Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

"A year after I left Maryvale, the Archbishop of Agneda was instigated by one of his priests, a Varsity man who knew me well, to invite me to volunteer for his archdiocese. I was only too glad. His Grace sent me to St. Andrew's College in Rome. The priest who recommended me, and Canon Dugdale, assured me that, in return for my services, my expenses would be borne by the archbishop. They never were. I was more than one hundred and twenty pounds out of pocket. After four months in College I was expelled suddenly and brutally. No reason ever has been given to me; and I never have been aware of a reason which could justify so atrocious an outrage. My archbishop maintained absolute silence. I did hear it said that I had no Vocation. That was the gossip of my fellow-students, immature cubs mostly, hybrid larrikins given to false quantities and nasal cacophonies. I took, and take, no account of such gossip. If my legitimate superiors had had grounds for their action, grounds which they durst expose to day-light; and, if they frankly had stated the same to me, I believe I should have given very little trouble. As it is, I am of course a thorn, or a pest, or a fire-brand, or a rodent and purulent ulcer--vous en faites votre choix. The case is a mystery to me, inexplicable, except by an hypothesis connected with the character of the rector of St. Andrew's College. I remember the Marquess of Mountstuart reading a leading article about him out of _The Scotsman_ to me in 1886, and remarking that he was 'an awful little liar.' But perhaps the right reverend gentleman is known to Your Eminency?"

"Well known, Mr. Rose, well known. And now tell me of your subsequent proceedings."

"I made haste to offer my services to other bishops. When I found every door shut against me, I firmly deliberated never to recede from my grade of tonsured clerk under any circumstances whatever; and I determined to occupy my energies with some pursuit for which my nature fitted me, until the Divine Giver of my Vocation should deign to manifest it to others as well as to myself. I chose the trade of a painter. I was just beginning to make headway when the defalcations of a Catholic ruined me. All that I ever possessed was swallowed up. Even my tools of trade illegally were seized. I began life again with no more than the clothes on my back, a Book of Hours, and eight shillings in my pocket. I obtained, from a certain prelate, whose name I need not mention, a commission for a series of pictures to illustrate a scheme which he had conceived for the confounding of Anglicans. He saw specimens of my handicraft, was satisfied with my ability, provided me with materials for a beginning and a disused skittle-alley for a studio; and, a few weeks later, (I quote his secretary) he altered his mind and determined to put his money in the building of a cathedral. I think that I need not trouble Your Eminency with further details."

"Quite unnecessary," Mr. Rose.

"I don't know how I kept alive until I got my next commission. I only remember that I endured that frightful winter of 1894-5 in light summer clothes unchanged. But I did not die; and, by odds and ends of work, I managed to recover a great deal of my lost ground. Then a hare-brained and degenerate priest asked me to undertake another series of pictures. I worked two years for him: and he valued my productions at fifteen hundred pounds: in fact he sold them at that rate. Well, he never paid me. Again I lost all my apparatus, all my work; and was reduced to the last extreme of penury. Then I began to write, simply because of the imperious necessity of expressing myself. And I had much to say. Note please that I asked nothing better than to be a humble chantry-priest, saying Mass for the dead. It was denied me. I turned to express beautiful and holy ideals on canvas. Again I was prevented. I must and will have scope, an outlet for what the President of Maryvale called my 'talent and energy.' Literature is the only outlet which you Catholics have left me. Blame yourselves: not me. Oh yes, I have very much to say."

He paused. The cardinal evaded his glance; and intently gazed at the under-side of well-manicured pink-onyx finger-nails.

"And about your Vocation, Mr. Rose. What is your present opinion?"

George wrenched himself from retrospection. "My opinion, Eminency, as I already have had the honour of telling you, is the same as it always has been."

"That is to say?"

"That I have a Divine Vocation to the Priesthood."

"You persist?"

"Eminency, I am not one of your low Erse or pseudo Gaels, flippertigibbets of frothy flighty fervour, whom you can blow hither and thither with a sixpence for a fan. Thank The Lord I'm English, born under Cancer, tenacious, slow and sure. Naturally I persist."

Cardinalitial eyebrows re-ascended. "The man, to whom Divine Providence vouchsafes a Vocation, is bound to prosecute it."

"I am prosecuting it. I never for one moment have ceased from prosecuting it."

"But now you have attained a position as an author."

"Yes; in the teeth of you all; and no thanks to anyone but myself. However that is only the means to an end."

"In what way?"

"In this way. When I shall have earned enough to pay certain debts, which I incurred on the strength of my faith in the honour of a parcel of archiepiscopal and episcopal and clerical sharpers, and also a sum sufficient to produce a small and certain annuity, then I shall go straight to Rome and square the rector of St. Andrew's College."

"Sh-h!" the bishop sibilated. The cardinal threw up delicate hands.

"Yrmnts mustn't be offended by Mr. Rose's satirical way of putting it," the bishop hastily put in. "He's a regular phrase-maker. It's his trade, you know. But at the bottom of his good heart I'm sure he means nothing but what is right and proper. And, George, you're not the man to smite the fallen. Monsignor Cateran was deposed seven years ago and more."

