, you know and he left 
 the impression that the writer had done something 
 indelicate and impious, and all with a conscious- 
 ness of how high-minded he himself was. 
 
 " You ought to write a biography as though you 
 were telling your tale in a friendly and gentle ear 
 you ought not to lose your sense of humour, 
 or be afraid of showing your subject in a trivial 
 or ridiculous light. Look at Boswell again I don't 
 suppose a more deadly case could be made out 
 against any man, with perfect truth, than could 
 be made out against Johnson. You could show 
 him as brutal, rough, greedy, superstitious, pre- 
 judiced, unjust, and back it all up by indisputable 
 evidence but it's the balance, the net result, that 
 matters ! We have all of us faults ; we know them, 
 our friends know them why the devil should not 
 everyone know them ? But then an interesting 
 man dies, and everyone becomes loyal and senti- 
 mental. Not a word must be said which could 
 pain or wound anyone. The friends and relations, 
 it would seem, are not pained by the dead man's 
 faults, they are only pained that other people should 
 know them. The biography becomes a mixture 
 of disinfectants and perfumes, as if it were all 
 meant to hide some putrid thing. It's like what
 
 304 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 Jowett said about a testimonial, ' There's a strong 
 smell here of something left out ! ' We have 
 hardly ever had anything but romantic biographies 
 hitherto, and they all smell of something left out. 
 There's a tribe somewhere in Africa who will commit 
 murder if anyone tries to sketch them. They 
 think it brings bad luck to be sketched, a sort of 
 ' overlooking ' as they say. Well that seems to 
 be the sort of superstition that many people have 
 about biographies, as if the departed spirit would 
 be vexed by anything which isn't a compliment. 
 I suppose it is partly this that many people are 
 ill-bred, glum, and suspicious, and can't bear the 
 idea of their faults being recorded. They hate all 
 frankness : and so when anything frank gets 
 written, they talk about violating sacred con- 
 fidences, and about shameless exposures. It is 
 really that we are all horribly uncivilised, and can't 
 bear to give ourselves away, or to be given away. 
 Of course we don't want biographies of merely 
 selfish, stupid, brutal, ill-bred men but everyone 
 ought to be thankful when a life can be told frankly, 
 and when there's enough that is good and beautiful 
 to make it worth telling. 
 
 " But, as I said, the thing can't be done, unless it 
 is written to a great extent in a man's lifetime. 
 Conversation is a very difficult thing to remember 
 it can't be remembered afterwards it needs 
 notes at the time : and few people's talk is worth 
 recording : and even if it is, people are a little 
 ashamed of doing it there seems something 
 treacherous about it : but it ought to be done, for 
 all that ! You don't want so very much of it 
 I don't suppose that Boswell has got down a
 
 OF BIOGRAPHY 305 
 
 millionth part of all Johnson said you just want 
 specimens enough to give the feeling of it and 
 the quality of it. One doesn't want immensely 
 long biographies just enough to make you feel 
 that you have seen a man and sat with him and 
 heard him talk and the kind of way in which he 
 dealt with things and people. I'll tell you a man 
 who would have made a magnificent biography 
 Lord Melbourne. He had a great charm, and 
 a certain whimsical and fantastic humour, which 
 made him do funny little undignified things, like 
 a child. But every single dictum of Melbourne's 
 has got something original and graceful about it 
 always full of good sense, never pompous, always 
 with a delicious lightness of touch. The only person 
 who took the trouble to put down Melbourne's 
 sayings, just as they came out, was Queen Victoria 
 but then she was in love with him without 
 knowing it : and in the end he got stuck into the 
 heaviest and most ponderous of biographies, and 
 is lost to the world. Stale politics there's nothing 
 to beat them for dulness unutterable ! " 
 
 " But isn't it an almost impossible thing," I said, 
 " to expect a man who is a first-rate writer, with 
 ambitions in authorship, to devote himself to putting 
 down things about some interesting person with 
 the chance of their never being published ? Very 
 few people would have sufficient self-abnegation 
 for that." 
 
 "That's true enough," said Father Payne, "and 
 of course it is a risk a man must run the risk of 
 sacrificing a good deal of his time and energy to 
 recording unimportant details, perhaps quite use- 
 lessly, but with this possibility ahead of him, that 
 
 u
 
 306 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 he may produce an immortal book and I grant 
 you that the infernal vanity and self-glorification 
 of authors is a real difficulty in the way." 
 
 He was silent for a minute or two, and then he 
 said : " Now, I'll tell you another difficulty, that at 
 present people only want biographies of men of 
 affairs, of big performers, men who have done things 
 I don't want that. I want biographies of people 
 who wielded a charm of personality, even if they 
 didn't do things people, I mean, who deserve to 
 live and to be loved. Those are the really puzzling 
 figures a generation later, the men who lived in 
 an atmosphere of admiring and delighted friendship, 
 radiating a sort of enchanting influence, having 
 the most extravagant things said and believed 
 about them by their friends, and yet never doing 
 anything in particular. People, I mean, like Arthur 
 Hallam, whose letters and remains are fearfully 
 pompous and tiresome and who yet had In 
 Memoriam written about him, and who was de- 
 scribed by Gladstone as the most perfect human 
 being, physically, intellectually and morally, he 
 had ever seen. Then there is Browning's Domett 
 the prototype of Waring and Keats 's friend 
 James Rice, and Stevenson's friend Ferrier that's 
 a matchless little biographical fragment, Stevenson's 
 letter about Ferrier those are the sort of figures 
 I mean, the men who charmed and delighted every- 
 one, were brave and humorous, gave a pretty turn 
 to everything they said those are the roses by 
 the wayside ! They had ill-health some of them, 
 they hadn't the requisite toughness for work, they 
 even took to drink, or went to the bad. But they 
 are the people of quality and tone, about whom
 
 OF BIOGRAPHY 307 
 
 one wants to know much more than about sun- 
 burnt and positive Generals the strong silent sort 
 or overworked politicians bent on conciliating 
 the riff-raff. I don't want to know about men 
 simply because they did honest work, and still less 
 about men who never dared to say what they thought 
 and felt. You can't make a striking picture out 
 of a sense of responsibility! I'm not underrating 
 good work it's fine in every way, but it can't 
 always be written about. There are exceptions, of 
 course. Nelson and Wellington would have been 
 splendid subjects, if anyone had really Eoswellised 
 them. But Nelson had a theatrical touch about 
 him, and became almost too romantic a hero ; 
 while the Duke had a fund of admirable humour 
 and almost grotesque directness of expression, 
 and he has never been half done justice to, though 
 you can see from Lord Mahon's little book of Table 
 Talk and Benjamin Haydon's Diary, and the letters 
 to Miss J., what a rich affair it all might have been, 
 if only there had been a perfectly bold, candid, and 
 truthful biographer." 
 
 " But the charming people of whom you spoke," 
 I said " isn't the whole thing often too evanescent 
 to be recorded ? " 
 
 "Not a bit of it!" said Father Payne, "and 
 these are the people we want to hear about, because 
 they represent the fine flower of civilisation. If 
 a man has a delightful friend like that, always 
 animated, fresh, humorous, petulant, original, he 
 couldn't do better than observe him, keep scraps 
 of his talk, record scenes where he took a leading 
 part, get the impression down. It may come to 
 nothing, of course, but it may also come to some-
 
 308 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 thing worth more than a thousand twaddling novels. 
 The immense use of it if one must think about 
 the use is that such a life might really show 
 commonplace and ordinary people how to handle 
 the simplest materials of life with zest and delicacy. 
 Novels don't really do that they only make people 
 want to escape from middle-class conditions. \Yhat 
 everyone is the better for seeing is not how life 
 might conceivably be handled, but how it actually 
 has been handled, freshly and distinctly, by some- 
 one in a commonplace milieu. Life isn't a bit 
 romantic, but it is devilish interesting. It doesn't 
 go as you want it to go. Sometimes it lags, some- 
 times it dances ; and horrible things happen, often 
 most unexpectedly. In the novel, everything has 
 to be rounded off and led up to, and you never 
 get a notion of the inconsequence of life. The 
 interest of life is not what happens, but how it 
 affects people, how they meet it, how they fly from 
 it : the relief of a biography is that you haven't 
 got to invent your setting and your character 
 all that is done for you : you have just got to select 
 the characteristic things, and not to blur the things 
 that you would have wished otherwise. For God's 
 sake, let us get at the truth in books, and not use 
 them as screens to keep the fire off, or as things to 
 distract one from the depressing facts in one's 
 bank-book. I welcome all this output of novels, 
 because it at least shows that people are interested 
 in life, and trying to shape it. But I don't want 
 romance, and I don't want ugly and sensational 
 realism either. That is only romance in another 
 shape. I want real men and women not from 
 an autobiographical point of view, because that is
 
 OF EXCLUSIVENESS 309 
 
 generally romantic too but from the point of 
 view of the friends to whom they showed them- 
 selves frankly and naturally, and without that 
 infernal reticence which is not either reverence or 
 chivalry, but simply an inability to face the truth, 
 which is the direct influence of the spirit of evil. 
 If one of my young men turns out a good biography 
 of an interesting person, however ineffective he 
 was, I shall not have lived in vain. For, mind this 
 very few people's performances are worth re- 
 membering, while very many people's personali- 
 ties are." 
 
 LIX 
 
 OF EXCLUSIVENESS 
 
 ROSE told a story one night which amused Father 
 Payne immensely. He had been up in town, and 
 had sate next a Minister's wife, who had been 
 very confidential. She had said to Rose that her 
 husband had just been elected into a small dining- 
 club well known in London, where the numbers 
 were very limited, the society very choice, and 
 where a single negative vote excluded a candidate. 
 "I don't think," said the good lady, "that my 
 husband has ever been so pleased at anything that 
 has befallen him, not even when he was first given 
 office such a distinguished club and so exclusive ! " 
 Father Payne laughed loud and shrill. "That's 
 human nature at its nakedest ! " he said. "It's 
 like Miss Tox, in Dombey and Son, you know, who, 
 when Dombey asked her if the school she recom- 
 mended was select, said, 'It's exclusion itself!'
 
 310 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 What people love is the power of being able to 
 exclude not necessarily disagreeable people or tire- 
 some people, but simply people who would like 
 to be inside 
 
 " Loving not, hating not, just choosing so.' 
 
 " Those are the two great forces of society, you 
 know the exclusive force, and the inclusive force : 
 the force that says, ' We few, we happy few, we 
 band of brothers ' ; and the force which says, 
 'The more the merrier.' The exclusive force is 
 represented by caste and class, by gentility and 
 donnishness, by sectarianism and nationalism, and 
 even by patriotism and the inclusive force is re- 
 presented by Walt Whitmanism and Christianity." 
 
 "But what about St. Paul's words," said 
 Lestrange, " ' Honour all men : love the brother- 
 hood ' ? " 
 
 "That's an attempt to recognise both," said 
 Father Payne, smiling. " Of course you can't love 
 everyone equally that's the error of democracy 
 democracy is really one of the exclusive forces, 
 because it excludes the heroes it is ' mundus contra 
 Athanasium,' it is best illustrated by what the 
 American democrat said to Charles Kingsley, ' My 
 principle is " whenever you see a head above the 
 crowd, hit it." Democracy is, at its worst, the 
 jealousy of the average man for the superior man." 
 
 " But which is the best principle ? " said Vincent. 
 
 " Both are necessary," said Father Payne. " One 
 must aim at inclusiveness, of course : and we must 
 be quite certain that we exclude on the ground of 
 qualities, and not on the ground of superficial 
 differences. The best influences in the world arise
 
 OF EXCLUSIVE NESS 311 
 
 not from individuals but from groups and there 
 is no sort of reason why groups should spoil their 
 intensive qualities by trying to admit outsiders. 
 The strength of a group lies in the fact that one 
 gets the sense of fellowship and common purpose, 
 of sympathy and encouragement. A man who has 
 to fight a battle single-handed is always tempted 
 to wonder whether, after all, it is worth all the 
 trouble and misunderstanding. But, on the other 
 hand, you are at liberty to mistrust the men who 
 say that they don't want to know people. Do you 
 remember how Charles Lamb once said, ' I do 
 hate the Trotters ! ' ' But I thought you didn't 
 know them ? ' said someone. ' That's just it,' 
 said Charles Lamb, ' I never can hate anyone that 
 I know ! ' The best bred man is the man who 
 finds it easy to get on with everybody on equal 
 terms : but it's part of the snobbishness of human 
 nature that exclusiveness is rather admired than 
 otherwise. There's a delightfully exclusive woman 
 in one of Henry James' novels, who refuses to be 
 introduced to a family. She entirely declines, and 
 the man who is anxious to effect the introduction 
 says, ' I can't think why you object to them.' 
 "They are hopelessly vulgar,' says the incisive 
 lady, ' and in this short life, that is enough ! ' 
 But St. Paul's remark is really very good, because 
 it means ' Treat everyone with courtesy but 
 reserve your fine affections for the inner circle, 
 whose worth you really know !' it's a better theory 
 than that of the man who said, ' It is enough for 
 me to be with those whom I love ! ' That's rather 
 inhuman." 
 
 "Do you remember," said Barthrop, "the lines
 
 312 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 in Tennyson's Guinevere, which sum up the knightly 
 attributes ? 
 
 " ' High thought, and amiable words, 
 And courtliness, and the desire of fame, 
 And love of truth, and all that makes a man.' " 
 
 "That's very interesting and curious!" said 
 Father Payne. " Dear me, I had forgotten that 
 did Tennyson say that ? Come let's have it 
 again ! " 
 
 Barthrop repeated the lines again. 
 
 " Now, that's the gentlemanly ideal of the sixties," 
 said Father Payne, " and, good heavens, how offen- 
 sive it sounds ! The most curious part of it 
 really is ' the desire of fame ' of course, a hundred 
 years ago, no one made any secret of that ! You 
 remember Nelson's frank confession, made not 
 once, but many times, that he pursued glory. 
 ' Defeat or Westminster Abbey ' didn't he say 
 that ? " 
 
 " But surely people pursue fame as much as 
 ever ? " said Vincent. 
 
 "I daresay," said Father Payne, "but it isn't 
 now considered good taste to say so. You have 
 got to pretend, at all events, that you wish to 
 benefit humanity now-a-days. If a man had said 
 to Ruskin or Carlyle, ' Why do you write all these 
 books ? ' and they replied, ' It is because of my 
 desire for fame,' it would have been thought vulgar. 
 There's that odd story of Robert Browning, when 
 he received an ovation at Oxford, and someone 
 said to him, ' I suppose you don't care about all 
 this,' he said, 'It is what I have waited for all 
 my life ! ' I wonder if he did say it ! I think he
 
 OF EXCLUSIVENESS 313 
 
 must have done, because it is exactly the sort of 
 thing that one is supposed not to say and I 
 confess I don't like it it seems to me vain, and not 
 proud. I don't mind a kind of pride I think a 
 a man ought to know what he is worth : but I hate 
 vanity. Perhaps that's only because I haven't 
 been a success myself." 
 
 " But mayn't you desire fame ? " said Vincent. 
 " It seems to me rather priggish to condemn it ! " 
 
 " Many fine things sound priggish when they are 
 said," said Father Payne. "But, to be frank, I 
 don't think that a man ought to desire fame. I 
 think he may desire to do a thing well. I don't 
 think he ought to desire to do it better than other 
 people. It is the wanting to beat other people 
 which is low. Why not wish them to do it well 
 too ? " 
 
 " You mean that the difference between pride 
 and vanity lies there ? " said Barthrop. 
 
 "Yes, I do," said Father Payne, "and it is a 
 pity that pride is included in the deadly sins, 
 because the word has changed its sense. Pride 
 used to mean the contempt of others that's a 
 deadly sin, if you like. It used to mean a ghastly 
 sort of self-satisfaction, arrived at by comparison 
 of yourself with others. But now to be called a 
 proud man is a real compliment. It means that a 
 man can't condescend to anything mean or base. 
 We ought all to be proud not proud of anything, 
 because that is vulgar, but ashamed of doing any- 
 thing which we know to be feeble or low. The 
 Pharisee in the parable was vain, not proud, because 
 he was comparing himself with other people. But 
 it is all right to be grateful to God for having a
 
 314 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 sense of decency, just as you may be grateful for 
 having a sense of beauty. The hatefulness of it 
 comes in when you are secretly glad that other 
 people love indecency and ugliness." 
 
 "That is the exclusive feeling then?" said 
 Barthrop. 
 
 ; ' Yes, the bad kind of exclusiveness," said 
 Father Payne " the kind of exclusiveness which 
 ministers to self-satisfaction. And that is the 
 fault of the group when it becomes a coterie. The 
 coterie means a set of inferior people, bolstering up 
 each other's vanity by mutual admiration. In a 
 coterie you purchase praise for your own bad work, 
 by pretending to admire the bad work of other 
 people. But the real group is interested, not in 
 each other's fame, but in the common work." 
 
 " It seems to me confusing," said Vincent. 
 
 " Not a bit of it," said Father Payne ; "we have 
 to consider our limitations : we are limited by 
 time and space. You can't know everybody and 
 love everybody and admire everybody and you 
 can't sacrifice the joy and happiness of real inti- 
 macy with a few for a diluted acquaintance with 
 five hundred people. But you mustn't think that 
 your own group is the only one that is the bad 
 exclusiveness you ought to think that there are 
 thousands of intimate groups all over the world, 
 which you could love just as enthusiastically as you 
 love your own, if you were inside them : and then, 
 apart from your own group, you ought to be pre- 
 pared to find reasonable and amiable and com- 
 panionable people everywhere, and to be able to 
 put yourself in line with them. Why, good heavens, 
 there are millions of possible friends in the world !
 
 OF EXCLUSIVENESS 315 
 
 and one of my deepest and firmest hopes about the 
 next world, so to speak, is that there will be some 
 chance of communicating with them all at once, 
 instead of shutting ourselves up in a frowsy room 
 like this, smelling of meat and wine. I don't deny 
 you are very good fellows, but if you think that 
 you are the only fit and desirable company in the 
 world for me or for each other, I tell you plainly 
 that you are utterly mistaken. That's why I in- 
 sist on your travelling about, to avoid our becoming 
 a coterie." 
 
