Father Payne Part 14

"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 Sh.e.l.ley--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 Sh.e.l.ley with a sigh, feeling, no doubt, a sense of real failure--'but I cannot!' Sh.e.l.ley's weakness was a much finer thing than Hogg's strength. I don't say that Sh.e.l.ley 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 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 Vincent, "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, perverse, 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 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 caveman'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 impulse 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 undertake to talk for at least as long about it. I must stop! My sense of beauty warns me that I am becoming a bore."

x.x.xVI

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 waxworks 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 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. G.o.d 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 defiled 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, "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 continuously 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 pa.s.sage to his bedroom--talk, talk, talk--in they went--then he used to begin to undress--no escape--I can hear his voice m.u.f.fled 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 related--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 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 doc.u.ments; it is all so utterly inartistic 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 biographise, I would have taken careful notes of his talk while undressing--there's something picturesque 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 Barthrop; "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 everything; as long as we think of the dead as elderly angels hovering over us while we pray, there is 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 catastrophes 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, 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 adoration of pomposity and full dress, the sickening love of romance, the hatred of reality--oh, it's a deplorable world!"

x.x.xVII

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 imagination, they are unutterably low and hard, and what is called sensible; they are frankly unchristian as well as ungentlemanly. No wonder we are called a nation of shopkeepers."

"But aren't we a great deal better than our proverbs?" 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. Why 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 sanct.i.ty 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 individualists.

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. We 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 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 respectability. We like h.o.a.rding, 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 people 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?"

"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 everyone 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 n.o.ble 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 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 h.o.a.rding and wise in lavishing, instead of being foolish in lavishing and wise in h.o.a.rding, 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."

x.x.xVIII

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 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 gra.s.sy terraces, a bit of a fine facade 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 gradually ceased to talk, and had given ourselves up to the sweet and quiet influence of the place.