"I beg Your Eminency's pardon if I have spoken inurbanely; and I thank Your Lordship for interpreting me so generously. I didn't know that Cateran had come to his Cannae. Really I'm sorry: but, I've been stabbed and stung so many years that, now I am able to retaliate, I am as touchy as a hornet with a brand-new sting. I can't help it. I seem to take an impish delight in making my brother-Catholics, especially clerks, smart and wince and squirm as I myself have squirmed and winced and smarted. I'm sorry. I simply meant to say that, when I have made myself free and independent, then I will try again to give you evidence of my Vocation."

"Have you approached your diocesan recently?" the cardinal inquired.

"His Grace died soon after my expulsion from St. Andrew's College. I approached his successor, who refused to hear me; and is dead. I never have approached the present archbishop, beyond giving him notice of my existence and persistence; for I certainly will not come before him with chains on my hands."

"Chains?"

"Debts."

"Have you any special reason for belonging to the archdiocese of Agneda?"

"There is a certain fascination in the idea of administering to a horde of unspeakable barbarians, 'the horrible and ultimate Britons, ferocious to strangers.' Otherwise I have no special reason. I had no choice. I happen to have been made an ecclesiastical subject of Agneda at the instance of Mr. George Semphill and at the invitation of the late Archbishop Smithson. That is all."

"Would you be inclined to offer your services to another bishop now?"

"Eminency, 'it is not I who have lost the Athenians: it is the Athenians who have lost me.' I would say that in Greek if I thought you would understand me. When the Athenians want me, they will not have much difficulty in finding me. But to tell you the truth, I find these bishop-johnnies excessively tiresome. As I said just now, when Agneda silently relieved himself of his obligations to me, I offered my services to half-a-dozen of them, more or less, plainly telling them my history and my circumstances. What a fool they must have thought me,--or what a brazen and dangerous scoundrel! Yes, I do believe they thought me that. I was astonishingly unsophisticate then. I didn't know a tithe of what I know now; and I solemnly assever that I believe those owl-like hierarchs to have been completely flabbergasted because I neither whimpered penitence, nor whined for mercy, but actually had the effrontery to tell them the blind and naked truth about myself. Truth nude and unadorned, is such a rare commodity among Catholics, as you know, and especially among the clergy; and I suppose, as long as we continue to draw the majority of our spiritual pastors from the hooligan class, from the scum of the gutter, that the man who tells the truth in his own despite always emphatically will be condemned as mad, or bad, or both."

"Really, Mr. Rose!" the cardinal interjected.

"Yes, Eminency: we teach little children that there are three kinds of lies; and that the Officiose Lie, which is told to excuse oneself or another--the meanest lie of the lot, I say--is only a Venial Sin. It's in the catechism. Well, naturally enough the miserable little wretches, who can't possibly grasp the subtilty of a _distinguo_, put undue importance on that abominable world 'only'; and they grow up as the most despicable of all liars. Ouf! I learned all this from a thin thing named Danielson, just after my return to the faith of my forefathers. He lied to me. In my innocence I took his word. Then I found him out; and preached on the enormity of his crime. 'Well, sir,' says he as bold as brass, 'it's only a Venial Sin!'"

"George, you're beside the point," the bishop said.

"His Eminency will indulge me. What was I saying? Oh,--that I had had enough of being rebuffed by bishops. I came to that conclusion when His Lordship of Chadsee blandly told me that I never would get a bishop to accept my services as long as I continued to tell the truth about my experiences. I stopped competing for rebuffs then. I do not propose to begin again until I am the possessor of a cheque-book."

The cardinal was gazing through the leaves of an india-rubber plant out of the window; his magnificent eyes were drained of all expression. When the nervose deliberately-hardened and pathetic voice of the speaker ceased, he brought the argument to a focus with these words, "George Arthur Rose, I summon you to offer yourself to me."

"I am not ready to offer myself to Your Eminency."

"Not ready?"

"I hoped that I had made it clear to you that, in regard to my Vocation, I am 'marking time,' until I shall have earned enough to pay my debts incurred on the strength of my faith in the honour of a parcel of archiepiscopal and episcopal and clerical sharpers, and also a sum sufficient to produce me a small and certain annuity----"

"You keep harping upon that string," the cardinal complained.

"It is the only string which you have left unbroken on my lute."

"I see you are a very sensitive subject, Mr. Rose. I think that long brooding over your wrongs has fixed in you some such pagan and erroneous idea as that which Juvenal expresses in the verse where he says that poverty makes a man ridiculous."

"Nothing of the kind," George retorted with all his claws out. "On the contrary, it is I--the creature of you, my Lord Cardinal, and your Catholics--who make Holy Poverty look ridiculous!"

"A clever paradox!" The cardinal let a tinge of his normal sneer affect his voice.

"Not even a paradox. A poor thing: but mine own," George flung in, glaring through his great-great-grandfather's silver spectacles which he used indoors.

"Well, well: the money-question need not trouble you," said the cardinal, turning again to the window. Indifference was his pose.

"But it does trouble me. It vitally troubles me. And your amazing summons troubles me as well--now. Why do you come to me after all these years?"