 "Then it comes to this," said Vincent drily, 
 " that you can't be inclusive, and that you ought 
 not to be exclusive ? " 
 
 "Yes, that's exactly it!" said Father Payne. 
 " You meant to shut me up with one of our patent 
 Oxford epigrams, I know and, of course, it is 
 deuced smart ! But put it the other way round, 
 and it's all right. You can't help being exclusive, 
 and you must try to be inclusive that's the truth, 
 with the Oxford tang taken out ! " 
 
 We laughed at this, and Vincent reddened. 
 
 " Don't mind me, old man ! " said Father Payne, 
 " but try to make your epigrams genial instead 
 of contemptuous inclusive rather than exclusive. 
 They are just as true, and the bitter flavour is only 
 fit for the vitiated taste of Dons." And Father 
 Payne stretched out a large hand down the table, 
 and enclosed Vincent's in his own. 
 
 " Yes, it was a nasty turn," said Vincent, smiling. 
 " I see what you mean." 
 
 " The world is a friendlier place than people 
 know," said Father Payne. "We have inherited 
 a suspicion of the unknown and the unfamiliar.
 
 3i6 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 Don't you remember how the ladies in The Mill 
 on the Floss mistrusted each other's recipes, and ate 
 dry bread in other houses rather than touch jam 
 or butter made on different methods. That is the 
 old bad taint. But I think we are moving in the 
 right direction '. I fancy that the awakening may 
 be very near, when we shall suddenly realise that 
 we are all jolly good fellows, and wonder that we 
 have been so blind." 
 
 " A Roman Catholic friend of mine," said Rose 
 "he is a priest told me that he attended a clerical 
 dinner the other day. The health of the Pope was 
 proposed, and they all got up and sang, ' For he's 
 a jolly good fellow ! ' 
 
 There was a loud laugh at this. "I like that," 
 said Father Payne, " I like their doing that ! I 
 expect that that is exactly what the Pope is ! I 
 should dearly love to have a good long quiet talk 
 with him ! I think I could let in a little light : and 
 I should like to ask him if he enjoyed his fame, dear 
 old boy : and whether he was interested in his 
 work ! ' Why, Mr. Payne, it's rather anxious 
 work, you know, the care of all the churches ' I 
 can hear him saying 'but I rub along, and the 
 time passes quickly ! though, to be sure, I'm not as 
 young as I was once : and while I am on the subject, 
 Mr. Payne, you look to me to be getting on in 
 years yourself ! ' And then I should say ' Yes, 
 your Holiness, I am a man that has seen trouble.' 
 And he would say, 'I'm sorry to hear that ! Tell 
 me all about it ! ' That's how we should talk, 
 like old friends, in a snug parlour in the Vatican, 
 looking out on the gardens ! "
 
 OF TAKING LIFE 317 
 
 LX 
 
 OF TAKING LIFE 
 
 I WAS walking with Father Payne one hot summer 
 day upon a field-path he was very fond of. There 
 was a copse, through the middle of which the little 
 river, the Fyllot, ran. It was the boundary of the 
 Aveley estate, and it here joined another stream, 
 the Rode, which came in from the south. The 
 path went through the copse, dense with hazels, 
 and there was always a musical sound of lapsing 
 waters hidden in the wood. The birds sang shrill 
 in the thicket, and Father Payne said, " This is 
 the juncture of Pison and Hiddekel, you know, 
 rivers of Paradise. Aveley is Havilah, where the 
 gold is good, and where there is bdellium, if we 
 only knew where to look for it. I fancy it is rich 
 in bdellium. I came down here, I remember, the 
 first day I took possession. It was wonderful, 
 after being so long among the tents of Kedar, to 
 plant my flag in Havilah ; I made a vow that day 
 I don't know if I have kept it ! " 
 
 " What was that ? " I said. 
 
 "Only that I would not get too fond of it all," 
 said Father Payne, smiling, " and that I would 
 share it with other people. But I have got very 
 fond of it, and I haven't shared it. Asking people 
 to stay with you, that they may see what a nice 
 place you have to live in, is hardly sharing it. It 
 is rather the other way the last refinement of 
 possession, in fact ! " 
 
 " It's very odd," he went on, " that I should love
 
 3i8 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 this little bit of the world so much as I do. It's 
 called mine that's a curious idea. I have got 
 very little power over it. I can't prevent the trees 
 and flowers from growing here, or the birds from 
 nesting here, if they have a mind to do so. I can 
 only keep human beings out of it, more or less. 
 And yet I love it with a sort of passion, so that I 
 want other people to love it too. I should like to 
 think that after I am gone, some one should come 
 here and see how exquisitely beautiful it is, and 
 wish to keep it and tend it. That's what lies 
 behind the principle of inheritance ; it isn't the 
 money or the position only that we desire to hand 
 on to our children it's the love of the earth and 
 all that grows out of it ; and possession means 
 the desire of keeping it unspoiled and beautiful. 
 I could weep at the idea of this all being swept 
 away, and a bdellium-mine being started here, 
 with a factory-chimney and rows of little houses ; 
 and yet I suppose that if the population increased, 
 and the land was all nationalised, a great deal of 
 the beauty of England would go. I hope, however, 
 that the sense of beauty might increase too I don't 
 think the country people here have much notion 
 of beauty. They only like things to remain as 
 they know them. It's a fearful luxury really for 
 a man like myself to live in a land like this, so 
 full of old woodland and pasture, which is only 
 possible under rich proprietors. I'm an abuse, 
 of course. I have got a much larger slice of my 
 native soil than any one man ought to have ; 
 but I don't see the way out. The individual 
 can't dispossess himself it's the system which is 
 wrong."
 
 OF TAKING LIFE 319 
 
 He stopped in the middle of the copse, and said : 
 " Did you ever see anything so perfectly lovely 
 as this place ? And yet it is all living in a state 
 of war and anarchy. The trees and plants against 
 each other, all fighting for a place in the sun. The 
 rabbit against the grass, the bird against the worm, 
 the cat against the bird. There's no peace here 
 really it's full of terrors ! Only the stream is 
 taking it easy. It hasn't to live by taking life, 
 and the very sound of it is innocent." 
 
 Presently he said : " This is all cut down every 
 five years. It's all made into charcoal and bobbins. 
 Then the flowers all come up in a rush ; then the 
 copse begins to grow again I never can make up 
 my mind which is most beautiful. I come and help 
 the woodmen when they cut the copse. That's 
 pleasant work, you know, cutting and binding. 
 I sometimes wonder if the hazels hate being slashed 
 about. I expect they do ; but it can't hurt them 
 much, for up they come again. It's the right way 
 to live, of course, to begin again the minute you 
 are cut down to the roots, to struggle out to the 
 air and sun again, and to give thanks for life. Don't 
 you feel yourself as if you were good for centuries 
 of living ? " 
 
 "I'm not sure that I do," I said. "I don't feel 
 as if I had quite got my hand in." 
 
 "Yes, that's all right for you, old boy," said 
 Father Payne. "You are learning to live, and you 
 are living. But an old fellow like me, who has got 
 in the way of it, and has found out at last how 
 good it is to be alive, has to realise that he has only 
 got a fag-end left. I don't at all want to die ; I've 
 got my hands as full as they can hold of pretty
 
 320 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 and delightful things ; and I don't at all want to 
 be cut down like the copse, and to have to build 
 up my branches again. Yes," he added, pondering, 
 " I used to think I should not live long, and I didn't 
 much want to, I believe ! But now it's almost dis- 
 graceful to think how much I prize life, and how in- 
 teresting I find it. Depend upon it, on we go ! The 
 only thing that is mysterious to me is why I love a 
 place like this so much. I don't suppose it loves me. 
 I suppose there isn't a beast or a bird, perhaps not 
 a tree or a flower, in the place that won't be rather 
 relieved when I go back home without having 
 killed something. I expect, in fact, that I have left 
 a track of death behind me in the grass little 
 beetles and things that weren't doing any harm, 
 and that liked being alive. That's pretty beastly, 
 you know, but how is one to help it ? Then my 
 affection for it is very futile. I can't establish a 
 civilised system here ; I can't prevent the creatures 
 from eating each other, or the trees from crowding 
 out the flowers. I can't eat or use the things 
 myself, I can't take them away with me ; I can only 
 stand and yearn with cheap sentiment. 
 
 "And yet," he said after a moment, "there's 
 something here in this bit of copse that whispers 
 to me beautiful secrets the sunshine among the 
 stems, the rustle of leaves, the wandering breeze, 
 the scent and coolness of it all ! It is crammed 
 with beauty ; it is all trying to live, and glad to live. 
 You may say, of course, that you don't see all that 
 in it, and it is I that am abnormal. But that 
 doesn't explain it away. The fact that I feel it is 
 a better proof that it is there than the fact that 
 you don't feel it is a proof that it isn't there !
 
 OF BOOKISHNESS 321 
 
 The only thing about it that isn't beautiful to me 
 is the fact that life can't live except by taking 
 life that there is no right to live ; and that, I admit, 
 is disconcerting. You may say to me, ' You old 
 bully, crammed with the corpses of sheep and 
 potatoes, which you haven't even had the honesty 
 to kill for yourself, you dare to come here, and talk 
 this stuff about the beauty of it all, and the joy of 
 living. If all the bodies of the things you have 
 consumed in your bloated life were piled together, 
 it would make a thing as big as a whole row of 
 ricks ! ' If you say that, I admit that you take 
 the sentiment out of my sails ! " 
 
 " But I don't say it," said I : " Who dies if Father 
 Payne live ? " 
 
 He laughed at this, and clapped me on the back. 
 " You're in the same case as I, old man," he said, 
 " only you haven't got such a pile of blood and 
 bones to your credit ! Here, we must stow this 
 talk, or we shall become both humbugs and ma- 
 terialists. It's a puzzling business, talking ! It 
 leads you into some very ugly places ! " 
 
 LXI 
 
 OF BOOKISHNESS 
 
 I WENT in to see Father Payne one morning about 
 some work. He was reading a book with knitted 
 brows : he looked up, gave a nod, but no smile, 
 pointed to a chair, and I sate down : a minute or 
 two later he shut the book a neat enough little 
 volume with a snap, and skimmed it deftly from 
 where he sate, into his large waste-paper basket. 
 
 x
 
 322 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 This, by the way, was a curious little accomplish- 
 ment of his, throwing things with unerring aim. 
 He could skim more cards across a room into a hat 
 than anyone I have ever seen who was not a pro- 
 fessed student of legerdemain. 
 
 "What are you doing? " I said "such a nice 
 little book ! " I rose and rescued the volume, which 
 was a careful enough edition of some poems and 
 scraps of poems, posthumously discovered, of a 
 well-known poet. 
 
 " Pray accept it with my kindest regards," said 
 Father Payne. ." No, I don't know that I ought 
 to give it you. It is the sort of book I object to." 
 
 "Why?" I said, examining it "it seems 
 harmless enough." 
 
 "It's the wrong sort of literature," said Father 
 Payne. " There isn't time, or there ought not to be, 
 to go fumbling about with these old scraps. They 
 aren't good enough to publish and what's more, 
 if the man didn't publish them himself, you may 
 be sure he had very good reasons for not doing so. 
 The only interest of them is that so good a poet 
 could write such drivel, and that he knew it was 
 drivel sufficiently well not to publish it. But the 
 man who can edit it doesn't know that, and 
 the critics who review it don't know it either it 
 was a respectful review that made me buy the 
 rubbish and as for the people who read it, God 
 alone knows what they think of it. It's a case of 
 
 " ' Weave a circle round him thrice, 
 And close your eyes in holy dread.' 
 
 " You have to shut your eyes pretty tight not to 
 see what bosh it all is it is all this infernal re-
 
 OF BOOKISHNESS 323 
 
 verence paid by people, who have no independ- 
 ence of judgment, to great reputations. It reminds 
 me of the barber who used to cut the Duke of 
 Wellington's hair and nails, who made quite a lot 
 of money by selling clippings to put in lockets ! " 
 
 " But isn't it worth while to see a great poet's 
 inferior jottings, and to grasp how he worked ? " 
 said I. 
 
 "No," said Father Payne; "at least it would 
 be worth while to see how he brought off his 
 good strokes, but it isn't worth while seeing how 
 he missed his stroke altogether. This deification 
 business is all unwholesome. In art, in life, in 
 religion, in literature, it's a mistake to worship 
 the saints you don't make them divine, you only 
 confuse things, and bring down the divine to your 
 own level. The truth the truth why can't people 
 see how splendid it is, and that it is one's only chance 
 of getting on ! To shut your eyes to the possibility 
 of the great man having a touch of the common- 
 place, a touch of the ass, even a touch of the knave 
 in him, doesn't ennoble your conception of human 
 nature. If you can only glorify humanity by 
 telling lies about it, and by ruling out all the flaws 
 in it, you end by being a sentimentalist. "See 
 thou do it not . . . worship God ! " that's one of 
 the finest things in the Bible. Of course it is 
 magnificent to see a streak of the divine turning 
 up again and again in human nature but you 
 have got to wash the dirt to find the diamond. 
 Believe in the beauty behind and in and beyond 
 us all but don't worship the imperfect thing. This 
 sort of book is like selling the dirt out of which 
 the diamonds have been washed, and which would
 
 324 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 appear to have gained holiness by contact. I hate 
 to see people stopping short on the symbol and the 
 illustration, instead of passing on to the truth 
 behind it's idolatry. It's one degree better than 
 worshipping nothing ; but the danger of idolatry 
 is that you are content to get no further : and that 
 is what makes idolatry so ingenious a device of the 
 devil, that it persuades people to stop still and 
 not to get on." 
 
 " But aren't you making too much out of it ? " 
 I said. " At the worst, this is a harmless literary 
 blunder, a foolish bit of hero-worship ? " 
 
 "Yes," said Father Payne, "in a sense that is 
 true, that these little literary hucksters and pedlars 
 don't do any very great harm I don't mean that 
 they cause much mischief : but they are the symptom 
 of a grave disease. It is this d d bookishness 
 which is so unreal. I would like to say a word 
 about it to you, if you have time, instead of doing 
 our work to-day for if you will allow me to say 
 so, my boy, you have got a touch of it about you 
 only a touch and I think if I can show you 
 what I mean, you can throw it off I have heard 
 you say rather solemn things about books ! But 
 I want you to get through that. It reminds me 
 of the talk of ritualists. I have a poor friend who 
 is a very harmless sort of parson but I have heard 
 him talk of a bit of ceremonial with tears in his 
 eyes. 'It was exquisite, exquisite,' he will say, 
 ' the celebrant wore a cope a bit, I believe of 
 genuine pre- Reformation work of course re- 
 mounted and the Gospeller and Epistoller had 
 copes so perfectly copied that it would have been 
 hard to say which was the real one. And then
 
 OF BOOKISHNESS 325 
 
 Father Wynne holds himself so nobly such a 
 mixture of humility and pride a priest ought to 
 exhibit both, I think, at that moment ? and his 
 gestures are so inevitable so inevitable that's 
 the only word : there's no sense of rehearsal about 
 it : it is just the supreme act of worship expressing 
 itself in utter abandonment' He will go on like 
 that for an hour if he can find a great enough goose 
 to listen to him. Now, I don't mean to say that 
 the man hasn't a sense of beauty he has the real 
 ritual instinct, a perfectly legitimate branch of 
 art. But he doesn't know it's art he thinks it 
 is religion. He thinks that God is preoccupied 
 with such things ; ' a full choral High Mass, at 
 nine o'clock, that's a thing to live and die for,' 
 I have heard him say. Of course it's a sort of 
 idealism, but you must know what you are about, 
 and what you are idealising : and you mustn't 
 think that your kind is better than any other kind 
 of idealising." 
 
 He made a pause, and then held out his hand 
 for the book. 
 
 " Now here is the same sort of intemperate 
 rapture," he said. "Look at this introduction! 
 ' It is his very self that his poems give, and the 
 sharpest jealousy of his name and fame is en- 
 kindled by them. Not to find him there, his passion, 
 endurance, faith, rapture, despair, is merely a con- 
 fession of want in ourselves/ That's not sane, 
 you know it's the intoxication of the Cory bant ! 
 It isn't the man himself we want to fix our eyes 
 upon. He felt these things, no doubt : but we 
 mustn't worship his raptures we must worship 
 what he worshipped. This sort of besotted agita-
 
 326 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 tion is little better than a dancing dervish. The 
 poems are little sparks, struck out from a scrap 
 of humanity by some prodigious and glorious force : 
 but we must worship the force, not the spark : the 
 spark is only an evidence, a system, a symbol if 
 you like, of the force. And then see how utterly 
 the man has lost all sense of proportion he has 
 spent hours and days in identifying with uncommon 
 patience the exact date of these tepid scraps, and 
 he says he is content to have laid a single stone in 
 the "unamended, unabridged, authentic temple " of 
 his idol's fame. That seems to me simply de- 
 grading : and then the portentous ass, whose review 
 I read, says that if the editor had done nothing 
 else, he is sure of an honoured place for ever in the 
 hierarchy of impeccable critics ! And what is all 
 this jabber about a few rhymes which a man 
 made when he was feeling a little off colour, and 
 which he did not think it worth while to publish ! 
 
 " You mustn't get into this kind of a mess, my 
 boy. The artist mustn't indulge in emotion for 
 the sake of the emotion. 'The weakness of life,' 
 says this pompous ass, 'is that it deviates from 
 art ! ' You might just as well say that the weak- 
 ness of food was that it deviated from a well-cooked 
 leg of mutton ! Art is just an attempt to disen- 
 tangle something, to get at one of the big con- 
 stituents of life. It helps you to see clearly, not 
 to confuse one thing with another, not to be vaguely 
 impressed the hideous danger of bookishness is 
 that it is one of the blind alleys into which people 
 get. These two fellows, the editor and his critic, 
 have got stuck there : they can't see out : they 
 think their little valley is the end of the world. I
 
 OF BOOKISHNESS 327 
 
 expect they are both of them very happy men, as 
 happy as a man who goes to bed comfortably 
 drunk. But, good God, the awakening ! " Father 
 Payne relapsed into a long silence, with knitted 
 brows. I tried to start him afresh. 
 
 " But you often tell us to be serious, to be deadly 
 earnest, about our work ? " I said. 
 
