Chapter C: Payne (3)

"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 questions, 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, "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 sat 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 abominable 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 description, 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.

"There," he said at last, "that's rather a favourable 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! 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 dissatisfied 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 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 measuring 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!" 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 catkins 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 delighted 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 flatness! 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 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 probably the people who ought not to marry, 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 transcendental 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 marriages which are obviously bad for all concerned--real incompatibilities? People who can't understand 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."

"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 Puritanical people, which is the same thing as saying that they both were disposed to consider that anyone 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? Was it true, as Tennyson bluntly said, that it was as well that they married, because two people were unhappy 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 ménage together. 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, 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 together--"Writers, preachers, moralists, sentimentalists, 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 reverence, 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 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 Brontë 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."

"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 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 trying 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 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 contained in such an expression as 'Dear old boy!' which is always a half-contemptuous phrase."

"But isn't loyalty a fine quality?" said Lestrange.

"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 certain 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."

"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."

"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 coldblooded 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 sentimental 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 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 anything can be consistent or permanent."

"But if you _don't_ believe that," said Lestrange, "are you justified in entering upon intimate relations 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 handling of life. What he says, his looks, his gestures, his personality, affect you in a curious way. And at the same time you seem to discern a corresponding curiosity in him about yourself. It is a pleasurable 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 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 friendship for a quite unintellectual man--not a desire to discuss everything with him, but a simple admiration 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 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."

"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 Lestrange.

"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 separate 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 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 intellectual 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, chattered 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 occasion he said after breakfast to Barthrop and me: "Arrivals to-day, Mr. and Mrs. Wetherall--the man a retired coal-merchant, rather wealthy, interested in foreign missions; the woman inert; daughter prevented from coming, and they bring a niece, Phyllis by name, understood to be charming. I undertake the sole charge of Wetherall himself, Mrs. Wetherall requires no specific attentions--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. Why do you shut everyone out?"

"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 absolutely 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 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 struggling with concealed emotions. She kissed her hand to Father Payne as the carriage drove away.

"Very worthy people!" said Father Payne cheerfully, 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 indignantly. "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. 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 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. 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 complicate 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. "I know all the excellent arguments you would advance. 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 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 convert 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 Chénaie? 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 I 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 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 _sure_ 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 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 primitive 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 uprooting yourself," he added with great emphasis. "Try 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 experience 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?"