"Precisely, Mr. Rose, after all these years, as you say. It has been suggested to me, and I am bound to say that I agree with the suggestion, that we ought to take your singular persistency during all these years--how many years?"

"Say twenty."

"That we must take your singular persistency during twenty years as a proof of the genuineness of your Vocation."

George turned his face to the little yellow cat, who had climbed to and was nestling on his shoulder.

"And therefore," the cardinal continued, "I am here to-day to summon you to accept Holy Order with no delay beyond the canonical intervals."

"I will respond to that summons within two years."

"Within two years? Life is uncertain, Mr. Rose. We who are here to-day may be in our graves by then." I myself am an old man.

"I know. Your Eminency is an old man. I, by the grace of God, the virtue of my ancestors, and my own attention to my physique, am still a young man; and younger by far than my years. I have not been preserved in the vigour and freshness of youth by miracle after miracle during twenty years for nothing. And, when I shall have published three more books, I will respond to your summons. Not till then."

"I told you that the money-question need not hinder you."

"Yes, Eminency; and my late diocesan said the same thing several years ago."

"You are suspicious, Mr. Rose."

"I have reason to be suspicacious, Eminency."

The cardinal threw up his hands. The gesture wedded irritation to despair. "You doubt me?" he all but gasped.

"I trusted Your Eminency in 1894; and----"

The bishop intervened: for cardinalitial human nature burst out in vermilion flames.

"George," he said, "I am witness of Zmnts's words."

"What's the good of that? Suppose that I take His Eminency's word! Suppose that in a couple of months he alters his mind, determines to mistake the large for the great and to perpetrate another pea-soup-and-streaky-bacon-coloured caricature of an electric-light-station! What then would be my remedy? Where would be my contract again? And could I hale a prince of the church before a secular tribunal? Would I? Could I subpœna Your Lordship to testify against your Metropolitan and Provincial? Would I? Would you? My Lord Cardinal, I must speak, and you must hear me, as man to man. You are offering me Holy Orders on good grounds, on right and legitimate grounds, on grounds which I knew would be conceded sooner or later. I thank God for conceding them now.... You also are offering something in the shape of money." In his agitation, he suddenly rose, to Flavio's supreme discomfiture; and began to roll a cigarette from dottels in a tray on the mantel-piece.

"If I correctly interpret you, you are offering to me, who will be no man's pensioner, who will accept no man's gifts, a gift, a pension----"

"No," the cardinal very mildly interjected: "but restitution."

"Oh!" George ejaculated, suddenly sitting down, and staring like the martyr who, while yet the pagan pincers were at work upon his tenderest internals, beheld the angel-bearers of his amaranthine coronal.

"Amends and restitution," the cardinal repeated.

"What am I to say?" George addressed his cat and the bishop.

"You are simply to say in what form you will accept this act of justice from us," the cardinal responded, taking the question to himself.

"Oh, I must have time to think. You must afford me time to think."

"No, George," said the bishop: "take no time at all. Speak your mind now. Do make an effort to believe that we are sincerely in earnest; and that in this matter we are in your hands. I may say that, Yrmnts?" he inquired.

"Certainly: we place ourselves in Mr. Rose's hands--unreservedly--ha!" the cardinal affirmed, and gasped with the exertion.

George concentrated his faculties; and recited, rather than spoke, demurely and deliberately and dynamically. "I must have a written expression of regret for the wrongs which have been done to me both by Your Eminency and by others who have followed your advice, command, or example."

"It is here," the cardinal said, taking a folded paper from the fascicule of his breviary. "We knew that you would want that. I may point out that I have written in my own name, and also as the mouthpiece of the Catholic body."

George took the paper and carefully read it two or three times, with some flickering of his thin fastidious lips. It certainly was very handsome. Then he said, "I thank Your Eminency and my brother-Catholics," and put the document in the fire, where in a moment it was burned to ash.

"Man alive!" cried the bishop.

"I do not care to preserve a record of my superiors' humiliation," said George, again in his didactic recitative.

"I see that Mr. Rose knows how to behave nobly, as you said, Frank," the cardinal commented.

"Only now and then, Eminency. One cannot be always posing. But I long ago had arranged to do that, if you ever should give me the opportunity. And now," he paused--and continued, "you concede my facts?"

"We may not deny them, Mr. Rose."

"Then, now that I in my turn have placed myself in your hands" (again he was reciting), "I must have a sum of money"--(that paradoxical "must" was quite in his best manner)--"I must have a sum of money equal to the value of all the work which I have done since 1892, and of which I have been--for which I have not been paid. I must have five thousand pounds."

"And the amount of your debts, and a solatium for the sufferings----"

"You no more can solace me for my sufferings than you can revest me with ability to love my neighbour. The paltry amount of my debts concerns me and my creditors, and no one else. If I had been paid for my work I should have had no debts. When I am paid, I shall pay."

"The five thousand pounds are yours, Mr. Rose."

"But who is being robbed----"

"My dear child!" from the cardinal; and "George!" from the bishop.

"Robbed, Eminency. Don't we all know the Catholic manner of robbing Peter to pay Paul? I repeat, who is being robbed that I may be paid? For I refuse to touch a farthing diverted from religious funds, or extracted from the innocuous devout."