 "Oh yes," said Father Payne, "that's another 
 matter. We have to work hard, and put the best 
 of ourselves into what we do. I don't want you 
 to be an amiable dilettante. But I also want you 
 to see past even the best art. You mustn't think 
 that the stained-glass window is the body of heaven 
 in its clearness. The sort of worshippers I object 
 to are the men who shut themselves up in a church, 
 and what with the colour and the music and the 
 incense-smoke, think they are in heaven already. 
 It's an intoxication, all that. I don't get you men 
 to come here to make you drunk, but to get you 
 to loathe drunkenness. God that's the end of 
 it all ! God, who reveals Himself in beauty and 
 kindness, and trustfulness, and charm and interest, 
 and in a hundred pure and fine forces yet each 
 of them are but avenues which lead up to Him, 
 the streets of the city, full of living water. But 
 it is movement I am in search of and I would 
 rather be drowned in the depth of the sea than 
 mislead anyone, or help him to sit still. I have 
 made an awful row about it all," said Father Payne, 
 relapsing into a milder mood " But you will forgive 
 me, I know. I can't bear to see these worthy 
 men blocking the way with their unassailable, 
 unabridged, authentic editions. They are like 
 barbed-wire entanglements : and the worst of it
 
 328 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 is that, in spite of all their holy air of triumph, they 
 enjoy few things more than tripping each other up ! 
 They condemn each other to eternal perdition for 
 misplacing a date or misspelling a name. It's like 
 getting into a bed of nettles to get in among these 
 little hierophants. They remind me of the bishops 
 at some ancient Church Council or other who tore 
 the clothes off two right reverend consultants, 
 and literally pulled them limb from limb in the 
 name of Christ. That's the end of these holy 
 raptures, my boy ! They unchain the beast within." 
 
 LXII 
 
 OF CONSISTENCY 
 
 THERE had been a little vague talk about politics, 
 and someone had quoted a definition of a true Liberal 
 as a man who, if he had only to press a button in a 
 dark room to annihilate all cranks, faddists, political 
 quacks, extremists, propagandists, and nostrum- 
 mongers, would not dream of doing so, as a matter 
 of conscience, on the ground that everyone has a 
 right to hold his own beliefs and to persuade the 
 world to accept them if he can. Father Payne 
 laughed at this ; but Rose, who had been nettled, I 
 fancy, at a lack of deference for his political experi- 
 ence, his father being a Unionist M.P., said loudly, 
 " Hear, hear ! that's the only sort of Liberal whom 
 I respect." 
 
 A look of sudden anger passed over Father Payne's 
 face unmistakable and uncompromising wrath. 
 " Come, Rose," he said, " this isn't a political meet-
 
 OF CONSISTENCY 329 
 
 ing ; and even if it were, why proclaim yourself as 
 accepting a definition which is almost within the 
 comprehension of a chimpanzee ? " 
 
 There was a faint laugh at this, but everyone had 
 an uncomfortable sense of thunder in the air. Rose 
 got rather white, and his nostrils expanded. " I'm 
 sorry I put it in that way," he said rather frostily, 
 " if you object. But I mean it, I think. I don't 
 like diluted Liberalism." 
 
 " Yes, but you beg the question by calling it di- 
 luted, ' ' said Father Payne. "If anyone had said that 
 the only Tory he respected was a man who if he 
 could press a button in a still darker room, and by 
 doing so bring it to pass that all institutions on the 
 face of the earth would remain immutably fixed 
 for ever and ever, and would feel himself bound 
 conscientiously to do it, you wouldn't accept that 
 as a definition of Conservatism ? These things are 
 not hard and fast matters of principle they are only 
 tendencies. Toryism is an instinct to trust custom 
 and authority, Liberalism is an instinct to welcome 
 development and change. All that the definition 
 of Liberalism which was quoted means is, that the 
 Liberal has a deep respect for freedom of opinion ; 
 and all that my grotesque definition of Toryism 
 means is that a Tory prefers to trust a fixed tradition. 
 But, of course, both want a settled Government, and 
 both have to recognise that the world and its con- 
 ditions change. The Tory says, ' Look before you 
 leap ' ; the Liberal says, ' Leap before you look.' But 
 it is really all a matter of infinite gradations, and 
 what differentiates people is merely their idea of the 
 pace at which things can go and ought to go. Why 
 should you say that you can only respect a man who
 
 330 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 wants to go at sixty miles an hour, any more than 
 I should say I can only respect a man who wants 
 to remain absolutely still ? " 
 
 Rose had by this time recovered his temper, and 
 said, "It was rather crude, I admit. But what I 
 meant was that if a man feels that all opinions are 
 of equal value, he must give full weight to all opin- 
 ions. The doctrinaire Liberal seems to me to be 
 just as much inclined to tyrannise as the doctrin- 
 aire Tory, and to use his authority on the side of 
 suppression when it is convenient to do so, and 
 against all his own principles." 
 
 " I don't think that is quite fair," said Father 
 Payne. "You must have a working system; you 
 can't try everyone's experiments. All that the 
 Liberal says is, ' Persuade us if you can.' Pure 
 Liberalism would be anarchy, just as pure Toryism 
 would be tyranny. Both are intolerable. But just 
 as the Liberal has to compromise and say, ' This may 
 not be the ultimate theory of the Government, but 
 meanwhile the world has to be governed,' so the 
 Tory has to compromise, if a large majority of the 
 people say, ' We will not be governed by a minority 
 for their interest ; we will be governed for our own.' 
 The parliamentary vote is just a way of avoiding 
 civil war ; you can't always resort to force, so you 
 resort to arbitration. But why the Liberal position 
 is on the whole the stronger is because it says frankly, 
 ' If you Tories can persuade the nation to ask you to 
 govern it, we will obey you.' The weakness of the 
 Tory position is that it has to make exactly the same 
 concessions, while it claims to be inspired by a divine 
 sort of knowledge as to what is just and right. 1 
 personally mistrust all intuitions which lead to
 
 OF CONSISTENCY 331 
 
 tyranny. Of course, the weakness of the whole 
 affair is that the man who believes in democracy 
 has to assume that all have equal rights ; that would 
 be fair enough if all people were born equal in char- 
 acter and ability, and influence and wealth. But 
 that isn't the case ; and so the Liberal says, ' De- 
 mocracy is a bad system perhaps, but it is the only 
 system,' and it is fairer to maintain that everyone 
 who gets into the world has as good a right as any- 
 one else to be there, than it is to say, ' Some people 
 have a right to manage the world and some have 
 only a duty to obey.' Both represent a side of 
 the truth, but neither represents the whole truth. 
 At worst Liberalism is a combination of the weak 
 against the strong, and Toryism a combination of 
 the strong against the weak ! I personally wish the 
 weak to have a chance ; but what we all really de- 
 sire is to be governed by the wise and good, and my 
 hope for the world is that the quality of it is im- 
 proving. I want the weak to become sensible and 
 self-restrained, and the strong to become unselfish 
 and disinterested. It is generosity that I want to 
 see increase it is the finest of all qualities the de- 
 sire, I mean to serve others, to admire, to sympathise, 
 to share, to rejoice, in other people's happiness. 
 That would solve all our difficulties." 
 
 " Yes, of course," said Rose. " But I would like 
 to go back again, and say that what I was praising 
 was consistency." 
 
 " But there is no such thing," said Father Payne, 
 " except in combination with entire irrationality. 
 One can't say at any time of one's life, ' I know every- 
 thing worth knowing. I am in a position to form 
 a final judgment.' You can say, ' I will shut off all
 
 332 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 fresh light from my mind, and I will consider no 
 further evidence,' but that isn't a thing to respect ! 
 I begin to suspect, Rose, that why you praised the 
 uncompromising Liberal, as you call him, is because 
 he is the only kind of opponent who isn't dangerous. 
 A man who takes up such a position as I have de- 
 scribed is practically insane. He has a fixed idea, 
 which neither argument nor evidence can alter. 
 The uncompromising man of fixed opinions, what- 
 ever those opinions may be, is almost the only man 
 I do not respect, because he is really the only incon- 
 sistent person. He says, ' I have formed an opinion 
 which is based on experience, and I shall not alter 
 it.' That is tantamount to saying that you have 
 done with experience ; it is a claim to have attained 
 infallibility through fallible faculties. Where is the 
 dignity of that ? It's just a deification of stupidity 
 and stubbornness and insolence and complacency." 
 
 " But you must take your stand on some certain- 
 ties," said Rose. 
 
 " The fewer the better," said Father Payne. " One 
 may learn to discriminate between things, and to 
 observe differences ; but that is very different from 
 saying that you have got at the ultimate essence of 
 any one thing. I am all for clearness we ought not 
 to confuse things with each other, or use the same 
 names for different things ; but I'm all against 
 claiming absolute and impeccable knowledge. It 
 may be a comfortable system for a man who doesn't 
 want to be bothered ; but he is only deferring the 
 bother he is like a man who stays in bed because 
 he doesn't like dressing. But it isn't a solution to 
 stay in bed it is only suspending the solution. No, 
 we mustn't have any regard for human consistency
 
 OF WRENS AND LILIES 333 
 
 it's a very paltry attribute ; it's the opposite of 
 anthropomorphism. That makes out God to be in 
 the image of man, but consistency claims for man 
 the privilege of God. And that isn't wholesome, 
 you know, either for a man or his friends ! " 
 
 " I give up," said Rose : " can nothing be 
 logical ? " 
 
 " Hardly anything," said Father Payne, " except 
 logic itself. You have to coin logical ideas into 
 counters to play with. No two things, for instance, 
 can ever be absolutely equal, except imaginary 
 equalities and that's the mischief of logic applied 
 to life, that it presumes an exact valuation of the 
 ideas it works with, when no two people's valuations 
 of the same idea are identical, and even one person's 
 valuation varies from time to time ; and logic breeds 
 a phantom sort of consistency which only exists in 
 the imagination. You know the story of how Smith 
 and Jones were arguing, and Smith said, ' Brown 
 will agree with me' : ' Yes,' said Jones triumphantly, 
 ' he will, but for my reasons ! ' " 
 
 LXIII 
 
 OF WRENS AND LILIES 
 
 IT was the first warm and sunny day, after a cold 
 and cloudy spring : I took a long and leisurely 
 walk with Father Payne down a valley among 
 woods, of which Father Payne was very fond. 
 " Almost precipitous for Northamptonshire, eh ? " 
 he used to say. I was very full of a book I had 
 been reading, but I could not get him to talk. He 
 made vague and foolish replies, and said several
 
 334 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 times, " I shall have to think that over, you know," 
 which was, I well knew, a polite intimation that 
 he was not in a mood for talk. But I persisted, 
 and at last he said, "Hang it, you know, I'm not 
 attending I'm very sorry it isn't your fault 
 but there's such a lot going on everywhere." 
 He quoted a verse of The Shropshire Lad, of which 
 he was very fond : 
 
 " ' Now, of my threescore years and ten, 
 Twenty will not come again, 
 And take from seventy springs a score, 
 It only leaves me fifty more ' " ; 
 
 adding, " That's the only instance I know of a 
 subtraction sum made into perfect poetry but 
 it's the other way round, worse luck ! 
 
 " And add to seventy springs a score, 
 That only leaves me forty more ! " 
 
 The birds were singing very sweetly in the copses 
 as we passed "That isn't art, I believe," said 
 Father Payne. "It's only the reproductive in- 
 stinct, I am told ! I wish it took such an artistic 
 form in my beloved brothers in the Lord ! There," 
 he added, stopping and speaking in a low tone ; 
 " don't move there's a cock- wren singing his love- 
 song you can see his wings quivering." There 
 followed a little tremolo, with four or five emphatic 
 notes for a finish. " Now, if you listen, you'll 
 hear the next wren answer him ! " said Father 
 Payne. In a moment the same little song came 
 like an echo from a bush a few yards away. " The 
 wren sings in stricter time than any bird but the 
 cuckoo," said Father Payne "four quavers to a
 
 OF WRENS AND LILIES 335 
 
 bar. That's very important ! Those two ridicu- 
 lous creatures will go on doing that half the morning. 
 They are so excited that they build sham nests, 
 you know, about now quite useless piles of twigs 
 and moss, not intended for eggs, just to show what 
 they can do. But that little song ! It has all the 
 passion of the old chivalry in it it is only to say, 
 ' My Dulcinea is prettier, sweeter, brighter-eyed 
 than yours ! ' and the other says, ' You wait till 
 I can get at you, and then we will see ! ' If they 
 were two old knights, they would fight to the death 
 over it, till the world had lost a brave man, and one 
 of the Dulcineas was a hapless widow, and nothing 
 proved. That's the sort of thing that men admire, 
 full of fine sentiment. Why can't we leave each 
 other alone ? Why does loving one person make 
 you want to fight another ? Just look at that 
 wren : he's as full of joy and pride as he can hold : 
 look at the angle at which he holds his tail : he 
 feels the lord of the world, sure enough ! " 
 
 We walked on, and I asked no more questions. 
 "There's a bit of colour," said Father Payne, 
 pointing to a bare wood, all carpeted with green 
 blades. " That's pure emerald, like the seventh 
 foundation of the city. Now, if I ask you, who 
 are a bit of a poet, what those leaves are, what do 
 you say ? You say hyacinth or daffodil, or perhaps 
 lily- of -the- valley. But what does the simple 
 botanist that's me say ? Garlic, my boy, and 
 nothing else ! and you had better not walk musing 
 there, or you will come in smelling of spring onions, 
 like a greengrocer's shop. So much for poetry ! 
 It's the loveliest green in creation, and it has a 
 pretty flower too but it's never once mentioned
 
 336 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 in English poetry, so far as I know. And yet 
 Keats had the face to say that Beauty was Truth 
 and Truth Beauty ! That's the way we play the 
 game." 
 
 We rambled on, and passed a pleasant old stone- 
 built cottage in the wood, with a tiny garden. 
 "It's a curious thing," said Father Payne, "but 
 in the spring I always want to live in all the houses 
 I see. It's the nesting instinct, no doubt. I think 
 I could be very happy here, for instance much 
 happier than in my absurd big house, with all you 
 fellows about. Why did I ever start it ? I ought 
 to have had more sense. I want a cottage like this, 
 and a little garden to work in, and a few books. I 
 would live on bread and cold bacon and cheese and 
 cabbages, with a hive of my own honey. I should 
 get wise and silent, and not run on like this." 
 
 A dog came out of the cottage garden, and followed 
 us a little way. " Do we belong to your party, sir, 
 or do you belong to ours ? " said Father Payne. 
 The dog put his head on one side, and wagged his 
 tail. "It appears I have the pleasure of your 
 acquaintance ! " said Father Payne to him. " Very 
 well, you can set us on our way if you like ! " 
 The dog gave a short shrill bark, and trotted along 
 with us. When we got to the end of the lane, 
 where it turned into the high road, Father Payne 
 said to the dog, " Now, sir, I expect that's all the 
 time you can spare this morning ? You must go 
 back and guard the house, and be a faithful dog. 
 Duty first ! " The dog looked mournfully at us, 
 and wagged his tail, but did not attempt to come 
 farther. He watched us for a little longer, but 
 as we did not invite him to come on, he presently
 
 OF WRENS AND LILIES 337 
 
 turned round and trotted off home. " Now, that's 
 the sort of case where I feel sentimental," said 
 Father Payne. "It's the sham sort of pathos. 
 I hate to see anyone disappointed. A person 
 offering flowers in the street for sale, and people 
 not buying them the men in London showing 
 off little toys by the pavement, which nobody 
 wants I can't bear that. It makes me feel absurdly 
 wretched to see anyone hoping to please, and not 
 pleasing. And if the people who do it look old 
 and frail and unhappy, I'm capable of buying the 
 whole stock. The great uncomforted ! It's silly, 
 of course, and there is nothing in the world so silly 
 as useless emotion ! It is so easy to overflow with 
 cheap benevolence, but the first step towards the 
 joyful wisdom is to be afraid of the emotion that 
 costs you nothing : but we won't be metaphysical 
 to-day ! " 
 
 Presently Father Payne insisted on sitting down 
 in a sheltered place. He flung his hat off, and 
 sate there, looking round him with a smile, his 
 arms clasped round his big knees. "Well," he 
 said, "it's a jolly place, the old world, to be sure ! 
 Plenty of nasty and ugly things, I suppose, going 
 on in corners ; but if you look round, they are only 
 a small percentage of the happy things. They 
 don't force themselves upon the eye and ear, the 
 beastly things : and it's a stupid and faithless 
 mistake to fix the imagination and the reason too 
 much upon them. We are all of us in a tight place 
 occasionally, and we have to meet it as best we can. 
 But I don't think we do it any better by antici- 
 pating it beforehand. What is more, no one can 
 really help us or deliver us : we can be made a 
 
 Y
 
 338 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 little more comfortable, and that's all, by what 
 they call cooling drinks, and flowers in a vase by 
 the bedside. And it's a bad thing to get the misery 
 of the world in a vague way on our nerves. That's 
 the useless emotion. We have got certain quite 
 definite things to do for other people in our own 
 circle, and we are bound to do them ; we mustn't 
 shirk them, and we mustn't shirk our own troubles, 
 though the less we bother about them the better. 
 I am not at all sure that the curse of the news- 
 papers is not that they collect all the evils of the 
 world into a hideous posy, and thrust it under our 
 nose. They don't collect the fine, simple, whole- 
 some things. Now you and I are better employed 
 to-day in being agreeable to each other at least 
 you are being kind to me, even though I can't talk 
 about that book and in looking at the delightful 
 things going on everywhere just think of all the 
 happiness in the world to-day, symbolised by that 
 ridiculous wren ! we are better employed, I say, 
 than if we were extending the commerce of England, 
 or planning how to make war, or scolding people 
 in sermons about their fatal indifference to the 
 things that belong to their peace. Men and women 
 must find and make their own peace, and we are 
 doing both to-day. That awful vague sense of 
 responsibility, that desire to interfere, that wish 
 that everyone else should do uncomplainingly what 
 we think to be their duty that's all my eye ! It 
 is the kindly, eager, wholesome life which affects 
 the world, wherever it is lived : and that is the 
 best which most of us can do. We can't be always 
 fighting. Even the toughest old veteran soldier 
 how many hours of his life has he spent actually
 
 OF POSE 339 
 
 under fire ? No, I 'm not forgetting the workers 
 either : but you need not tell me that they are 
 all sick at heart because they are not dawdling in 
 a country lane. It would bore them to death, and 
 they can live a very happy life without it. That's 
 the false pathos again to think that everyone 
 who can't do as we like must be miserable. And 
 anyhow, I have done my twenty-five years on the 
 treadmill, and I am not going to pretend it was 
 noble work, because it wasn't. It was useless and 
 disgraceful drudgery, most of it ! " 
 
 "Ah," I said, "but that doesn't help me. You 
 may have earned a holiday, but I have never done 
 any real drudgery I haven't earned anything." 
 
 "Be content," said Father Payne; "take two 
 changes of raiment ! You have got your furrow to 
 plough all in good time ! You are working hard 
 now, and don't let me hear any stuff about being 
 ashamed because you enjoy it ! The reward of 
 labour is life : to enjoy our work is the secret. If 
 you could persuade people that the spring of life 
 lies there, you would do more for the happiness of 
 man than by attending fifty thousand committees. 
 But I won't talk any more. I want to consider 
 the lilies of the field, how they grow. They don't 
 do it every day ! " 
 
 LXIV 
 
 OF POSE 
 
 SOMEONE said rashly, after dinner to-night, that 
 the one detestable and unpardonable thing in a 
 man was pose. A generalisation of this kind acted
 
 340 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 on Father Payne very often like a ferret on a rabbit. 
 He had been mournfully abstracted during dinner, 
 shaking his head slowly, and turning his eyes to 
 heaven when he was asked leading questions. But 
 now he said : "I don't think that is reasonable you 
 might as well say that you always disliked length 
 in a book. A book has got to be some length 
 it is as short as it's long. Of course, the moment 
 you begin to say, ' How long this book is ! ' you 
 mean that it is too long, and excess is a fault. Do 
 you remember the subject proposed in a school 
 debating society, ' That too much athletics is 
 worthy of our admiration ' ? Pose is like that 
 when you become conscious of pose it is generally 
 disagreeable that is, if it is meant to deceive : 
 but it is often amusing too, like the pose of the 
 unjust judge in the parable, who prefaces his remarks 
 by saying, ' Though I fear not God, neither regard 
 man.' ' 
 
 " Oh, but you know what I mean, Father," said 
 the speaker, " the pose of knowing when you don't 
 know, and being well-bred when you are snobbish, 
 and being kind when you are mean, and so on." 
 
 "I think you mean humbug rather than pose," 
 said Father Payne ; " but even so, I don't agree 
 with you. I have a friend who would be intolerable, 
 but for his pose of being agreeable. He isn't agree- 
 able, and he doesn't feel agreeable ; but he behaves 
 as if he was, and it is the only thing that makes 
 him bearable. What you really mean is the pose 
 of superiority the man whose motives are always 
 just ahead of your own, and whose taste is always 
 slightly finer, and who knows the world a little 
 better. But there is a lot of pose that isn't
 
 OF POSE 341 
 
 that. What is pose, after all ? Can anyone 
 define it ? '' 
 
 " It's an artist's phrase, I think," said Barthrop ; 
 "it means a position in which you look your 
 best." 
 
 " Like the Archbishop who was always painted in 
 a gibbous attitude first quarter, you know with 
 his back turned to you, and his face just visible 
 over his lawn sleeve," said Father Payne, "but 
 that was in order to hide an excrescence on his left 
 cheek. Do you remember what Lamb said of 
 Barry Cornwall's wen on the nape of his neck ? 
 Some one said that Barry Cornwall was thinking 
 of having it cut off. ' I hope he won't do that,' 
 said Lamb, ' I rather like it it's redundant, like 
 his poetry ! ' I rather agree with Lamb. I like 
 people to be a little redundant, and a harmless pose 
 is pure redundancy : it only means that a man 
 is up to some innocent game or other, some sort 
 of mystification, and is enjoying himself. It's like 
 a summer haze over the landscape. Now, there's 
 another friend of mine who was once complimented 
 on his ' uplifted ' look. Whenever he thinks of it, 
 and that's pretty often, he looks uplifted, like a 
 bird drinking, with his eyes fixed on some far-off 
 vision. I don't mind that ! It's only a wish to 
 look his best. It's partly a wish to give pleasure, 
 you know. It's the same thing that makes people 
 wear their hair long, or dress in a flamboyant way. 
 I'll tell you a little story. You know Bertie Nash, 
 the artist. I met him once in a Post Office, and 
 he was buying a sheet of halfpenny stamps. I 
 asked him if he was going to send out some circulars. 
 He looked at me sadly, and said, ' No, I always use
 
 342 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 these I can't use the penny stamps such a crude 
 red ! ' Now, he didn't do that to impress me : 
 but it was a pose in a way, and he liked feeling 
 so sensitive to colour." 
 
 " But oughtn't one to avoid all that sort of 
 nonsense ? " said some one ; "it's better surely to 
 be just what you are." 
 
 ; ' Yes, but what are you, after all ? " said Father 
 Payne ; " your moods vary. It would be hopeless 
 if everyone tried to keep themselves down to their 
 worst level for the sake of sincerity. The point 
 is that you ought to try to keep at your best level, 
 even if you don't feel so. Hang it, good manners 
 are a pose, if it comes to that. The essence of good 
 manners is sometimes to conceal what you are 
 feeling. Is it a pose to behave amiably when you 
 are tired or cross ? " 
 
 " No, but that is in order not to make other 
 people uncomfortable," said Vincent. 
 
 "Well, it's very hard to draw the line," said 
 Father Payne : "but what we really mean by pose 
 is, I imagine, the attempt to appear to be something 
 which you frankly are not and that is where the 
 word has changed its sense, Barthrop. An artist's 
 pose is something characteristic, which makes a 
 man look his best. What we generally mean by 
 pose is the affecting a best which one never reaches. 
 Come, tell a story, some one ! That's the best way 
 to get at a quality. Won't some one quote an 
 illustration ? " 
 
 "What about my friend Pearce, the school- 
 master? " said Vincent. "He read a book about 
 schoolmastering, and he said he didn't think much 
 of it. He added that the author seemed only
 
 OF POSE 343 
 
 to be giving elegant reasons for doing things which 
 the born schoolmaster did by instinct." 
 
 "Well, that's not a bad criticism," said Father 
 Payne ; " but it was pose if he meant to convey 
 that he was a born schoolmaster. Is he one, by 
 the way ? " 
 
 "No," said Vincent, "he is not: he is much 
 ragged by the boys ; but he comforts himself by 
 thinking that all schoolmasters are ragged, but 
 that he is rather more successful than most in 
 dealing with it. He has a great deal of moral 
 dignity, has Pearce ! I don't know where he would 
 be without it ! " 
 
 "Well, there's an instance," said Father Payne, 
 " of a pose being of some use. I think a real genuine 
 pose often makes a man do better work in the world 
 than if he was drearily conscious of failure. It's 
 a game, you know a dramatic game : and I think 
 it's a sign of vitality and interest to want to have 
 a game. It's like the lawyer's clerk in Our Mutual 
 Friend, when Mr. Boffin calls to keep an appoint- 
 ment, being the lawyer's only client ; but the boy 
 makes a show of looking it all up in a ledger, runs 
 his finger down a list of imaginary consultants, 
 and says to himself, ' Mr. Aggs, Mr. Baggs, Mr. 
 Caggs, Mr. Daggs, Mr. Boffin Yes, sir, that is 
 right ! ' Now there's no harm in that sort of 
 thing it's only a bit of moral dignity, as Vincent 
 says. It's no good acquiescing in being a humble 
 average person we must do better than that ! 
 Most people believe in themselves in spite of abun- 
 dant evidence to the contrary but it's better than 
 disbelieving in yourself. That's abject, you know." 
 
 "But if you accept the principle of pose," said
 
 344 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 Lestrange, " I don't see that you can find fault 
 with any pose." 
 
 "You might as well say," said Father Payne, 
 " that if I accept the principle of drinking alcohol, 
 it doesn't matter how much I drink ! Almost all 
 morality is relative in fact, it is doubtful if it is 
 ever absolute. The mischief of pose is not when 
 it makes a man try to be or to appear at his best : 
 but when a man lives a thoroughly unreal life, 
 taking a high line in theory and never troubling 
 about practice, then it's incredible to what lengths 
 self-deception can go. Dr. Johnson said that he 
 looked upon himself as a polite man ! It is quite 
 easy to get to believe yourself impeccable in certain 
 points : and as one gets older, and less assailable, 
 and less liable to be pulled up and told the hard 
 truth, it is astonishing how serenely you can sail 
 along. But that isn't pose exactly. It generally 
 begins by a pose, and becomes simple impervious- 
 ness : and that is, after all, the danger of pose, 
 that it makes people blind to the truth about 
 themselves." 
 
 "I'm getting muddled," said Vincent. 
 "It is rather muddling," said Father Payne, 
 " but, in a general way, the point is this. When 
 pose is a deliberate attempt to deceive other people 
 for your own credit, it is detestable. But when 
 it is merely harmless drama, to add to the interest 
 of life and to retain your own self-respect, it's an 
 amiable foible, and need not be discouraged. The 
 real question is whether it is assumed seriously, 
 or whether it is all a sort of joke. We all like to 
 play our little games, and I find it very easy to 
 forgive a person who enjoys dressing up, so to speak,
 
 OF REVENANTS 345 
 
 and making remarks in character. Come, I'll 
 confess my sins in public. If I meet a stranger 
 in the roads, I rather like to be thought a bluff 
 and hearty English squire, striding about my broad 
 acres. I prefer that to being thought a retired 
 crammer, a dominie who keeps a school and calls 
 it an academy, as Lord Auchinleck said of Johnson. 
 But if I pretended in this house to be a kind of 
 abbot, and glided about in a cassock with a gold 
 cross round my neck, conferring a benediction on 
 everyone, and then retired to my room to read 
 a French novel and to drink whisky-and-soda, 
 that would be a very unpleasant pose indeed ! " 
 
 We all implored Father Payne to adopt it, and 
 he said he would give it his serious consideration. 
 
 LXV 
 
 OF REVENANTS 
 
 I WAS sitting in the garden one evening in summer 
 with Father Payne and Barthrop. Barthrop was 
 going off next day to Oxford, and was trying to 
 persuade Father Payne to come too. 
 
 "No," he said, "I simply couldn't! Oxford 
 is the city east of the sun and west of the moon 
 like as a dream when one awaketh ! I don't 
 hold with indulging fruitless sentiment, particularly 
 about the past." 
 
 "But isn't it rather a pity?" said Barthrop. 
 " After all, most emotions are useless, if you come 
 to that ! Why should you cut yourself off from 
 a place you are so fond of, and which is quite the
 
 346 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 most beautiful place in England too ? Isn't it 
 rather well, weak ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Father Payne, "it's weak, no doubt ! 
 That is to say, if I were differently made, more 
 hard-hearted, more sure of myself, I should go, 
 and I should enjoy myself, and moon about, and 
 bore you to death with old stories about the chimes 
 at midnight everybody would be a dear old boy 
 or a good old soul, and I should hand out tips, 
 and get perfectly maudlin in the evenings over a 
 glass of claret. That's the normal thing, no doubt 
 that's what a noble-minded man in a novel of 
 Thackeray's would do ! " 
 
 "Well," said Barthrop, "you know best but 
 I expect that if you did take the plunge and go 
 there, you would find yourself quite at ease." 
 
 "I might," said Father Payne; "but then I 
 also might not and I prefer not to risk it. You 
 see, it would be merely wallowing in sentiment 
 and I don't approve of sentiment. I want my 
 emotions to live with, not to bathe in ! " 
 
 "But you don't mind going back to London," 
 said Barthrop. 
 
 "No," said Father Payne, "but that bucks me 
 up. I was infernally unhappy in London, and it 
 puts me in a thoroughly sensible and cheerful 
 mood to go and look at the outside of my old lodg- 
 ings, and the place where I used to teach, and to 
 say to myself, ' Thank God, that's all over ! ' 
 Then I go on my way rejoicing, and make no end 
 of plans. But if I went to Oxford, I should just 
 remember how happy and young I was ; and I 
 might even commit the folly of regretting the lapse 
 of time, and of wishing I could have it back again.
 
 OF REVENANTS 347 
 
 I don't think it is wholesome to do anything \vhich 
 makes one discontented, or anything which forces 
 one to dwell on what one has lost. That doesn't 
 matter. Nothing really is ever lost, and it only 
 takes the starch out of one to think about it from 
 that angle. I don't believe in the past. It seems 
 unalterable, and I suppose in a sense it is so. But 
 if you begin to dwell on unalterable things, you 
 become a fatalist, and I'm always trying to get 
 away from that. The point is that no one is un- 
 alterable, and, thank God, we are always altering. 
 To potter about in the past is like grubbing in an 
 ash-heap, and shedding tears over broken bits of 
 china. The plate, or whatever it is, was pretty 
 enough, and it had its place and its use ; and when 
 the stuff of which it is made is wanted again, it 
 will be used again. It is simply fatuous to waste 
 time over the broken pieces of old dreams and visions ; 
 and I mean to use my emotions and my imagina- 
 tion to see new dreams and finer visions. Perhaps 
 the time will come when I can dream no more 
 the brain gets tired and languid, no doubt. But 
 even then I shall try to be interested in what is 
 going on." 
 
 "I see your point," said Barthrop ; "but, for 
 the life of me, I can't see why the old place should 
 not take its part in the new visions ! When I go 
 down to Oxford I don't regret it. I go gratefully 
 and happily about, and I like to see the young 
 men as jolly as I was, and as unaware what a good 
 time they are having. An old pal of mine is a Don, 
 and he puts me up in College, and it amuses me to go 
 into Hall, and to see some of the young lions at close 
 quarters. It's all pure and simple refreshment."
 
 348 fFATHER PAYNE 
 
 "I've no doubt of it, old man," said Father 
 Payne ; " and it's an excellent thing for you to go, 
 and to draw fresh life from the ancient earth, like 
 Antseus. But I'm not made that way. I'm not 
 loyal that is to say, I am not faithful to things 
 simply because I once admired and loved them. 
 If you are loyal in the right way, as you are, it's 
 different. But these old attachments are a kind 
 of idolatry to me a false worship. I'm naturally 
 full of unreasonable devotion to the old and beauti- 
 ful things ; but they get round my neck like a 
 mill-stone, and it is all so much more weight that 
 I have to carry. I sometimes go to see an old 
 cousin of mine, a widow in the country, who lives 
 entirely in the past, never allows anything to be 
 changed in the house, never talks about anyone 
 who isn't dead or ill. The woman's life is simply 
 buried under old memories, mountains of old china, 
 family plate, receipts for jam and marmalade 
 everything has got to be done as it was in the be- 
 ginning. Now most of her friends think that very 
 beautiful and tender, and talk of the old-world 
 atmosphere of the place ; but I think it simply 
 a stuffy waste of time. I don't tell her so God 
 forbid ! But I feel that she is lolling in an arbour 
 by the roadside instead of getting on. It's inno- 
 cent enough, but it does not seem to me beautiful." 
 
 " But I still don't see why you give way to the 
 feeling," said Barthrop. "I'm sure that if I felt 
 as you do about Oxford, or any other place, you 
 would tell me it was my duty to conquer it." 
 
 "Very likely!" said Father Payne. "But 
 doctors don't feel bound to take their own pre- 
 scriptions ! Everyone must decide for himself, and
 
 OF REVENANTS 349 
 
 I know that I should fall under the luxurious en- 
 chantment. I should go into cheap raptures, I 
 should talk about 'the tender grace of a day that 
 is dead ' it's no use putting your head in a noose 
 to see what being strangled feels like." 
 
 "But do you apply that to everything," I said, 
 " old friendships, old affections, old memories ? 
 They seem to me beautiful, and harmlessly beauti- 
 ful." 
 
 " Well, if you can use them up quite freshly, and 
 make a poetical dish out of them, for present con- 
 sumption, I don't mind," said Father Payne. " But 
 that isn't my way I'm not robust enough. It's 
 all I can do to take things in as they come along. 
 Of course an old memory sometimes goes through 
 one like a sword, but I pull it out as quick as I can, 
 and cast it away. I am not going to dance with 
 Death if I can help it ! I have got my job cut out 
 for me, and I am not going to be hampered by old 
 rubbish. Mind you, I don't say that it was rubbish 
 at the time ; but I have no use for anything that 
 I can't use. Sentiment seems to me like letting 
 valuable steam off. The people I have loved are 
 all there still, whether they are dead or alive. They 
 did a bit of the journey with me, and I enjoyed 
 their company, and I shall enjoy it again, if it so 
 comes about. But we have to live our life, and 
 we can't keep more than a certain number of things 
 in mind that is an obvious limitation. Do you 
 remember the old fairy story of the man who carried 
 a magic goose, and everyone who touched it, or 
 touched anyone who touched it, could not leave go, 
 with the result that there was a long train of help- 
 less people trotting about behind the man. I don't
 
 350 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 want to live like that, with a long train of old 
 memories and traditions and friendships and furni- 
 ture trailing helplessly behind me. My business 
 is with my present circle, my present work, and I 
 can't waste my strength in drawing about vehicles 
 full of goods. If anyone wants me, here I am, and 
 I will do my best to meet his wishes ; but I am not 
 going to be frightened by words like loyalty into 
 pretending that I am going to stagger along carrying 
 the whole of my past. No, my boy," said Father 
 Payne, turning to Barthrop, " you go to Oxford, 
 and enjoy yourself ! But the old place is too 
 tight about my heart for me to put my nose into 
 it. I'm a free man, and I am not going to be in 
 bondage to my old fancies. You may give my 
 love to Corpus and to Wadham Garden it's all 
 dreadfully bewitching but I'm not going to run 
 the risk of falling in love with the phantom of the 
 past that's La Belle Dame Sans Merci for me, 
 and I'm riding on I'm riding on. I won't have 
 the hussy on my horse. 
 
 " I set her on my pacing steed, 
 
 And nothing else saw all day long, 
 For sideways would she lean, and sing 
 A faery's song. 
 
 She found me roots of relish sweet, 
 And honey wild and manna dew. 
 And sure in language strange she said, 
 ' I love thee true.' " 
 
 He stopped a moment, as he often did when he 
 made a quotation, overcome with feeling. Then 
 he smiled, and added half to himself, " No ; I 
 should say. as Dr Johnson said to the lady in Fleet 
 Street ; ' No, no ; it won't do, my girl ! '
 
 OF DISCIPLINE 351 
 
 LXVI 
 
 OF DISCIPLINE 
 
 "WELL, anyhow," said Vincent at dinner, com- 
 menting on something that had been said, " you 
 may not get anything else out of a disagreeable 
 affair like that, but you get a sort of discipline." 
 