"You need not be alarmed on that score. Your history is well-known to many of us, as you know: latterly it has deeply concerned some of us, as perhaps you do not know. And one who used to call himself your friend, who--ha--promised never to let you sink--and let you sink,--one who acquiesced when others wronged you, has now been moved to place ten thousand pounds at my disposal, in retribution, as a sort of sin-offering. I intend to use it for your rehabilitation, Mr. Rose,--well then for your enfranchisement. Now that we understand each other, I shall open an account--have you a banking account though?--very good: I will open an account in your name at Coutts's on my way back to Pimlico."

"I must know the name of that penitent sinner: for quite a score have said as much as Your Eminency has quoted."

"Edward Lancaster."

"I might have guessed it. Well, he never will miss it--it's just a drop of his ocean--I think I can do as much with it as he can.--Eminency, give him my love and say that I will take five thousand pounds: not more. The rest--oh, I know: I hand it to Your Eminency to give to converted clergymen who are harassed with wives, or to a sensible secular home for working boys, or to the Bishop of Caerleon for his dreadful diocese. Yes, divide it between them."

The prelates stood up to go. George kneeled; and received benedictions.

"We shall see you at Archbishop's House, Mr. Rose," said the cardinal on the doorstep.

"If Your Eminency will telegraph to Agneda at once, you will be able to get my dimissorials to your archdiocese by to-morrow morning's post. I will be at Archbishop's House at half-past seven to confess to the Bishop of Caerleon. Your Eminency says Mass at eight, and will admit me to Holy Communion. At half-past eight the post will be in; and you will give me the four minor orders. Then--well, _then_, Eminency" (with a dear smile.) "You see I am not anxious for delay now. And, meanwhile, I will go and have a Turkish Bath, and buy a Roman collar, and think myself back into my new--no--my old life."

* * * * *

"What does Yrmnts make of him?" the bishop inquired as the shabby brougham moved away.

"God knows! God only knows!" the cardinal responded. "I hope---- Well we've done what we set out to do: haven't we? What a most extraordinary, what a most incomprehensible creature to be sure! I don't of course like his paganism, nor his flippancy, nor his slang, nor his readiness to dictate; and he is certainly sadly lacking in humility. He treated both of us with scant respect, you must admit, Frank. What was it he called us--ha--'bishop-johnnies'--now you can't defend that. And 'owl-like hierarchs' too!"

"Indeed no. I believe he hasn't a scrap of reverence for any of us. After all I don't exactly see that we can expect it. But it may come in time."

"Do you really think so?" said the cardinal; and the four eyes in the carriage turned together, met, and struck the spark of a recondite and mutual smile.

"For my part," the younger prelate continued, "I'm going to try to make amends for the immense wrong I did him by neglecting him. I can't get over the feeling of distrust I have of him yet. But I confess I'm strangely drawn to him. It is such a treat to come across a man who's not above treating a bishop as his equal."

"Did it strike you that he was acting a part?"

"Indeed yes: I think he was acting a part nearly all the time. But I'm sure he wasn't conscious of it. He's as transparent and guileless as a child, whatever."

"It seemed to me that he had all these pungent little speeches cut and dried. He said them like a lesson."

"Well, poor fellow, he's thought of nothing else for years; and I find, Yrmnts, that mental concentration, carried to anything like that extreme, gives a sort of power of prevision. I really believe that he had foreseen something, and was quite prepared for us."

"Strange," said the cardinal, whose supercilious oblique regard indicated dearth of interest in ideas that were out of his depth.

"He behaved very well about the money though?"

"Very well indeed. But, what a fool! Well, Frank, we can only pray that he may turn out well. I think he will. I really think he will. I hope and trust that we shall find the material of sanctity there. An unpleasant kind of sanctity perhaps. He will be difficult. That singular character, and the force which all those self-concentrated years have given him:--oh, he'll never submit to management, depend upon it. Frank, I've seen just that type of face among academic anarchists. It will be our business to watch him, for he will go his own way; and his way will have to be our way. It won't be the wrong way: but--oh yes, he will be very difficult. Well:--God only knows! Will you be on the look-out for a telegraph office, Frank, while I get through my Little Hours? Perhaps we had better----"

The cardinal opened his breviary at Sext; and made the sign of the cross.

* * * * *

George returned to the dining-room; and sat down in the cane folding-chair which the cardinal had vacated. He lighted the cigarette rolled during conversation. Flavio had taken possession of the seat lately occupied by the bishop, a deep-cushioned wickerwork armchair; and was very majestically posed, haunches broad and high and yellow as a cocoon, the beautiful brush displayed at length, fore-paws daintily tucked inward under the paler breast, the grand head guardant.

A shameless female began to shriek scales and roulades in an opposite house. George made plans for blasting her with a mammoth gramaphone which should bray nothing but trumpet-choruses out of his open windows. He smoked his cigarette to the butt, eyeing the cat. Then he said,

"Boy, where are we?"

Flavio winked and turned away his head, as who should say

"Obviously here."