 "Come, hold on," said Father Payne; "that 
 won't do, you know ! Discipline, in my belief, is 
 in itself a bad thing, unless you not only get some- 
 thing out of it, but, what is more, know what you 
 get out of it. You can't discipline anyone, unless 
 he desires it ! Discipline means the repressing of 
 something you must be quite sure that it is worth 
 repressing." 
 
 " What I mean," said Vincent, " is that it makes 
 you tougher and harder." 
 
 "Yes," said Father Payne, "but that is not a 
 good thing in itself, unless there is something soft 
 and weak in you. Discipline may easily knock the 
 good things out of you. There's a general kind 
 of belief that, because the world is a rough place, 
 where you may get tumbles and shocks without 
 any fault of your own, therefore it is as well to have 
 something rough about you. I don't believe in 
 that . The reason why a man gets roughly handled, 
 in nine cases out of ten, is not because he is ob- 
 noxious or offensive, but because other people are 
 harsh and indifferent. I want to apply discipline 
 to the brutal, not to brutalise the sensitive. If 
 discipline simply made people brave and patient,
 
 352 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 it would be different, but it often makes them 
 callous and unpleasant." 
 
 " But doesn't everyone want discipline of some 
 kind ? " said Vincent. 
 
 " Of the right kind, yes," said Father Payne. 
 " Some people want a good deal more than they 
 get, and some a certain amount less than they 
 get. It's a delicate business. It is not always 
 fortifying. Take a simple case. A bold, brazen 
 sort of boy who is untruthful may want a whipping ; 
 but a timid and imaginative boy who is untruthful 
 doesn't necessarily want a whipping at all it 
 makes him more, and not less, timid. One of the 
 most ridiculous and persistent blunders in human 
 life is to believe that a certain penalty is divinely 
 appointed for a certain offence. Our theory of 
 punishment is all wrong ; we inflict punishment, as 
 a rule, not to improve an offender, but out of re- 
 venge, or because it gives us a comfortable sense 
 of our own justice. And the whole difficulty of 
 discipline is that it is apt to be applied in lumps, 
 and distributed wholesale to people who don't all 
 want the same amount. We haven't really got 
 very far away from the Squeers theory of giving 
 all the boys brimstone and treacle alike." 
 
 "Yes, but in a school," said Vincent, " w r ould 
 not the boys themselves resent it, if they were 
 punished differently for the same offence ? " 
 
 "That is to say," said Father Payne, "that you 
 are to treat boys, whom you are supposed to be 
 training, in accordance with their ideas of justice, 
 and not in accordance with yours ! Why should 
 you confirm them in a wholly erroneous view of 
 justice ? Justice isn't a mathematical thing or
 
 OF DISCIPLINE 353 
 
 rather, it ought to be a mathematical thing, because 
 you ought to take into account a lot of factors, 
 which you simply omit from your calculation. I 
 believe very little in punishment, to tell you the 
 truth ; it ought only to be inflicted after many 
 warnings, when the offence is deliberately repeated. 
 I don't believe that the sane and normal person is 
 a habitual and deliberate offender. The kind of 
 absence of self-restraint which makes people unable 
 to resist temptation, in any form, is a disease, and 
 ought to be segregated. I haven't the slightest 
 doubt that we shall end by segregating or sterilis- 
 ing the person of criminal tendencies, which only 
 means a total inability, in the presence of a temp- 
 tation, to foresee consequences, and which gratifies 
 a momentary desire." 
 
 " But apart from definite moral disease," said 
 Vincent, "isn't it a good thing to compel people, 
 if possible, into a certain sort of habit ? I am 
 speaking of faults which are not criminal things 
 like unpunctuality, laziness, small excesses, mild 
 untrustworthiness, and so forth." 
 
 "Well, I don't personally believe in coercive 
 discipline at all," said Father Payne. "I think it 
 simply gets people out of shape. I believe in trying 
 to give people a real motive for self-discipline : 
 take unpunctuality, for instance. The only way 
 to make an unpunctual person punctual is to con- 
 vince him that it is rude and unjust to keep other 
 people waiting. There is nothing sacred about 
 punctuality in itself, unless some one else suffers 
 by your being unpunctual. If it comes to that, 
 isn't it quite as good a discipline for punctual people 
 to learn to wait without impatience for the un- 
 
 z
 
 354 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 punctual ? Supposing an unpunctual person were 
 to say, 'I do it on principle, to teach precise people 
 not to mind waiting,' where is the flaw in that ? 
 Take what you call laziness. Some people work 
 better by fits and starts, some do better work by 
 regularity. The point is to know how you work 
 best. You must not make the convenience of 
 average people into a moral law. The thing to 
 aim at is that a man should not go on doing a thing 
 which he honestly believes to be wrong and hurtful, 
 out of a mere habit. Take the small excesses of 
 which you speak food, drink, sleep, tobacco. 
 Some people want more of these things than others ; 
 you can't lay down exact laws. A man ought to 
 find out precisely what suits him best ; but I'm 
 not prepared to say that regularity in these matters 
 is absolutely good for everyone. The thing is not 
 to be interfered with by your habits ; and the end 
 of all discipline is, I believe, efficiency, vitality, and 
 freedom ; but it is no good substituting one tyranny 
 for another. I was reading the life of a man the 
 other day who simply could not believe that any- 
 one could think a thing wrong and yet do it. His 
 biographer said, very shrewdly, that his sense of 
 sin was as dead as his ear for music that he did not 
 possess even the common liberty of right and wrong. 
 That's a bad case of atrophy ! You must not, 
 of course, be at the mercy of your moods, but you 
 must not be at the mercy of your ethical habits 
 either. Of the two, I am not sure that the habit 
 isn't the most dangerous." 
 
 " You seem to be holding a brief all round, Father," 
 s;iid Vincent. 
 
 "No, I am not doing that," said Father Payne,
 
 OF DISCIPLINE 355 
 
 " but my theory is this. You must know, first of 
 all, what you are aiming at, and you must apply 
 your discipline sensibly to that. There are certain 
 things in us which we know to be sloppy we lie 
 in bed, we dawdle, we eat too much, we moon over 
 our work. All that is obviously no good, and all 
 sensible people try to pull themselves up. When 
 you have found out what suits you, do it boldly ; 
 but the man who admires discipline for its own 
 sake is a sort of hypochondriac a medicine- drinker. 
 I have a friend who says that if he stays in a house, 
 and sees a bottle of medicine in a cupboard, he is 
 always tempted to take a dose. ' Is it that you 
 feel ill?' I once said to him. 'No,' he said; 
 'but I have an idea that it might do me good.' 
 The disciplinarian is like that : he is always putting 
 a little strain upon himself, cutting off this and 
 that, trying new rules, heading himself off. He 
 has an uneasy feeling that if he likes anything, it 
 is a sort of sign that he should abstain from it : 
 he mistrusts his impulses and instincts. He thinks 
 he is getting to talk too much, and so he practises 
 holding his tongue. The truth is that he is sus- 
 picious of life. He is like the schoolmaster who 
 says, ' Go and see what Jack is doing, and tell him 
 not to ! ' Of course I am taking an extreme case, 
 but there is a tendency in that direction in many 
 people. They think that strength means the power 
 to resist, when it really means the power to flow. 
 I do not think that people ought to be deferential 
 to criticism, timid before rebuke, depressed by 
 disapproval : and, on the whole, I believe that more 
 harm is done by self-repression, obedience, meek- 
 ness, than by the opposite qualities. I want men
 
 356 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 to live their own lives fearlessly not offensively, 
 of course with a due regard to other people's 
 comfort, but without any regard to other people's 
 conventions. I believe in trusting yourself, on the 
 whole, and trusting the world. I do not think 
 it is wholesome or brave to live under the shadow 
 of other people's fears or other people's convictions. 
 All the people, it seems to me, who have done 
 anything for the world, have been the people who 
 have gone their own way ; and I think that self- 
 discipline, or external discipline meekly accepted, 
 ends in a flattening out of men's power and char- 
 acter. Of course you fellows here are learning to 
 do a definite technical thing but you will observe 
 that all the discipline here is defensive, and not 
 coercive. I don't want you to take any shape or 
 mould : I want you just to learn to do things in 
 your own way. I don't ever want you to inter- 
 fere with each other's minds too much. I don't 
 want to interfere with your minds myself, except 
 in so far as to help you to get rid of sloppiness 
 and prejudices. Here, I mustn't go on it's be- 
 coming like a prospectus ! but it comes to this, that 
 I believe in the trained mind, and not in the moulded 
 mind ; and I think that the moment discipline ceases 
 to train strength, and begins to mould weakness, 
 it's a thoroughly bad thing. No one can be arti- 
 ficially protected from life without losing life and 
 life is what I am out for."
 
 OF INCREASE 357 
 
 LXVII 
 
 OF INCREASE 
 
 I DID not hear the argument, but I heard Vincent 
 say to Father Payne : "Of course I couldn't do 
 that it would have been so inconsistent." 
 
 " Oh ! consistency's a very cheap affair," said 
 Father Payne ; "it is mostly a blend of vanity and 
 slow intelligence." 
 
 " But one must stick to something," said Vincent. 
 " There's nothing so tiresome as never knowing 
 how a man is going to behave." 
 
 " Of course," said Father Payne, " inconsistency 
 isn't a virtue it is generally the product of a quick 
 and confused intelligence. But consistency ought 
 not to be a principle of thought or action you 
 ought not to do or think a thing simply because 
 you have thought it before that is mere laziness ! 
 What one wants is a consistent sort of progress 
 you ought not to stay still." 
 
 " But you must have principles," said Vincent. 
 
 ' Yes, but you must expect to change them," 
 said Father Payne. " Principles are only deductions 
 after all : and to remain consistent as a rule only 
 means that you have ceased to do anything with 
 your experience, or else it means that you have 
 taken your principles second-hand. They ought to 
 be living things, yielding fruits of increase. I don't 
 mean that you should be at the mercy of a per- 
 suasive speaker, or of the last book you have read 
 but, on the other hand, to meet an interesting 
 man or to read a suggestive book ought to modify
 
 358 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 your views a little. You ought to be elastic. The 
 only thing that is never quite the same is opinion ; 
 and to be holding a ten years' old opinion simply 
 means that you are stranded. There's nothing 
 worse than to be high and dry." 
 
 " But isn't it worse still," said Vincent, "to see 
 so many sides to a question that you can't take a 
 definite part ? " 
 
 " I don't feel sure," said Father Payne. " I 
 know that the all-round sympathiser is generally 
 found fault with in books ; but it is an uncommon 
 temperament, and means a great power of imagi- 
 nation. I am not sure that the faculty of taking a 
 side is a very valuable one. People say that things 
 get done that way ; but a great many things get 
 done wrong, and have to be undone. There is no 
 blessing on the palpably one-sided people. Besides, 
 there is a great movement in the world now towards 
 approximation. Majorities don't want to bully 
 minorities. Persecution has gone out. People are 
 beginning to see that principles are few and inter- 
 pretations many. I believe, as a matter of fact, 
 that we ought always to be simplifying our prin- 
 ciples, and getting them under a few big heads. 
 Besides, you do not convert people by hammering 
 away at principles. I always like the story of the 
 Frenchman who said to his opponent, ' Come, let 
 us go for a little walk, and see if we can disagree.' ' 
 
 " I don't exactly see what he meant," said Vincent. 
 
 " Why, he meant," said Father Payne, " that if 
 they could bring their minds together, they would 
 find that there wasn't very much to quarrel about. 
 But I don't believe in arguing. I don't think 
 opinion changes in that way. I fancy it has tides
 
 OF INCREASE 359 
 
 of its own, and that ideas appear in numbers of 
 minds all over the world, like flowers in spring. 
 
 " But how is one ever to act at all," said Vincent, 
 " if one is always to be feeling that a principle may 
 turn out to be nonsense after all ? " 
 
 " Well, I think action is mainly a matter of 
 instinct," said Father Payne. " But I don't really 
 believe in taking too diffuse a view of things in 
 general. Very few of us are strong enough and 
 wise enough, let me say, to read the papers with 
 any profit. The newspapers emphasize the dis- 
 union of the world, and I believe in its solidarity. 
 Come, I'll tell you how I think people ought really 
 to live, if you like. I think a man ought to live 
 his own life, without attempting too much reference 
 to what is going on in the world. I think it becomes 
 pretty plain to most of us, by the time we reach 
 years of discretion, what we can do and what we 
 cannot. I don't mean that life ought to be lived 
 in blank selfishness, without reference to anyone 
 else. Most of us can't do that, anyhow it requires 
 extraordinary concentration of will. But I think 
 that our lives ought to be intensive that is to say, 
 I don't think we ought to concern ourselves with 
 getting rid of our deficiencies, so much as by con- 
 centrating and emphasizing our powers and facul- 
 ties. We ought all of us to have a certain circle 
 in mind I believe very much in circles. We are 
 very much limited, and our power of affecting 
 people for good and evil is very small ; our chance 
 of helping is small. The moment we try to extend 
 our circle very much, to widen our influence, we 
 become like a juggler who keeps a dozen plates 
 spinning all at once it is mere legerdemain. But
 
 360 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 we most of us live really with about a score of 
 people. We can't choose our circle altogether, and 
 there are generally certain persons in it whom we 
 should wish away. I think we ought to devote 
 ourselves to our work, whatever it is, and outside 
 of that to getting a real, intimate, and vital under- 
 standing with the people round us. That is a prob- 
 lem which is amply big enough for most of us. 
 Then I think we ought to go seriously to work, not 
 arguing or finding fault, not pushing or shoving 
 people about, but just living on the finest lines we 
 can. The only real chance of converting other 
 people to our principles or own ideas, is to live in 
 such a way that it is obvious that our ideas bring 
 us real and vital happiness. You may depend upon 
 it, that is the only way to live the positive way. 
 We simply must not quarrel with our associates : we 
 must be patient and sympathetic and imaginative." 
 
 " But are there no exceptions ? " said I. "I 
 have heard you say that a man must be prepared 
 to lose friends on occasions." 
 
 ' Yes," said Father Payne, " the circle shifts 
 and changes a little, no doubt. I admit that it 
 becomes clear occasionally that you cannot live 
 with a particular person. But if you have alienated 
 him or her by your censoriousness and your want 
 of sympathy, you have to be ashamed of yourself. 
 If it is the other way, and you are being tyrannised 
 over, deflected, hindered, then it may be necessary 
 to break away though, mind you, I think it is 
 finer still if you do not break away. But you must 
 have your liberty, and I don't believe in sacrificing 
 that, because then you live an unreal life and, 
 whatever happens, you must not do that."
 
 OF INCREASE 361 
 
 " But what is to be done when people are tied 
 up by relationships, and can't get away ? " said I. 
 
 " Yes, there are such cases," said Father Payne ; 
 " I don't deny it. If there is really no escape 
 possible, then you must tackle it, and make the 
 finest thing you can out of the situation. Fulness 
 of life, that is what we must aim at. Of course 
 people are hemmed in in other ways too by 
 health, poverty, circumstances of various kinds. 
 But, however small your saucepan is, it ought to 
 be on the boil." 
 
 " But can people make themselves active and 
 hopeful ? " I said. " Isn't that just the most 
 awful problem of all, the listlessness which falls on 
 many of us, as the limitations draw round and the 
 net encloses us ? " 
 
 " You must kick out for all you are worth," 
 said Father Payne. " I fully admit the difficulty. 
 But one of the best things in life is the fact that 
 you can always do a little better than you expect. 
 And then you mustn't forget God." 
 
 " But a conscious touch with God ? " I said. 
 " Isn't that a rare thing ? " 
 
 " It need not be," said Father Payne, very 
 seriously. " If there is one thing which experience 
 has taught me, it is this that if you make a signal 
 to God, it is answered. I don't say that troubles 
 roll away, or that you are made instantly happy. 
 But you will find that you can struggle on. People 
 simply don't try that experiment. The reason why 
 they do not is, I honestly believe, because of our 
 services, where prayer is made so ceremoniously 
 and elaborately that people get a false sense of 
 dignity and reverence. It is a very natural instinct
 
 362 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 which made the disciples say, ' Teach us to pray,' 
 and I do not think that ecclesiastical systems do 
 teach people to pray at least the examples they 
 give are too intellectual, too much concerned with 
 good taste. A prayer need not be a verbal thing 
 the best prayers are not. It is the mute glance 
 of an eye, the holding out of a hand. And if you 
 ask me what can make people different, I say it is 
 not will, but prayer." 
 
 LXVIII 
 
 OF PRAYER 
 
 I WAS walking about the garden on a wintry Sunday 
 with Father Payne. He had a particular mood on 
 Sundays, I used to think, which made itself subtly 
 felt a mood serious, restrained, and yet contented. 
 I do not remember how the subject came up, but 
 he said something about prayer, and I replied : 
 
 " I wish you would tell me exactly what you feel 
 about prayer, Father. I never quite understand. 
 You always speak as if it played a great part in 
 your life, and yet I never am sure what exactly 
 it means to you." 
 
 " You might as well say," he said, smiling, " that 
 you never felt quite sure what breakfast meant 
 to me." 
 
 He stopped and looked at me for a moment. 
 " Do we know what anything means ? We know 
 what prayer is, at any rate one of the commonest 
 and most natural of instincts. What is your 
 difficulty ? " 
 
 " Oh, the usual one," I said, " that if the God
 
 OF PRAYER 363 
 
 to whom we pray is the Power which puts into 
 our minds good desires, and knows not only what 
 is passing in our thoughts, but the very direction 
 which our thoughts are going to take reads us, 
 in fact, like a book, as they say what, then, is the 
 object or purpose of setting ourselves to pray to a 
 Power that knows our precise range of thoughts, 
 and can disentangle them all far better than we 
 can ourselves ? " 
 
 "Why," said Father Payne, "that is pure 
 fatalism. If you carry that on a little further it 
 means all absence of effort. You might as well 
 say, ' I will take no steps to provide myself with 
 food if God is Ail-Powerful, and sends me a good 
 appetite, it is His business to satisfy it ! " 
 
 " Oh," I said, " I see that. But if I set about 
 providing myself with breakfast, I know exactly 
 what I want, and have a very fair chance of ob- 
 taining it. But the essence of prayer is that you 
 must not expect to get your desires fulfilled." 
 