George accepted the hint. He went upstairs, and changed into black serge: borrowed a few sovereigns from his landlord: ate his lunch of bread and milk; and took the L. and N.W. Rail to Highbury. Walking away from the station amid the blatant and vivacious inurbanity of Islington Upper Street, he kept his mental processes inactive--the higher mental processes of induction and deduction, the faculties of criticism and judgment. His method was Aristotelean, in that he drew his universals from a consideration of numerous particulars. He had plenty of material for thought; and he stored it till the time for thinking came. Now, he was out of doors for the sake of physical exercise. Also, he was getting the morning's events into perspective. At present his mind resembled warm wax on a tablet, wherein externals inscribed but transient impressions--an obese magenta Jewess with new boots which had a white line round their idiotic high heels--a baby with neglected nostrils festooned over the side of a mail-cart--a neat boy's leg, long and singularly well-turned, extended in the act of mounting a bicycle--an Anglican sister-of-mercy displaying side-spring prunellos and one eye in a haberdasher's violent window--a venerable shy drudge of a piano-tuner whose left arm was dragged down by the weight of the unmistakable little bag of tools--the weary anxious excruciating asking look in the eyes of all. He made his way south-westward, walking till he was tired for an hour and a half.

Anon, he was lying face downward in the calidarium of the bath, a slim white form, evenly muscular, boyishly fine and smooth. His forehead rested on his crossed arms, veiling his eyes. He came here, because here he was unknown: the place, with its attendants and frequenters, was quite strange to him: he would not be bored by the banalities of familiar tractators; and an encounter with any of his acquaintance was out of the question. From time to time he refreshed himself in the shower: but, while his procumbent body was at rest in the hot oxygenated air, he let his mind work easily and quickly. After two hours, he concluded his bath with a long cold plunge; and retired rosily tingling to the unctuarium to smoke. Here he made the following entries in his pocket-book:

"Have I been fair to them? Yes: but unmerciful. N.B. _For an act to be really good and meritorious, it must be performed noluntarily and with self-compulsion._

What have I gained? A verbal promise of priesthood, and a verbal promise of five thousand pounds. M-ym-ym-ym-ym-ym-ym.

What has he gained? If he's honest, the evacuation of a purulent abscess, the allegiance of a man who wants to be faithful, and perhaps the merit of saving a soul. N.B. _There was unwillingness and self-compulsion in him._

Why was he so timid?

A great part of what I said was gratuitously exasperating. Why did he stand it?

What does he know that I don't know?

What do I know that he doesn't know?

What salient things have I, in my usual manner, left unsaid?

Did I say more than enough?

Have I given myself away again?

Is he honest?

What was his real motive?

Oh why did he humiliate himself so?

Don't know. Don't know. Don't know.

Now what shall I do? Advance one pace. 'Do ye nexte thynge.'"

As he was powdering his vaccinated arm with borax before dressing, he said to himself, "Go into Berners Street, and buy a gun-metal stock and two dozen Roman collars (with a seam down the middle if you can get them); and then go to Scott's and buy a flat hat. The black serge will have to do as it is. If they don't like a jacket, let them dislike it. And then go home and examine your conscience."

* * * * *

The bishop locked the parlour-door: took the crucifix from the mantel and stood it on the table: kissed the cross embroidered on the little violet stole which he had brought with him, and put it over his shoulders. He sat down rectangularly to the end of the table, his left cheek toward the crucifix, his back to the penitent. George kneeled on the floor by the side of the table, in face of the crucifix: made the sign of the cross; and began,

"Bless me, O father, for I have sinned."

"May The Lord be in thine heart and on thy lips, that thou with truth and with humility mayest confess thy sins, ✠ in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen."

"I confess to God Almighty, to Blessed Mary Ever-Virgin, to Blessed Michael Archangel, to Blessed John Baptist, to the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, to all Saints, and to thee, O Father, that I excessively have sinned in thought, in word, and in deed, through my fault, through my fault, through my very great fault. I last confessed five days ago: received absolution: performed my penance. Since then I broke the first commandment, once, by being superstitiously silly enough to come downstairs in socks because I accidentally put on my left shoe before my right: twice, by speaking scornfully of and to God's ministers. I broke the third commandment, once, by omitting to hear mass on Sunday: twice, by permitting my mind to be distracted by the brogue of the priest who said mass on Saturday. I broke the fourth commandment, once, by being pertly pertinacious to my superior: twice, by saying things to grieve him----"

"Was that wilful?"

"Partly. But I was annoyed by his manner to me."

"What had you to complain of in his manner?"

"Side. He had used me rather badly: he came to make amends: I took umbrage at what I considered to be the arrogance of his manner. I was wrong. I confess an ebullition of my own critical intolerant impatient temper, which I ought to have curbed."

"Is there anything more on your conscience, my son?"

"Lots. I confess that I have broken the sixth commandment, once, by continuing to read an epigram in the Anthology after I had found out that it was obscene. I have broken the eighth commandment, once, by telling a story defamatory of a royal personage now dead: I don't know whether it was true or false: it was a common story, which I had heard; and I ought not to have repeated it. I have broken the third commandment of the Church, once, by eating dripping-toast at tea on Friday: I was hungry: it was very nice: I made a good meal of it and couldn't eat any dinner: this was thoughtless at first, then wilful."