 " I certainly do not pretend," said he, " that 
 prayer is a mechanical method of getting things ; 
 it isn't a substitute for effort and action. Nor do I 
 think that God simply withholds things unless you 
 ask for them, as a dog has to beg for a piece of 
 biscuit. I don't look upon prayer as the mere 
 formulating of a list of requests ; and I dislike 
 very much the way some good people have of 
 getting a large number of men and women to pray 
 for the same thing, as if you were canvassing for 
 votes. And yet I believe that prayers have a way 
 of being granted. Indeed, I think that both the 
 strength and the danger of prayer lies in the fact 
 that people do very much tend to get what they
 
 364 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 have set their hearts upon. A recurrent prayer 
 for a definite thing is often a sign that a man is 
 working hard to secure it. It is rather perilous to 
 desire definite things too definitely, not because 
 you are disappointed, but because you are often 
 successful in attaining them." 
 
 " Then that would be a reason for not praying," 
 I said. 
 
 Father Payne gave one of his little frowns, which 
 I knew well. "I'm not arguing for the sake of 
 arguing, Father," I said ; " I really want to under- 
 stand. It seems to me such a muddle." 
 
 The little frown passed off in a smile. ' Yes, 
 it isn't a wholly rational thing," said Father Payne, 
 " but it's a natural and instinctive thing. To 
 forbid prayer seems to me like forbidding hope and 
 love. Prayer seems to me just a mingling of hope 
 and desire and love and confidence. It is more 
 like talking over your plans and desires with God. 
 It all depends upon whether you say, ' My will be 
 done,' which is the wrong sort of prayer, or ' Thy 
 will be done,' which is the right sort of prayer, and 
 infinitely harder. I don't mind telling you this, 
 that my prayers are an attempt to put myself in 
 touch with the Spirit of God. I believe in God ; I 
 believe that He is trying very hard to bring men 
 and women to live in a certain way the right, 
 joyful, beautiful way. He sees it clearly enough ; 
 but we are so tangled up with material things that 
 we don't see it clearly we don't see where our 
 happiness lies ; we mistake all kinds of things 
 pleasures, schemes, successes, comforts, desires for 
 happiness ; and prayer seems to me like opening a 
 sluice and letting a clear stream gush through.
 
 OF PRAYER 365 
 
 That's why I believe one must set oneself to it. 
 The sluice is not always open we are lazy, cowardly, 
 timid ; or again, we are confident, self-satisfied, 
 proud of our own inventiveness and resourceful- 
 ness. I don't know what the will is or what its 
 limitations are ; but I believe it has a degree of 
 liberty, and it can exercise that liberty in welcoming 
 God. Of course, if we think of God as drearily 
 moral, harsh, full of anger and disapproval, we are 
 not likely to welcome Him ; but if we feel Him full 
 of eagerness and sympathy, of ' comfort, light, and 
 fire of love,' as the old hymn says, then we desire 
 His company. You have to prepare yourself for 
 good company, you know. It is a bit of a strain ; 
 and I feel that the people who won't pray are like 
 the lazy and sloppy people who won't put themselves 
 out or forego their habits or take any trouble to 
 receive a splendid guest. The difference is that the 
 splendid guest is not to be got every day, while 
 God is always glad of your company, I think." 
 
 " Then with you prayer isn't a process of asking ? " 
 I said. " But isn't it a way of changing yourself 
 by simply trying to get your ideals clear ? " 
 
 " No, no," said Father Payne ; " it's just drawing 
 water from a well when you are thirsty. Of course 
 you must go to the well, and let down the bucket. 
 It isn't a mere training of imagination ; it is help- 
 ing yourself to something actually there. The 
 more you pray, the less you ask for definite things. 
 You become ashamed to do that. Do you remember 
 the story of Hans Andersen, when he went to see 
 the King of Denmark ? The King made a pause at 
 one point and looked at Andersen, and Andersen 
 said afterwards that the King had evidently expected
 
 366 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 him to ask for a pension. ' But I could not,' he 
 said. ' I know I was a fool, but my heart would not 
 let me.' One can trust God to know one's desires, 
 and one's heart will not let one ask for them. It 
 is His will that you want to know your own will 
 that you want to surrender. Strength, clear- 
 sightedness, simplicity those are what flow from 
 contact with God." 
 
 " But what do you make," I said, " of contem- 
 plative Orders of monks and nuns, who say that 
 they specialise in prayer, and give up their whole 
 time and energy to it ? " 
 
 " Well," said Father Payne, " it's a harmless and 
 beautiful life ; but it seems to me like abandoning 
 yourself to one kind of rapture. Prayer seems to 
 me a part of life, not the whole of it. You have 
 got to use the strength given you. It is given you 
 to do business with. It seems to me as if a man 
 argued that because eating gave him strength, it 
 must be a good thing to eat ; and that he would 
 therefore eat all day long. It isn't the gaining of 
 strength that is desirable, but the using of strength. 
 You mustn't sponge upon God, so to speak. And 
 I don't honestly believe in any life which takes you 
 right away from life. Life is the duty of all of us ; 
 and prayer seems to me just one of the things that 
 help one to live." 
 
 " But intercession," I said, " is there nothing in 
 the idea that you can pray for those who cannot 
 or will not pray for themselves ? " 
 
 " I don't know," said Father Payne. " If you 
 love people and wish them well, and hate the thought 
 of the evils which befall the innocent, and the over- 
 flowings of ungodliness, you can't keep that out
 
 OF PRAYER 367 
 
 of your prayers, of course. But I doubt very much 
 whether one can do things vicariously. It seems 
 to land you in difficulties ; if you say, for instance, 
 ' I will inflict sufferings upon myself, that others 
 may be spared suffering/ logically you might go 
 on to say, ' I will enjoy myself that my enjoyment 
 may help those who cannot enjoy.' One doesn't 
 really know how much one's own experience does 
 help other people. Living with others certainly 
 does affect them, but I don't feel sure that isolating 
 oneself from others does. I think, on the whole, 
 that everyone must take his place in a circle. We 
 are limited by time and space and matter, you 
 know. You can know and love a dozen people ; 
 you can't know and love a hundred thousand to 
 much purpose. I remember when I was a boy 
 that there was a run on a Bank where we lived. 
 Two of the partners went there, and did what they 
 could. The third, a pious fellow, shut himself up 
 in his bedroom and prayed. The Bank was saved, 
 and he came down the next day and explained his 
 absence by saying he had been giving them the 
 most effectual help in his power. He thought, I 
 believe, that he had saved the Bank ; I don't 
 think the other two men thought so, and I am 
 inclined to side with them. Mind, I am not deriding 
 the idea of a vocation for intercessory prayer. 
 I don't know enough about the forces of the world 
 to do that. It's a harmless life, a beautiful life, 
 and a hard life too, and I won't say it is useless. 
 But I am not convinced of its usefulness. It seems 
 to me on a par with the artistic life, a devotion to a 
 beautiful dream. I don't, on the whole, believe in 
 art for art's sake, and I don't think I believe in
 
 368 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 prayer for prayer's sake. But I don't propound my 
 ideas as final. I think it possible I can't say more 
 that a life devoted to the absorption of beautiful im- 
 pressions may affect the atmosphere of the world 
 we are bound up with each other behind the 
 scenes in mysterious ways and similarly I think 
 that lives of contemplative prayer may affect the 
 world. I should not attempt to discourage anyone 
 from such a vocation. But it can't be taken for 
 granted, and I think that a man must show cause, 
 apart from mere inclination, why he should not 
 live the common life of the world, and mingle 
 with his fellows." 
 
 " Then prayer, you think," I said, "is to you 
 just one of the natural processes of life ? " 
 
 " That's about it ! " said Father Payne. " It 
 seems to me as definite a way of getting strength 
 and clearness of view and hope and goodness, as 
 eating and sleeping are ways of getting strength 
 of another kind. To neglect it is to run the risk 
 of living a hurried, muddled, self-absorbed life. 
 I can't explain it, any more than I can explain 
 eating or breathing. It just seems to me a con- 
 dition of fine life, which we can practise to our 
 help and comfort, and neglect to our hurt. I don't 
 think I can say more about it than that, my boy ! " 
 
 LXIX 
 
 THE SHADOW 
 
 ONE evening, when I was sitting with Barthrop in 
 the smoking-room and the others had gone away, 
 he said to me suddenly, " There's something I
 
 THE SHADOW 369 
 
 want to speak to you about : I have been worry- 
 ing about it for some little time, and it's a bad 
 thing to do that. I daresay it is all nonsense, 
 but I am bothered about the Father. I don't 
 think he is well, and I don't think he thinks he is 
 well. He is much thinner, you know, and he isn't 
 in good spirits. I don't mean that he isn't cheerful 
 in a way, but it's an effort to him. Now, have you 
 noticed anything ? " 
 
 I thought for a minute, and then I said, " No, I 
 don't think I have ! He's thinner, of course, but 
 he joked to me about that he said he had turned 
 the corner, as people do, and he wasn't going to be 
 a pursy old party when he got older. Now that 
 you mention it, I think he has been rather silent 
 and abstracted lately. But then he often is that, 
 you know, when we are all together. And in his 
 private talks with me and I have had several 
 lately he has seemed to me more tender and 
 affectionate than usual even ; not so amusing, 
 perhaps, not bubbling over with talk, and a little 
 more serious. If I have thought anything at all, 
 it simply is that he is getting older." 
 
 " It may simply be that, of course," said Barthrop, 
 looking relieved. " I suppose he is about fifty- 
 eight or so ? But I'll tell you something else. I 
 went in to speak to him two or three days ago. 
 Well, you know how he always seems to be doing 
 something ? He is never unoccupied indoors, 
 though he has certainly seen less of everyone's work 
 of late but that morning I found him sitting in 
 his chair, looking out of the window, doing nothing 
 at all ; and I didn't like his look. How can I put 
 it ? He looked like a man who was going off on a 
 
 2 A
 
 370 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 long journey and he was tired and worn-looking 
 I have never seen him looking worn before as if 
 there was a strain of some kind. There were lines 
 about his face I hadn't noticed before, and his 
 eyes seemed larger and brighter. He said to me, 
 half apologetically, ' Look here, this won't do ! 
 I'm getting lazy.' Then he went on, ' I was think- 
 ing, you know, about this place : it has been an 
 experiment, and a good and happy experiment. 
 But it hasn't founded itself, as I hoped.' I asked 
 him what exactly he meant, and he laughed, and 
 said : ' You know I don't believe in founding 
 things ! A place like this has got to grow up of 
 itself, and have a life of its own. I don't think 
 the place has got that. I put a seed or two into 
 the ground, but I'm not sure that they have 
 quickened to life.' Then he went on in a minute : 
 ' You will know I don't say this conceitedly, but I 
 think it has all depended too much on me, and I 
 know I'm only a tiller of the ground. I don't 
 believe I can give life to a society I can keep it 
 lively, but that's not the same thing. Something 
 has come of my plan, to be sure, but it isn't going 
 to spread like a- tree and I hoped it might ! But 
 it's no good being disappointed that's childish 
 you can't do what you mean to do in this world, 
 only what you are meant to do. I expect the 
 weakness has been that I meddle too much I don't 
 leave things alone enough. I trust too much to 
 myself, and not enough to God. It's been too 
 much a case of " See me do it ! " as the children 
 say.' " 
 
 " What did you say ? " I said. 
 
 " Nothing at all," said Barthrop ; " that's where
 
 THE SHADOW 371 
 
 I fail. I can't rise to an emergency. I murmured 
 something about our all being very grateful to 
 him it was awfully flat ! If I could but have told 
 him how I cared for him, and how splendid he had 
 always been ! But those perfectly true, sincere, 
 fine things are just what one can't say, unless one 
 has it all written down on paper. I wish he would 
 see a doctor, or go away for a bit ; but I can't 
 advise him to do that he hates a fuss about any- 
 thing, and most of all about health. He says you 
 ought never to tell people how you are feeling, 
 because they have to pretend to be interested ! " 
 
 I smiled at this, and said, " I don't think there 
 really is much the matter ! People can't be always 
 at the top of their game, and he takes a lot out of 
 himself, of course. He's always giving out ! " 
 
 " He is indeed," said Barthrop ; " but I won't say 
 more now. I feel better for having told you. Just 
 you keep your eyes open but, for Heaven's sake, 
 don't watch him you know how sharp he is." 
 
 I went oif a little depressed by the talk, because 
 it seemed so impossible to connect anything but 
 buoyant health with Father Payne. I did not see 
 him at breakfast, but he came in to lunch ; and I 
 saw at once that there was something amiss with 
 him. He ate little, and he looked tired. However, 
 as I rose to go we did not, as I have said, talk at 
 lunch he just beckoned to me, and pointed with 
 his finger in the direction of his room. It was a 
 well-known gesture if he wanted to speak to one. 
 I went there, and stood before the fire surveying 
 the room, which looked unwontedly tidy, the 
 table being almost free from books and papers. 
 But there lay a long folded folio sheet on the table,
 
 372 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 a legal document, and it gave me a chill to see the 
 word Will on the top of it. Father Payne came 
 in a moment later, with a smile. Then, somehow 
 divining, as he so often did, exactly what had 
 happened, he said, as if answering an unspoken 
 question, " Yes, that's my will ! I have been, in 
 fact, making it. It's a wholesome occupation for 
 an elderly man. But I only wanted to know if 
 you would come for a stroll ? Yes ? That's all 
 right ! You are sure I'm not interfering with any 
 arrangement ? " 
 
 It was a late autumn day in November : the air 
 was cold and damp, the roads wet, the hedges 
 hung with moisture and the leaves were almost 
 gone from the trees. " Most people don't like this 
 sort of day," said Father Payne, as we went out 
 of the gate ; " but I like it even better than spring. 
 Everything seems going contentedly to sleep, like 
 a tired child. All the plants are withdrawing into 
 themselves, into the inner life. They have had a 
 pleasant time, waving their banners about but 
 they have no use for them any more. They are all 
 going to be alone for a bit. Do you remember that 
 epithet of Keats, about the ' cool-rooted ' flowers ? 
 That's a bit of genius. That's what makes the 
 difference between people, I think whether they 
 are cool-rooted or not." 
 
 He walked more slowly than was his wont to-day, 
 but he seemed in equable spirits, and made many 
 exclamations of delight. He said suddenly, " Do 
 you know one of the advantages of growing old ? 
 It is that if you have an unpleasant thing ahead 
 of you, instead of shadowing the mind, as it does 
 when you are young, it gives a sort of relish to
 
 THE SHADOW 373 
 
 the intervening time. I can even imagine a man 
 in the condemned cell, till the end gets close, being 
 able to look ahead to the day, when he wakes 
 in the morning the square meals, the pipe I 
 believe they allow them to smoke the talk with 
 the chaplain. It's always nice to feel it is your 
 duty to talk about yourself, and to explain how it 
 all came about, and why you couldn't do otherwise. 
 Now I have got to go up to town on some tiresome 
 business at the end of this week, and I'm going to 
 enjoy the days in between." 
 
 He stopped and spoke with all his accustomed 
 good humour to half a dozen people whom we met. 
 Then he said to me : " Do you know, my boy, I 
 want to tell you that you have been one of my 
 successes ! I did not honestly think you would 
 buckle to as you have done, and I don't think you 
 are quite as sympathetic as I once feared ! " He 
 gave me a smile as he said it, and went on : " You 
 know what I mean I thought you would reflect 
 people too much, and be too responsive to your 
 companions. And you have been a great comfort 
 to me, I don't deny it. But I thankfully discern 
 a good hard stone in the middle of all the juiciness, 
 with a tight little kernel inside it I'll quote Keats 
 again, and say ' a sweet-hearted kernel.' Mind, 
 I don't say you will do great things. You are 
 facile, and you see things very quickly and accu- 
 rately, and you have a style. But I don't think 
 you have got the tragic quality or the passionate 
 gift. You are too placid and contented but you 
 spin along, and I think you see something of the 
 reality of things. You will be led forth beside the 
 waters of comfort you will lack nothing your
 
 374 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 cup will be full. But the great work is done by 
 people with large empty cups that take some 
 filling the people who are given the plenteousness 
 of tears to drink. It's a bitter draught you won't 
 have to drink it. But I think you are on right 
 and happy lines, and you must be content with 
 good work. Anyhow, you will always write like a 
 gentleman, and that's a good deal to say." 
 
 This pleased and touched me very deeply. I 
 began to murmur something. "Oh no," said 
 Father Payne, " you needn't ! A boy at a prize- 
 giving isn't required to enter into easy talk with 
 the presiding buffer ! I have just handed you 
 your prize." 
 
 He talked after this lightly of many small things 
 about Barthrop in particular, and asked me many 
 questions about him. " I am afraid I haven't allowed 
 him enough initiative," said Father Payne ; " that's 
 a bad habit of mine. But if he had really had it, 
 we should have squabbled he's not quite fiery 
 enough, the beloved Barthrop ! He's awfully 
 judicious, but he must have a lead. He's a sub- 
 missioner, I'm afraid, as a witty prelate once said ! 
 You know the two sides of the choir, Decani and 
 Cantons as they are called. Decani always begin 
 the psalms and say the versicles, Cantoris always 
 respond. People are always one or the other, and 
 Barthrop is a born Cantoris." 
 