"Are you bound to fast this Lent?"

"Yes, Father.... Those are all the sins of which I am conscious since my last confession. I should like to make a general confession of the chief sins of my life as well. I am guilty of inattention and half-heartedness in my spiritual exercises. Sometimes I can concentrate upon them: sometimes I allow the most paltry things to distract me. My mind has a twist towards frivolity, towards perversity. I know the sane; and I love and admire it: but I don't control myself as I ought to do. I say my prayers at irregular hours. Sometimes I forget them altogether."

"How many times a week on an average?"

"Not so often as that: not more than once a month, I think. The same with my Office."

"What Office? You haven't that obligation?"

"Well no: not in a way. But several years ago, when I received the tonsure, I immediately began to say the Divine Office----"

"Did you make any vow?"

"No, Father: it was one of my private fads. I was awfully anxious to get on to the priesthood as quickly as possible; and, as soon as I was admitted to the clerical estate, I busied myself in acquiring ecclesiastical habits. I wrote the necessary parts of the Liturgy on large sheets of paper, and pinned them on my bedroom walls; and I used to learn them by heart while I was dressing. The Office was another thing. I said it fairly regularly for about three years. Sometimes a bit of nasty vulgar Latin, for which someone merited a swishing, shocked me; and I stopped in the middle of a lection--it generally was a lection:--but I never relinquished the practice for more than a day. Circumstances deprived me of my breviary: but I kept a little book-of-hours; and I went on, saying all but mattins and lauds. It wasn't satisfactory; and I had no _Ordo_; and, after a month or two I gave it up. Then I began to say the _Little Office_; and that is of obligation, because I have made my profession in the Third Order of St. Francis. I added to it the _Office for the Dead_ to make up a decent quantity. But I have not been regular. The same with my duties. Generally, I go to confession and communion once a week: but sometimes I don't go on the proper days. Sometimes I miss mass on holidays for absurd reasons. Yes, often. I generally hear mass every day; and, when I fail, it always is on a holiday----"

"Explain, my son."

"I live between two churches: the one is half an hour away: the other, a quarter----"

"Have you been obliged to live where you do?"

"Yes: as far as one is obliged to do a detestable inconvenient thing. I did not choose the place. A false friend enticed me there, absconded with some papers of mine and obliged me to stay there, and rot there----"

"Continue, my son."

"When I am well disposed, I go to the distant church. When I am lazy, I don't go at all--this only refers to holidays:--because at the near one I should have to encounter the scowls of a purse-proud family who knew me when I was well-off, and who glare at me now as though I committed some impertinence in using a church which they have decorated with a chromolithograph. Also I detest kneeling in a pew like a protestant, with somebody's breath oozing down the back of my collar. I can hear Mass with devotion as well as with æsthetic pleasure in a church which has dark corners and no pews. I've never seen one in this country where I can be unconscious of the hideous persons and outrageous costumes of the congregation, the appalling substitute for ecclesiastical music, the tawdry insolence of the place, the pretentious demeanour of the ministers. Things like these distract me; and sometimes keep me away altogether. I like to worship my Maker, alone, from a distance, unseen of all save Him. You see, among the laity, I am as a fish out of water: because I am a clerk, whose place is not without but within the _cancelli_. However, I confess that I habitually more or less am guilty of neglect of duty, on grounds which I know to be fantastic and sensuous and indefensible. I confess that I have used irreverent expletives, such as _O my God_ and _Damn_. Not very often.... I confess that I am imperfectly resigned to the Will of God. I very often think that I do not know and cannot know what is God's Will. I generally follow my instincts: not, of course, when I know them to be sinful. I generally resist those. But, in planning my life, in trial, when I really want to know God's Will, I have no test which I can apply to the operations of my intellect. I am not alluding to dogma. I implicitly take that from the Church. I mean life's little quandaries. Years ago, I used to consult my confessor. I never got an apt or an illuminating or even an intelligent response. Time was short: there were a lot of people waiting outside the confessional: or His Reverence had been interrupted in the middle of his Office. An inapplicable platitude was pitched at me; and of course I went away in a rage. Later, I grew to think that a man ought not to shirk his personal responsibility: that he ought to be prepared to decide for himself and face the consequence. I gave up consulting the clergy, except upon technical points. I do my best, by myself; and I pray God to be merciful to my mistakes. I earnestly desire to do His Will in all things: but I often fail. For example, I can't stand pain. It makes me savage, literally. I don't bear chastisement submissively. I confess all my failures. I was lacking in filial respect towards my parents. I have been irreverent and disobedient to my superiors. I have argued with them, instead of meekly submitting my will to theirs. I have given them nicknames, labels that stick, that annoy them by revealing mental and corporeal characteristics of which they are not proud. For example, I said that the violet legs of my college-rector were formed like little Jacobean communion-rails; and I nicknamed a certain domestic prelate the Greek for _Muddy-Mind_, βορβοροθυμοϛ. I haven't done these things out of really vicious wanton cruelty: but out of pride in my own powers of penetration and perception, or out of culpable frivolity. I confess that I have been wanting in love, patience, sincerity, justice, towards my neighbour. Selfishness, self-will, and a fatuous desire to be distinct from other people, have caused these breaches of God's law. That desire nearly always is unconscious or subconscious: seldom deliberate. I am unkind with my bitter tongue and pen: for example, I made a jibe of the scrofula of a publisher. I am impatient with mental or natural weakness: for example I brought tears into a schoolboy's eyes by my remarks when he recorded Edward III.'s words to Philippa in reference to the six burgesses of Calais as 'Dam, I can deny you nothing, but I wish you had been otherwhere.' I am insincere, sinfully not criminally. I mean that I delight in bewildering others by posing as a monument of complex erudition, when I really am a very silly simpleton. I am unjust, in my readiness to judge on insufficient evidence: by my habit of believing all I hear,--that's a tremendously salient fault of mine:--and by telling or repeating detrimental stories. I confess the sin of detraction. I have told improper stories: not of the ordinary revolting kind, but those which are exquisite or witty or recondite. The koprolalian kind, those which are common in colleges and among the clergy, I have had the injustice to label _Roman Catholic Stories_. If it were necessary to designate them with particularity, the classic epithet _Milesian_ would serve: but it is never necessary. I have not often offended in this way: but now and then, according to the company in which I have happened to be. I confess that I have sinned against myself--for example, I have not avoided ease and luxury. I have only been too glad to enjoy them when they came in my way. I have been fastidious in my person, my tastes, my dress, affecting delicate habits, likes, and dislikes. I hate getting up early in the morning; and do it with a bad grace. I am dainty in my diet. I never have conquered my natural antipathy to flesh-meat, especially to entrails such as sweet-breads and kidneys. I abhor fish-meat on account of its abominable stench. Formerly, I never would sit at a table where fish-meat was served. I can do that now, with an effort of will: but I could not eat fish without physical nausea. I never will eat it. Once I made a man sick by the filthy comparison which I used in regard to some oysters which he was about to eat.... I have not avoided dangerous occasions of sin: I have not been prompt to resist temptation. For example, my desire to improve my knowledge leads me to minute appreciation and analysis of everything which interests me. In regard to the fine arts, I study the nude, human anatomy, generally with no emotion beyond passionate admiration for beauty. I never have been able to find beauty shameful: ugliness, yes. In regard to literature, I have read prohibited books and magazines--the _Nineteenth Century_, and books ancient and modern which are of a certain kind. My motive always has been to inform myself. I perfectly have known into what areas of temptation I was straying. As a rule, no effect has been produced on me, save the feeling of disgust at writers who write grossly for the sake of writing grossly, like Stratōn, or Pontano. I confess that two or three times in my life I have delighted in impure thoughts inspired by some lines in Cicero's Oration for M. Coelius: and, perhaps half a dozen times by a verse of John Addington Symonds in the _Artist_. I confess that I have dallied with these thoughts for an instant before dismissing them. There is one thing which I never have mentioned in confession to my satisfaction. I mean that I have mentioned it in vague terms only. I have not felt quite sure about it. I know that I cannot think of it and of the stainless purity of the Mother-Maid at the same time. Hence I conclude that I am guilty----"

"Relieve your mind, my son."

"About fourteen years ago, I dined with a woman whose husband was a great friend of mine. Her two children dined with us--a girl of fifteen, a boy of thirteen. Her husband was away on business for a few months. Soon after dinner, she sent the children to bed. A few minutes later she went to say good-night to them: she was an excellent mother. I remained in the drawing-room. When she returned, I was standing to take my departure. As she entered, she closed the door and switched off the electric light. I instinctively struck a match. She laughed, apologising for being absent-minded. I said the usual polite idioms and went away. A fortnight later, I dined there again by invitation. All went on as before: but this time, when she came back from saying good-night to the children she was wearing a violet flannel dressing-gown. I said nothing at all; and instantly left her. Afterwards, I gave her the cut direct in the street. I never have spoken to her since. Her husband was a good man, a martyr, and I immensely admired him. He died a few years later. I have no feeling for her except detestation. She was wickedly ugly. Vague thoughts ensued from these incidents; thoughts not connected with her but with some sensuous idea, some phasma of my imagination. They never were more than thoughts. I think that I must have delighted in them, because they returned to me perhaps twelve or fourteen times in as many years. I confess these sins of thought. Also, I think that I ought to confess myself lacking in alacrity after the first switching off of the electric light; and that I never ought to have remained alone with that woman again. I was ridiculously dense: for, only after the second event, did I see what the first had portended. I confess that I have not kept my senses in proper custody. I place no restraint whatever upon sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch, except in so far as my natural sympathies or antipathies direct me. I cultivate them and refine them and sharpen them: but never mortify them. I hardly ever practise self-denial. Even when I do, I catch myself extracting elements of æsthetic enjoyment from it. For example, I was present at the amputation of a leg. Under anæsthetics, directly the saw touched the marrow of the thigh bone, the other leg began to kick. I was next to it; and the surgeon told me to hold it still. It was ghastly: but I did. And then I actually caught myself admiring the exquisite silky texture of human skin.... Father, I am my Master's most unfaithful servant. I am a very sorry Christian. I confess all these sins, all the sins which I cannot remember, all the sins of my life. I implore pardon of God; and from thee, O Father, penance and absolution. Therefore I beseech blessed Mary Ever-Virgin, blessed Michael Archangel, Blessed John Baptist, the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, all Saints, and thee, O Father, to pray for me to The Lord our God."