 We did not go very far, and he soon proposed to 
 return. But just as we were nearing home, he 
 said, " I think the hardest thing in life to under- 
 stand the very hardest of all is our pleasure in 
 the sense of permanence ! It's the supreme and 
 constant illusion. I can't think where it comes
 
 THE SHADOW 375 
 
 from, or why it is there, or what it is supposed to 
 do for us. Do you remember," he said with a 
 smile, " how Shelley, the most hopelessly restless 
 of mortals, whenever he settled anywhere, always 
 wrote to his friends that he had established himself 
 for ever? It's the instinct which is most contrary 
 to reason. Everything contradicts it we are not 
 the same people for five minutes together, nothing 
 that we see or hear or taste continues and yet we 
 feel eternally and immutably fixed ; and instead 
 of living each day as if it was our last which is a 
 thoroughly bad piece of advice we live each day 
 as if it was one of an endlessly revolving chain of 
 days, and as if we were going to live to all eternity 
 as indeed I believe we are ! Probably the reason 
 for it is to give us a hint that we are immortal, 
 after all, though we are tempted to think that all 
 things come to an end. It is strange to think that 
 nothing on which our eyes rest at this moment is 
 the same as it was when we started our walk the 
 very stones of the wall are altered. It ought to 
 make us ashamed of pretending that we are anything 
 but ourselves ; and yet we do change a little, thank 
 God, and for the better. I've a fancy though I 
 can't say more than that of that we aren't meant to 
 know anything : and I think that the times when 
 we know, or think we know, are the times when we 
 stand still. That seems hard ! " he broke off with 
 an unusual emotion : but he was himself again in 
 a moment, and said, " I don't know why it's the 
 weather, perhaps : but I feel inclined to do nothing 
 but thank people all day, like the man in Happy 
 Thoughts, you know, who came down late for break- 
 fast and could say nothing but ' Thanks, thanks,
 
 376 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 awfully thanks thanks (to the butler), thanks (to 
 the hostess) thanks, thanks ! ' but it means some- 
 thing a real emotion, though grotesquely phrased ! 
 I've enjoyed this bit of a walk, my boy ! " 
 
 LXX 
 
 OF WEAKNESS 
 
 THIS was, I think, the last talk I had with Father 
 Payne before he left us, so suddenly and so quietly, 
 for his last encounter. 
 
 It was a calm and sunny day, though the air 
 was cold and fresh. I finished some work I was 
 doing, a little after noonday, and I walked down 
 the garden. I was on the grass, and turning the 
 corner of a tiny thicket of yews and hollies, where 
 there was a secluded seat facing the south, I saw 
 that Father Payne was sitting there in the sun 
 alone. I came up to him, and was just about to 
 speak, when I saw that his eyes were closed, though 
 his lips were moving. He sat in an attitude of 
 fatigue and lassitude, I thought, with one leg crossed 
 over the other and his arm stretched out along the 
 seat-back. I would have stolen away again un- 
 observed, when he opened his eyes and saw me ; 
 he gave me one of his big smiles, and motioned to 
 me to come and sit down beside him. I did so, 
 and he put his arm through mine. I said something 
 about disturbing him, and he said, " Not a bit of 
 it I shall be glad of your company, old boy." 
 Presently he said, " Do you know what it is to 
 feel sad? I suppose not. I don't mean troubled 
 about anything in particular there's nothing to
 
 OF WEAKNESS 377 
 
 be troubled about but simply sad, in a causeless, 
 listless way ? " 
 
 ' Yes, I think so," I said. He smiled at that, and 
 said, " Then you don't know what I mean, old 
 man ! You would be quite sure, if you had ever 
 felt it. I mean a sense of feebleness and wretched- 
 ness, as if there was much to be done, and no desire 
 to do it as if your life had been a long mistake 
 from beginning to end. Of course it is quite morbid 
 and unreal, I know that ! It is a temptation of the 
 devil, sure enough, and it is an uncommonly effec- 
 tive one. He gets inside the weakness of our 
 mortal nature, and tells us that we have come down 
 to the truth at last. It's all nonsense, of course, 
 but it's infernally ingenious nonsense. He brings 
 all the failures of the world before your mind and 
 heart, the thought of all the people who have 
 fallen by the roadside and can't get up, and, worse 
 still, all the people who have lost hope and pride, 
 and don't want to be different. He points out how 
 brief our time is, and how little we know what 
 lies beyond. He shows us how the strong and 
 unscrupulous and cruel people succeed and have a 
 good time, and how many well-meaning, sensitive, 
 muddled people come to hopeless grief. Oh, he 
 has a score of instances, a quiver full of poisonous 
 shafts." He was silent for a minute, and then he 
 said, " Old boy, we won't heed him, you and I. 
 We'll say, ' Yes, my dear Apollyon, all that is un- 
 doubtedly true. You do a lot of mischief, but your 
 time is short. You wound us and disable us you 
 can even kill us ; but it's a poor policy at best. 
 You defeat yourself, because we slip away and you 
 can't follow us. And when we are refreshed and
 
 378 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 renewed, we will come back, and go on with the 
 battle.' That's what we'll say, like old Sir Andrew 
 Barton : 
 
 " ' I'll but lie down and bleed awhile, 
 And then I'll rise and fight again.' 
 
 You must never mind being defeated, old man. 
 You must never say that your sins have done for 
 you ! I don't care what a man has done, I don't 
 care how cruel, wicked, sensual, evil he has been, 
 if in the bottom of his heart he can say, ' I belong 
 to God, after all ! ' That's the last and worst 
 assault of the devil, when he comes and whispers 
 to you that you have cut yourself off from God. 
 You can't do that, whatever you feel. I have been 
 thinking to-day of all the mistakes I have made, 
 how I have drifted along, how I have enjoyed 
 myself, when I might have been helping other 
 people ; what a lazy, greedy, ugly business it has 
 all been, how little I have ever made myself do 
 anything. But I don't care. I go straight to God 
 and I say, ' Father, I have sinned against Heaven 
 and before Thee, and am no more worthy to be 
 called Thy son.' But I am His son, for all that, 
 and I know it and He knows it ; and Apollyon 
 may straddle across the way as much as he likes, 
 but he can't stop me. If he does stop me, he only 
 sends me straight home." 
 
 I saw the tears stand in Father Payne's eyes, and 
 I said hurriedly and eagerly, " Why, Father, you 
 have done so much, for me, for all of us, for every- 
 one you have ever had to do with. Don't speak 
 so ; it isn't true, it hasn't been a failure. You are 
 the only person I have met who has showed me 
 what goodness really is."
 
 OF WEAKNESS 379 
 
 Father Payne pressed my arm, but he did not 
 speak for a moment. 
 
 " You are very good to me, old man," he said in 
 a moment. " I was not trying to get a testimonial 
 out of you, you know ; and of course you can't 
 judge how far I have fallen short of all I might 
 have done. But your affection and your kindness 
 are very precious to me. You give me a message 
 from God ! It matters little how near the truth 
 you are or how far away. God doesn't think of 
 that. He isn't a hard reckoner ; He's only glad 
 when we return to Him, and put down our tired 
 head upon His shoulder for a little. But even so, 
 that isn't the end. As soon as we are strong again, 
 we must begin again. There's plenty left to do. 
 The battle isn't over because you or I are tired. 
 He is tired Himself, I dare say. But it all goes 
 on, and there is victory ahead. Don't forget that, 
 dear boy. It's no good being heart-broken or 
 worn out. Rise and fight again as soon as you 
 can. I'm quite ready I haven't had enough. I 
 have had an easy post, I don't deny that. I have 
 suffered very little, as suffering goes ; and I'm 
 grateful for that ; but we mustn't fall in love with 
 rest. If we sleep, it is only that we may rise 
 refreshed, and go off again singing. We mustn't 
 be afraid of weakness and suffering, and we mustn't 
 be afraid of joy and strength either. That's 
 treachery, you know." 
 
 Presently he said, " Now you must leave me 
 here a little ! You came in the nick of time, and 
 you brought me a message. It always comes, if 
 you ask for it ! And I shall say a prayer for the 
 Little Master himself, as Sintram called him, before
 
 380 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 I go. He has his points, you know. He is un- 
 commonly shrewd and tenacious and brave. He's 
 fighting for his life, and I pity him whenever he 
 suspects and it must be pretty often that things 
 are not going his way. I don't despair of the old 
 fellow himself, if I may say so. I suspect him of a 
 sense of humour. I can't help thinking he will 
 capitulate and cut his losses some day, and then 
 we shall get things right in a trice. He will be 
 conquered, and perhaps convinced ; but he won't 
 be used vindictively, whatever happens. My know- 
 ledge of that, and of the fact that he has got defeat 
 ahead of him, and knows it, is the best defence 
 against him, even when it is his hour, and the 
 power of darkness, as it has been to-day." 
 
 I got up and left him ; he smiled at me and 
 waved his hand. 
 
 LXXI 
 
 THE BANK OF THE RIVER 
 
 THE week passed without anything further occur- 
 ring to arouse our anxieties, and Father Payne went 
 up to town on the Monday : he went off in appar- 
 ently good spirits : but we got a wire in the course 
 of the day to say that he was detained in town by 
 business and would write. On the following morn- 
 ing, Barthrop came into my room in silence, shortly 
 after breakfast, and handed me a letter without a 
 word. It was very short : it ran as follows : 
 
 " DEAR LEONARD, / want you to come up to 
 town to-morrow to see me, and if Duncan cares to
 
 THE BANK OF THE RIVER 381 
 
 come, I shall be delighted to see him too, though I 
 know he has an artistic objection to seeing people 
 who are ill, and I understand that I am ill. I saw 
 a doctor yesterday, and he advised me to see a 
 specialist, who advised me to have an operation. It 
 seems better to get it over at once ; so I went without 
 delay into a nursing home, where I feel like a child 
 in the nursery again. I want to talk over matters, 
 and it will be better to say nothing which will cause a 
 fuss. So just run up to-morrow, there's a good man, 
 and you can get back in the evening. Ever yours, 
 
 "C. P." 
 
 It happened that there were only two of us at 
 Aveley at the time, Kaye, and a younger man, 
 Raven, who had just joined. We determined to 
 say nothing about it till the following morning : 
 the day passed heavily enough. I found I could 
 do nothing with the dread of what it might all 
 mean overhanging me. I admired Barthrop's 
 common-sense : he spent the day, he told me, in 
 doing accounts he acted as a sort of bursar and 
 he kept up a quiet conversation at dinner in which 
 I confess I played a very poor part. Kaye never 
 noticed anything, and had no curiosity, and Raven 
 had no suspicion of anything unusual. I slept ill 
 that night, and found myself in a very much de- 
 pressed mood on the following morning. I realised 
 at every moment how entirely everything at Aveley 
 was centred upon Father Payne, and how he was 
 both in the foreground as well as in the back- 
 ground of all that we did or thought. Our journey 
 passed almost in silence, and we drove straight to 
 the nursing home in Mayfair. We were admitted
 
 382 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 to a little waiting-room in a bright, fresh-looking 
 house, and were presently greeted by a genial and 
 motherly old lady, dressed in a sort of nursing 
 uniform, who told us that Mr. Payne was expecting 
 us. We asked anxiously how he was. " Oh, he is 
 very cheerful," she said; "his nurse, Sister Jane, 
 thinks he is the most amusing man she ever saw. 
 You must not worry about him. The operation is 
 to be on Friday he seems very well and strong in 
 himself, and we will soon have him all right again 
 you will see ! He is just the sort of man to make 
 a good recovery." Then she added, " Mr. Payne 
 said he thought you would like to see the doctor, 
 so he is going to look in here in half an hour from 
 now he will see Mr. Payne first, and then you can 
 have a good talk to him. You are going back this 
 afternoon, I think ? " 
 
 " That depends ! " said Barthrop. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Payne is expecting you to go back, 
 I know we will just run up and see him now." 
 
 We went up two flights of stairs : the matron 
 knocked at a door in the passage, and we went in. 
 Father Payne was sitting up in bed, in a sort of 
 blue wrapper which gave him, I thought, a curiously 
 monastic air he was reading quietly. The room 
 was large and airy, and looked out on the backs 
 of tall houses : it was quiet enough : there was 
 just a far-off murmur of the town in the air. 
 
 He greeted us with much animation, and smiled 
 at me. " It's good of you to come, I'm sure," he 
 said, " with your feeling about ill people. I don't 
 object to that," he added in the familiar manner. 
 " I think it's a sign of health, you know ! " We 
 sat down beside him. " Now," said Father Payne,
 
 THE BANK OF THE RIVER 383 
 
 " don't let's have any grave looks or hushed voices 
 you remember what Baines told us, when he 
 joined the Church of Rome, that when he got 
 back after his reception, his friends all spoke to 
 him as if he had had a serious illness. The matter 
 is simple enough and I'm going to speak plainly. 
 I have got some internal mischief, something that 
 obstructs the passages, and it has got to be removed. 
 There's a risk, of course they never can tell 
 exactly what they will find, but they don't think 
 it has gone too far to be remedied. I don't pre- 
 tend to like it in fact it's decidedly inconvenient. 
 I like my own little plans as well as anyone ! and 
 this time I don't seem able to look ahead there's 
 a sort of wall ahead of me. I feel as if I had come, 
 like the boy in the Water Babies, to the place which 
 was called Stop f " He paused a moment and 
 smiled on us, his big good-natured smile. 
 
 " But if I put my head out of the other end of 
 the tunnel, I shall go on as usual. If I don't, then 
 I had better tell you what I have done. You 
 know I have no near relations. The noble family 
 of Payne is practically summed up in me. The 
 Vicar's a sort of cousin, but a very diluted one. I 
 have arranged by my will that if you two fellows 
 think you can keep the place going on its present 
 lines, you can have a try. But I don't think it will 
 do. I think it will be artificial and possibly ridi- 
 culous. I don't think it has got life ! And if you 
 decide not to try, then it will all go to my old 
 College, which is quite alive. I would rather they 
 would not sell it but bless me, what does it matter ? 
 It is a mistake to try and grip anything with a 
 dead hand. But if I get through, and I believe
 
 384 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 I have a good chance of doing so, you must just 
 keep things going till I get back which won't be 
 long. There's the case in a nutshell ! You quite 
 understand ? I don't want you to do what you 
 think I should wish, because I don't wish. And 
 now we won't say another word about it, unless 
 there are any questions you would like to ask. 
 By the way, I have arranged the programme for 
 the day. The doctor is coming to see me presently, 
 and while he is here you can have some lunch 
 they will see to that and then you can have a 
 talk to him, while I have my lunch I can tell you 
 they do feed me up here ! and then we will have 
 a talk, and you can catch the 4.30. You know 
 how I like planning out a day." 
 
 " But we thought we would like to stay in town, 
 and see it all through," said Barthrop. " We have 
 brought up some things." 
 
 " Stuff and nonsense ! " said Father Payne in 
 his old manner. " Back you go by the 4.30, things 
 and all ! I have got the best nurse in the world, 
 Sister Jane. By George, it's a treat exploring that 
 woman's mind. She's full of kindness and common 
 sense and courage, without a grain of reason. 
 There's nothing in the world that woman wouldn't 
 do, and nothing she wouldn't believe she's entirely 
 mediaeval. Then I have some books : and I'm going 
 to read and talk and play patience I'm quite 
 good at that already and eat and drink and sleep. 
 I'm not to be disturbed, I tell you ! To-morrow 
 is a complete holiday : and on Friday the great 
 event comes off. I won't have any useless emotion, 
 or any bedside thoughts ! " He glanced at us 
 smiling and said, " Oh, of course, my dear boys,
 
 THE BANK OF THE RIVER 385 
 
 I'm only joking. I know you would like to stay, 
 and I would like to have you here well enough : 
 but see here if all goes well, what's the use of this 
 drama ? people can't behave quite naturally, how- 
 ever much they would like to, and I don't want 
 any melting looks : and if it goes the other way 
 well, I don't like good-byes. I agree with dear 
 old Mrs. Barbauld : 
 
 " ' Say not Good-night, but in some brighter clime 
 Bid me Good-morning.' " 
 
 He was silent for a moment and just at that 
 moment the doctor arrived. 
 
 We went off to lunch with the old matron, who 
 talked cheerfully about things in general : and it 
 was strange to feel that what was to us so deep a 
 tragedy was to her just a familiar experience, a 
 thing that happened day by day. 
 
 Then the doctor came in, a tall, thin, pale, unem- 
 barrassed man, very frank and simple. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " there's a risk I don't deny 
 that ! One never knows exactly what the mischief 
 is or how far it extends. I told Mr. Payne exactly 
 what I thought. He is the sort of man to whom 
 one can do that. But he is strong, he has lived a 
 healthy life, he has a great vitality everything is 
 in his favour. How long has he seemed to be ill, 
 by the way ? " 
 
 " Some three or four months, I think," said 
 Barthrop. " But it is difficult when you see any- 
 one every day to realise a change and then he is 
 always cheerful." 
 
 " He is," said the doctor. " I never saw a better 
 patient. He told me his symptoms like a doctor 
 
 2 B
 
 386 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 describing someone else's case. I never heard any- 
 thing so impersonal ! We managed to catch Dr. 
 Angus that's the specialist, you know, who will 
 operate. Mr. Payne wasn't in the least flurried. 
 He showed no sign of being surprised : we sent him 
 in here at once, and he seems to have made friends 
 with everyone. That's all to the good, of course. 
 He's not a nervous subject. No," he added reflec- 
 tively, " he has an excellent chance of recovery. 
 But I should deceive you if I pretended there was 
 no risk. There is a risk, and we must hope for the 
 best. By the way, gentlemen," he added, taking 
 up his hat, " I hope you won't think of staying in 
 town. Mr. Payne seems most anxious that you 
 should go back, and I think his wish should be 
 paramount. You can do nothing here, and I think 
 your remaining would fret him. I won't attempt 
 to dictate, but I feel that you would do well to go ! " 
 
 "Oh, yes, we will go," said Barthrop. " You 
 will let us know how all goes ? " 
 
 " Of course ! " said the doctor. " You shall hear 
 at once ! " 
 
 We went back, and spent an hour with Father 
 Payne. I shall never forget that hour : he talked 
 on quietly, seeing that we were unable to do our 
 part. He spoke about the men and their work, 
 and gave pleasant, half-humorous summaries of 
 their characters. He gave us some little reminis- 
 cences of his life in London ; he talked about the 
 villagers at AveJey, and the servants. I realised 
 afterwards that he had spoken a few words about 
 every single person in the circle, small or great. 
 The time sped past, and presently they told us 
 that our cab was at the door. " Now don't make
 
 THE BANK OF THE RIVER 387 
 
 me think you are going to miss the train, old 
 boys ! " said Father Payne, raising himself up to 
 shake hands. " I have enjoyed the sight of you. 
 Give them all my love : be good and wise ! God 
 bless you both ! " He shook hands with Barthrop 
 and with me, and I felt the soft touch of his firm 
 hand, as I had done at our first meeting. Barthrop 
 did not speak, and went hurriedly from the room, 
 without looking round. I could not help it, but 
 I bent down and kissed his hand. " Well, well ! " 
 he said indulgently, and gave me a most tender 
 and beautiful look out of his big eyes, and then he 
 mentioned to me to go. I went in silence. 
 