"My son, do you love God?"

From silence, tardily the response emerged, "I don't know. I really don't know. He is Δημιουῥγοϛ, Maker of the World to me. He is Το Ἁγαθον to me, Truth and Righteousness and Beauty. He is Πανταναξ, Lord of All to me. He is First. He is Last. He is Perfect. He is Supreme. I believe in God, the Father Almighty; I believe in God the Son, Redeemer of the World; I believe in God the Holy Ghost, the Lord, the Lifegiver; One God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity. I absolutely believe in Him. There isn't in my mind the slightest shade of a question about Him. I unconditionally trust Him. I am not afraid of Him, because I can't think of Him as anything but righteous and merciful. To think otherwise would be both absurd and unfair to myself. And I'm quite sure that I'm ready and willing and delighted to make any kind of sacrifice for Him. I don't know why. So far, I clearly see. Then, in my mind, there comes a great gap,--filled with fog."

"Do you love your neighbour?"

"No, I frankly detest him, and her. Let me explain. Most people are repulsive to me, because they are ugly in person: more, because they are ugly in manner: many, because they are ugly in mind. Not that I never met people different to these. I have. People have occurred to me with whom I should like to be in sympathy. But I have been unable to get near enough to them. I seem to be a thing apart. I can't understand my neighbour. What satisfies him does not satisfy me. Once I induced a young lover to let me read his love-letters. He brought them every day for a week. His love had appeared to be a perfect idyll, pure and lovely as a flower. Well--I never read such rot in my life: simply categories of features and infantile gibberish done in the style of a housemaid's novelette. It made me sick. This kind of thing annoys me, terrifies me. You see, I want to understand my neighbour in order to love him. But I don't think I know what love is. But I want to--badly."

"Do you love yourself?"

"Father, do you mean the essence of me, or the form?"

"Yourself?"

"Well, of course I look after my body, and cultivate my mind: I'm afraid I don't pay enough attention to my soul. I certainly don't admire my person. That's all wrong. I can pick out a hundred deviations from the canon of proportion in it. Lysippos would have had a fit. And the tint is not quite pure. I make the best of it: but I don't think it matters much. As for my mind, I suppose I'm clever in a way, compared with other people: but I'm not half as clever as I'm supposed to be, or as I should like to be. In fact I'm rather more of a stupid ignoramus than otherwise. Naturally I stick up for myself, when I care to, against others: but, to myself, I despise myself. Oh I'm not interesting. On the whole, I think that I despise myself, body, mind, and soul. If I thought that they would be any good to anyone else, I'd throw them away to-morrow--if I could do it neatly and tidily and completely and with no one there to make remarks. They're no particular pleasure to me----"

"My son, tell me what would give you pleasure."

"Nothing. Father, I'm tired. Really nothing--except to flee away and be at rest."

"My son, that is actually the longing of your soul for God whatever. Cultivate that longing, oh cultivate it with all your powers. It will lead you to love Him; and then your longing will be satisfied, for God is love, as St. John tells us. Thank Him with all your heart for this great gift of longing: besiege Him day and night for an increase of it. At the same time, remember the words of Christ our Saviour, how He said, _If ye love Me, keep My Commandments_. Remember that He definitely commands you to love your neighbour, _This is My Commandment, that ye love one another as I have loved you_. Mortify those keen senses of that vile body, which by God's grace you are already moved to despise. In the words of St. Paul, keep it under and bring it into subjection. And do try to love your neighbour. Lay yourself out to be his servant: for Love is Service. Serve the servants of God; and you will learn to love God; and His servants for His sake. You have tasted the pleasures of the world, and they are as ashes in your mouth. You say that there is nothing to give you pleasure. That is a good sign. Cultivate that detachment from the world which is but for a moment and then passeth away. In the tremendous dignity to which you are about to be called--the dignity of the priesthood--be ever mindful of the vanity of worldly things. As a priest, you will be subject to fiercer temptations than those which assault you now. Brace up the great natural strength of your will to resist them. Continue to despise yourself. Begin to love your neighbour. Continue--yes, continue--unconsciously, but soon consciously, to love God. My son, the key to all your difficulties, present and to come, is Love.... For your penance you will say--well, the penance for minor orders is rather long--for your penance you will say the Divine Praises with the celebrant after mass. Now renew your sorrow for all your past sins, and say after me, _O my God--because by my sins I have deserved hell--and have lost my claim to heaven--I am truly sorry that I have offended Thee--and I firmly resolve--by Thy Grace--to avoid sin for the time to come.--O my God--because Thou art infinitely Good--and Most Worthy of all love--I grieve from my heart for having sinned against Thee--and I purpose--by Thy Grace--never more to offend Thee for the time to come_.... ego te absolvo ✠ in Nomine Patris et Filj et Spiritus Sancti. Amen. Go in peace and pray for me."

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