 We felt, both of us, a premonition of the worst 
 disaster. I knew in my heart that it was the end. 
 It seemed to me characteristic of Father Payne to 
 make his farewells simply, and without any dramatic 
 emphasis. The way in which he had spoken of all 
 his friends, in that last hour we spent with him, had 
 been a series of adieux, and even as I recalled his 
 words, they seemed to me to shape themselves into 
 unspoken messages. His own calmness had been 
 unmistakable, and was marvellous to me ; but it 
 was all the more impressive because he did not, 
 as one has read in some of the well-known scenes 
 recorded in history of the deaths of famous men, 
 seem to be attempting to say anything memorable 
 or magnanimous. " What can I say that will be 
 worthy of myself ? " that question appears to me 
 to be sometimes lurking in the minds of men 
 who have played a great part in the world, and 
 who are determined to play it to the end. It is, of 
 course a noble sort of courage which enables a 
 man, at the very threshold of death, to force himself
 
 388 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 to behave with dignity and grandeur : but it 
 seemed to me now to be an even more supreme 
 courage to be, as Father Payne was, simply himself. 
 Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Thomas More, Charles II, 
 Archbishop Laud all died with a real greatness of 
 undismayed bravery, but with just a sense of 
 enacting a part rehearsed. The death scene of 
 Socrates, which is, I suppose, a romantically con- 
 structed tale, does indeed give a picture of perfect 
 naturalness : and I thought that Father Payne's 
 demeanour, like that of Socrates, showed clearly 
 enough that the idea of death was not an over- 
 shadowing dread dispelled by an effort of the will, 
 but that it was not present as a fear in his mind at 
 all, and rather regarded with a reverent curiosity : 
 and I was reminded of a saying of Father Payne's 
 which I have elsewhere recorded, that the virtues 
 to which we give our most unhesitating admiration 
 are the instinctive virtues rather than the reasoned 
 virtues. If Father Payne had appeared to be 
 keeping a firm hold on himself, and to be obliging 
 himself to speak things timely and fitting, I should 
 have admired him deeply : but I admired him all 
 the more because of his unaffected tranquillity and 
 unuttered affection. He had just enveloped us 
 in his own calmness, and gone straight forward. 
 
 We made our journey almost in silence : Barthrop 
 was too much moved to speak : and my own mind 
 was dim with trouble, at all that we were to lose, 
 and yet drawn away into an infinite loyalty and 
 tenderness for one who had been more than a 
 father to me.
 
 THE CROSSING 389 
 
 LXXII 
 
 THE CROSSING 
 
 THE end is soon told. On the following day, we 
 thought it best to tell our two companions and the 
 Vicar what was happening, and we also told the 
 old butler that Father Payne was ill. It was a 
 day of infinite dreariness to me, with outbursts of 
 sharp emotion at the sight of everything so closely 
 connected with Father Payne, and with the thought 
 that he would see them no more. 
 
 I was sitting in my room on the Friday morning, 
 after a sleepless night, when Barthrop came in and 
 handed me a telegram from the doctor. " Mr. 
 Payne never recovered consciousness, and died an 
 hour after the operation. All details arranged. 
 Please await letter." I raised my eyes to Bar- 
 throp's face, but saw that he could not speak. 
 I could say nothing either : my mind and heart 
 seemed to crumble suddenly into a hopeless despair. 
 
 A letter reached us the same evening by train. 
 It was to the effect that Father Payne had written 
 down some exact directions the day before and 
 given them to the matron. He did not wish, in 
 case of his death, that anyone should see his body : 
 he wished to be placed in the simplest of coffins, as 
 soon as possible, and that the coffin should be sent 
 down by train to Aveley, be taken from the station 
 straight to the church, and if possible to be buried 
 at once. But even so, that was only his wish, 
 and he particularly desired to avoid alike all cere- 
 mony and inconvenience. But besides that there
 
 390 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 were two notes enclosed addressed in Father Payne's 
 hand to Barthrop and myself, which ran as follows : 
 
 " MY DEAR LEONARD, I thought it very good of 
 you to come up to see me, and no less good of you to 
 go away as I desired. It is possible, of course, that 
 I may return to you, and all be as before. But to 
 be frank, I do not think it will be so. Even if I 
 survive, I shall, I think, be much weakened by this 
 operation, and shall have the possibility of a recur- 
 rence of the disease hanging over me. Much as I 
 love life, and the world where I have found it pleasant 
 to live, I do not want to lead a broken sort of existence, 
 with invalid precautions and limitations. I think that 
 this would bring out all that is worst in me, and would 
 lead to unhappiness both in myself and in all those 
 about me. If it has to be so, I shall do my best, but 
 I think it would be a discreditable performance. I 
 do not, however, think that I shall have this trial laid 
 upon me. I feel that I am summoned elsewhere, and 
 I am glad to think that my passage will be a swift 
 one. I am not afraid of what lies beyond, because 
 I believe death to be simple and natural enough, and 
 a perfectly definite thing. Of what lies beyond it, 
 I can form no idea ; all our theories are probably 
 quite wide of the mark. But it will be the same for 
 me as it has been for all others who have died, and 
 as it will some day be for you ; and when we know, 
 we shall be surprised that we did not see what it would 
 be. I confess that I love the things that I know, and 
 dislike the unknown. The world is very dear and 
 familiar, and it has been kind and beautiful to me, 
 as well as full of interest. But I expect that things 
 will be much simplified. And please bear this in
 
 THE CROSSING 391 
 
 mind, that such a scene which we went through yesterday 
 is worse for those who stand by and can do nothing 
 than for the man himself ; and you will believe me 
 when I say that I am neither afraid nor unhappy. 
 
 " With regard to my wishes about the place being 
 kept on, on its present lines, remember that it is only 
 a wish, and not to be regarded as a binding obligation 
 or undertaken against your judgment. I trust you 
 fully in this, as I have always trusted you ; and I 
 will just thank you, once and for all, for all that 
 you have done and been. I shall always think of 
 you with deep gratitude and lasting affection. God 
 bless you now and always. Your old friend, 
 
 'CHARLES PAYNE." 
 
 To me he had written : 
 
 " MY DEAR BOY, Please read my letter to Bar- 
 throp, which is meant for you as well. I won't repeat 
 myself you know I dislike that. But I would like 
 just to say that you have been more like a son to 
 me than anyone I ever have known, and I thank 
 God for bringing you into my life, and for all your 
 kind and faithful affection. You must just go on 
 as you have begun ; and I can only say that if 
 I still have any knowledge of what goes on in the 
 world, my affection and interest will not fail; and 
 if I have not, I shall believe that we shall still find 
 each other again, and rejoice in mutual knowledge 
 and confidence. You are very dear to me, and always 
 will be. 
 
 "Settle everything with Leonard. I know that you 
 will be able to interpret my wishes as I should wish 
 them to be interpreted. Your affectionate old friend, 
 
 "C. PAYNE."
 
 392 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 The last act was simple enough. The prepara- 
 tions were soon made. The coffin arrived at mid- 
 day, and was buried in the afternoon, between the 
 church and the Hall. It was sad and beautiful to 
 see the heartfelt grief of the villagers : and it was 
 wonderful to me that at that moment I recovered 
 a kind of serenity on the surface of the grief below, 
 so that in the still afternoon as we walked away 
 from the grave it seemed to me strange rather than 
 sorrowful. With those last letters in mind, it seemed 
 to me almost traitorous to mourn. He at least had 
 his heart's desire, and I did not doubt that he was 
 abundantly satisfied. 
 
 LXXIII 
 
 AFTER-THOUGHTS 
 
 BARTHROP and I decided that we could not hope 
 to continue the scheme. We had neither the force 
 nor the experience. The whole society was, we 
 felt, just the expression of Father Payne's person- 
 ality, and without it, it had neither stability nor 
 significance. Barthrop and the Vicar were left 
 money legacies : the servants all received little 
 pensions : there was a sum for distribution in the 
 village, and a fund endowed to meet certain practical 
 needs of the place. We handed over the estate to 
 Father Payne's old College, the furniture and 
 pictures to go with the house, which was to be 
 let, if possible, to a tenant who would be inclined 
 to settle there and make it his home : the income 
 of the estate was to provide travelling scholarships.
 
 AFTER-THOUGHTS 393 
 
 All had been carefully thought out with much 
 practical sense and insight. 
 
 Our other two companions went away. Bar- 
 throp and I stayed on at the Hall together for 
 some weeks to settle the final arrangements. We 
 had some wonderfully touching letters from old 
 pupils and friends of Father Payne's. One in 
 particular, saying that the writer owed an infinite 
 debt of gratitude to Father Payne, for having 
 saved him from himself and given him a new life. 
 
 We talked much of Father Payne in those days : 
 and I went alone to all the places where I had 
 walked with him, recalling more gratefully than 
 sadly how he had looked and moved and talked 
 and smiled. 
 
 It came to the last night that we were to spend 
 at the Hall together. Everything had been gone 
 through and arranged, and we were glad, I think, 
 to be departing. 
 
 " I don't know what to say and think about it 
 all," said Barthrop ; "I feel at present quite lost 
 and stranded, as if my motive for living were gone, 
 and as if I could hardly take up my work again. 
 I know it is wrong, and I am ashamed of it. 
 Father Payne always said that we must not depend 
 helplessly upon persons or institutions, but must 
 find our own real life and live it you remember ? " 
 
 " Yes," I said, " indeed I do remember ! But 
 I do not think he ever realised quite how strong 
 he was, and how he affected those about him. He 
 did not need us I sometimes think he did not 
 need anyone and he credited everyone with living 
 the same intent life that he lived. But I shall 
 always be infinitely grateful to him for showing me
 
 394 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 just that that one must live one's own life, through 
 and in spite of everything grievous that happens. 
 The temptation is to indulge grief, and to feel that 
 collapse in such a case is a sign of loyalty. It isn't 
 so if one collapses, it only means that one has 
 been living an artificial and parasitical life. Father 
 Payne would have hated that and I don't mean 
 to do it. He has given me not only an example, 
 but an inspiration a real current of life has flowed 
 into my life from his or perhaps rather through 
 his from some deeper origin." 
 
 " That is so," said Barthrop, " that is perfectly 
 true ! and don't you remember too how he always 
 said life must be a real fight a joining in the fight 
 that was going forwards ? It need not be wrangling 
 or disputing, or finding fault with other people, 
 or maintaining and confuting. He used to say that 
 people fought in a hundred ways with their 
 humour, their companionableness, their kindness, 
 their friendliness it need not be violent, and indeed 
 if it was violent, that was fighting on the wrong 
 side it had only to be calm and sincere and dutiful." 
 
 " Did he say that ? " I said. " Yes, I am sure he 
 did no one else could say it or think of it. Of 
 course, we have to fight, but not by dealing injury 
 and harm, but by seeking and following peace and 
 goodwill. Well, we must try and it may be that 
 we shall find him again, though he is hidden for a 
 little while with God." 
 
 " Yes," said Barthrop, " we shall find him, or 
 he will find us it makes little difference : and he 
 will always be the same, though I hope we may 
 be different ! "
 
 DEPARTURE 395 
 
 LXXIV 
 
 DEPARTURE 
 
 IT was a soft and delicious spring morning when I 
 left Aveley and I have never had the heart to 
 visit it again. I had had a sleepless night, with 
 the thought of Father Payne continually in my 
 mind. I saw him in a score of attitudes, as he 
 loitered in the garden with that look of inexpressible 
 and tender interest that he had for all that grew 
 out of the earth worshipping, I used to think, at 
 the shrine of life or as he sat rapt in thought 
 in church, or as he strode beside me along the 
 uplands, or as he came and went in a hurried 
 abstraction, or as he argued and discussed, with 
 his great animated smile and his quick little ges- 
 tures. I felt how his personality had filled our 
 lives to the brim, as a spring whose waters fail not. 
 It was not that he was a perfect character, with a 
 tranquil and effortless superiority, or with a high 
 intellectual tenacity, or with an unruffled serenity. 
 He was sensitive, impatient, fitful, prejudiced. He 
 had little constructive capacity, no creative or 
 dramatic power, no loftiness of tragic emotion. I 
 knew all that ; I did not regard him with a false or 
 uncritical reverence. But he was vital, generous, 
 rich in zest and joy, heroic, as no other man I had 
 ever known. He had no petty ambition, no thirst 
 for recognition, no acidity of judgment. He never 
 sought to impress himself : but his was a large, 
 affectionate, liberal nature, more responsive to life, 
 more lavish of self, more disinterested than any
 
 396 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 human being that had crossed my path. He had 
 never desired to make disciples he was not self- 
 confident or self -regarding enough for that. But 
 he had continued to draw us all with him into a 
 vortex of life, where the stream ran swiftly, and 
 where it seemed disgraceful to be either listless or 
 unconcerned. I blessed the kindly fate that had 
 guided me to him, and had won for me his deep 
 regard. I did not wish to copy or imitate him 
 he had infected me with a deep distrust for depend- 
 ence I only wished to live my own life in the same 
 eager spirit. As he had said to me once, the motto 
 for every man was to be Amor Fati not a reluctant 
 acquiescence, or a feeble optimism, or a gentle 
 resignation, but a passion for one's own destiny, 
 a deep desire to make the most and the best out 
 of life, and a strong purpose to share one's best 
 with all who were journeying at one's side. 
 
 So the night passed, thick with recollections and 
 regrets, deepening into a horror of loss and darkness, 
 and then slowly brightening into the calm prelude 
 of a day of farewell. The birds began to chirp and 
 twitter in the ivy ; the thrush uttered her long- 
 drawn notes, sweetly repeated and sustained in the 
 dusky bushes. That sound was much connected 
 in my mind with Aveley. To be awakened thus 
 in the summer dawn, to listen awhile to the delicious 
 sound, to fall asleep again with the thought of the 
 long pleasant day of work and friendship ahead of 
 me, had been one of my greatest luxuries. 
 
 I rose early, and made my last preparations, and 
 then, having got a little time before the last meal 
 I was to take with Barthrop, I went round about 
 the garden with a desire to draw into my spirit
 
 DEPARTURE 397 
 
 for the last time the pure and happy atmosphere 
 of the place. 
 
 I saw the beds fringed with purple polyanthus, 
 and the daffodils in the dewy grass. I gazed at 
 the long lines of the low hills across the stream, 
 with the woodland spaces all flushed with spring. 
 I heard the cawing of the rooks in the soft air, and 
 the bubbling song of the chaffinches filled the 
 shrubberies. 
 
 I knew the mood of old the mood in which, after 
 a holiday sojourn in some place which one has 
 learned to love, a happy space of time stained by 
 no base anxiety, shadowed by no calamity, the 
 call to rejoin the routine of life makes itself heard 
 half reluctantly, half ardently. The heart at such 
 moments tries to be grateful without regret, and 
 hopeful without indifference. The purpose to go, 
 the desire to stay, wrestle together ; and now at 
 the end of the happiest and most fruitful period I 
 had ever known or was ever, I thought, likely to 
 know, I felt like Jacob wrestling with the angel 
 till the breaking of the day, and crying out, half in 
 weakness, half in strength, " I will not let thee go 
 until thou bless me." 
 
 It came, the sudden blessing which I desired. It 
 fell like some full warm shower upon the thirsty 
 earth. In that moment I had the blissful instinct 
 which had before been but a reasoned conviction, 
 that Father Payne was near me, with me, about 
 me, enfolding me with a swift tenderness, and yet 
 at the same time pointing me forward, bidding me 
 clearly and almost, it seemed, petulantly, to dis- 
 engage myself from all dependence upon himself 
 or his example. He had other things to do, I felt
 
 398 FATHER PAYNE 
 
 with something like a smile, than to hover over me 
 and haunt my path with tenderness. Such weak- 
 ness of sentiment was worthy neither of himself 
 nor of myself. I had all the world before me, and 
 I was to take my part in it with spirit and even 
 gaiety. To shrink into the shadow, to live in 
 tearful retrospect it was not to be thought of ; 
 and I had in that moment a glow of thankful energy 
 which made light of grief and pain alike. I must 
 take hold of life instantly and with both hands. 
 I saw it in a sudden flash of light. 
 
 I went to the churchyard, I stood for an instant 
 beside the grave, now turfed over and planted with 
 daffodils. I put aside from my heart, once and 
 for all, the old wistful instinct which ties the living 
 to the dead. The poor body that lay there, dust 
 in dust, had no more to do with Father Payne 
 than the stained candle-socket with the flame that 
 had leapt away upon the air. That was a moment 
 of true and certain joy ; so that when I went back 
 to the house and joined Barthrop, I felt no longer 
 the uneasy quivering of the spirit which had long 
 overmastered me. He too was calm and brave ; 
 we sat together for the last time, we talked with 
 an unaffected cheerfulness of the future. He too, 
 I saw, had experienced the same loosening of the 
 spirit from its trivial bonds, dear and beautiful as 
 they were, so long as one did not hug them close. 
 
 " I never thought," he said to me at last, " to 
 go light-heartedly away and yet I can do even 
 that ! I have heard something, I can hardly say 
 what, which tells me to go forward, not to hanker, 
 not to look back and which tells me best of all 
 that it would be almost like treachery to wish the
 
 DEPARTURE 399 
 
 Father back again. It is better so ! I say this," 
 he went on, " not with resignation, not with a 
 mild desire to make the best of a bad business, but 
 with a serene certainty that it is not a bad business 
 at all. I cannot tell where it is gone, the cloud 
 that has oppressed me but it is gone, and it will 
 not come back." 
 
 " Yes," I said, " I recognise that I feel it too ; 
 our work here is done, and we have work waiting 
 for us. We shall meet, we shall compare experi- 
 ences, we shall love our fate. Life is to be a new 
 quest, not an old worship. That is to be our loyalty 
 to Father Payne, that we are to believe in life, and 
 not only to believe in memory." 
 
 It was soon over. Barthrop was to go later, 
 and he came out to see me go. Just before I started, 
 the old clock played its sweet tune ; we stood in 
 silence listening. " That is the best of omens," 
 I said, " to depart with thanksgiving and the 
 voice of melody." He smiled in my face, we 
 clasped hands ; I drove up the little road, while 
 he stood at the door, smiling and waving his hand, 
 till I turned into the main road, between the 
 blossoming hedges, and saw Aveley no more. 
 
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