Presently he stopped, and looked long at some daffodil blades which were thrusting up in a sheltered place. "Look at the gray bloom on those blades," he said; "isn"t that perfect? Fancy thinking of that--each of them so obviously the same thought taking shape, yet each of them different. Do not you see in them something calm, continuous, active--happy, in fact--at work; often tripped up and imprisoned, and thwarted--but moving on?" He was silent a little, and then he said: "This force of _life_--what a fascinating mystery it is--never dying, never ceasing, always coming back to shape itself into matter. I wonder sometimes it is not content to exist alone; but no, it is always back again, arranging matter, manipulating it into beautiful shapes and creatures, never discouraged; even when the plant falls ill and begins to pine away, the happy life is within it--languid perhaps, but just waiting for the release, till the cage in which it has imprisoned itself is opened, and then--so I believe--back again in an instant somewhere else.
"I am inclined to believe," he went on, "that that is what we are all about; it seems to me the only explanation for the fact that we care so much about the past and the future. If we are creatures of a day, why should we be interested? The only reason we care about the past is because we ourselves were there in it; and we care about the future because we shall be there in it again."
"You mean a sort of re-incarnation," I said.
"That"s an ugly word for a beautiful thing," he said. "But this love of life, this impulse to live, to protect ourselves, to keep ourselves alive, must surely mean that we have always lived and shall always live. Some people think that dreadful. They think it is taking liberties with them. If they are rich and comfortable and dignified, they cannot bear to think that they may have to begin again, perhaps as a baby in a slum--or they grow tired, and think they want rest; but we can"t rest--we must live again, we must be back at work; and of course the real hope in it all is that, when we do anything to make the world happier, it is our own future that we are working for. Who could care about the future of the world, if he was to be banished from it for ever? I was reading a book the other day, in which a wise and a good man said that he felt about the future progress of the world as Moses did about the promised land, "not as of something we want to have for ourselves, but as of something which we want to exist, whether we exist or no," I can"t take so impersonal a view! If one really believed that one was going to be extinguished in death, one would care no more about the world"s future than one cares where the pa.s.sengers in a train are going to, when we get out at a station. Who, on arriving at home, can lose himself in wondering where his fellow-travellers have got to? We have better things to do than that! That is the sham altruism. It is as if a boy at school, instead of learning his own lesson, spent his time in imploring the other boys to learn theirs. That is what we are whipped for--for not learning our own lesson."
"But if all this is so," I said, "why don"t we _know_ that we shall live again? Why is the one thing which is important for us to know hidden from us?"
"I think we do know it," said Father Payne, "deep down in ourselves. It is why it is worth while to go on living. If we believed our reason, which tells us that we come to an end and sink into silence, we could not care to live, to suffer, to form pa.s.sionate ties which must all be severed, only to sink into nothingness ourselves. If we will listen to our instincts, they a.s.sure us that it _is_ all worth doing, because it all has a significance for us in the life that comes next."
"But if we are to go on living," I said, "are we to forget all the love and interest and delight of life? There seems no continuance of ident.i.ty without memory."
"Oh," said Father Payne, "that is another delusion of reason. Our qualities remain--our power of being interested, of loving, of caring, of suffering.
We practise them a little in one life, we practise them again in the next--that is why we improve. I forget who it was who said it, but it is quite true, that there are numberless people now alive, who, because of their orderliness, their patience, their kindness, their sweetness, would have been adored as saints if they had lived in mediaeval times. And that is the best reason we have for suppressing as far as we can our evil dispositions, and for living bravely and freely in happy energy, that we shall make a little better start next time. It is not the particular people we love who matter--it is the power of loving other people--and if we meet the same people as those we loved again, we shall love them again; and if we do not, why, there will be others to love. One of the worst limitations I feel is the fact that there are so many thousand people on earth whom I could love, if I could but meet them--and I am not going to believe that this wretched span of days is my only chance of meeting them. We need not be in a hurry--and yet we have no time to waste!"
He stopped for a moment, and then added: "When I lived in London, and was very poor, and had either too much or not enough to do, and was altogether very unhappy, I used to wander about the streets and wonder how I could be so much alone when there were so many possible friends. Just above Ludgate Railway Viaduct, as you go to St. Paul"s, there is a church on your left, a Wren church, very plain, of white and blackened stone, and an odd lead spire at the top. It has hardly any ornament, but just over the central doorway, under a sort of pediment, there is a little childish angel"s head, a beautiful little baby face, with such an expression of stifled bewilderment. It seems to say, "Why should I hang here, covered with soot, with this mob of people jostling along below, in all this noise and dirt?"
The child looks as if it was just about to burst into tears. I used to feel like that. I used to feel that I was meant to be happy, and even to make people happy, and that I had been caught and pinned down in a sort of pillory. It"s a grievous mistake to feel like that. Self-pity is the worst of all luxuries! But I think I owe all my happiness to that bad time.
Coming here was like a resurrection; and I never grudged the time when I was face to face with a nasty, poky, useless life. And if that can happen inside a single existence, I am not going to despair about the possibility of its happening in many existences. I dreamed the other night that I saw a party of little angels singing a song together, all absorbed in making music, and I recognised the little child of Ludgate Hill in the middle of them singing loud and clear. He gave me a little smile and something like a wink, and I knew that he had got his promotion. We ought all of us, and always, to be expecting that. But we have got to earn it, of course. It does not come if we wait with folded hands."
XXV
OF PHILANTHROPY
Father Payne told us an odd story to-day of a big house on the outskirts of London, with a great garden and some fields belonging to it, that was shut up for years and seemed neglected. It was inhabited by an old retired Colonel and his daughter: the daughter had become an invalid, and her mind was believed to be affected. No one ever came to the house or called there.
A wall ran, round it, and the trees grew thick and tangled within; the big gates were locked. Occasionally the Colonel came out of a side-door, a tall handsome man, and took a brisk walk; sometimes he would be seen handing his daughter, much wrapped up, into a carriage, and they drove together. But the place had a sinister air, and was altogether regarded with a gloomy curiosity.
When the Colonel died, it was discovered that the place was beautifully kept within, and the house delightfully furnished. It came out that, after a period of mental depression, the daughter had recovered her spirits, though her health was still delicate. The two were devoted to each other, and they decided that, instead of living an ordinary sociable life, they would just enjoy each other"s society in peace. It had been the happiest life, simple, tenderly affectionate, the two living in and for each other, and one, moreover, of open-handed, secret benevolence. Apart from the expenses of the household, the Colonel"s wealth had been used to support every kind of good work. Only one old friend of the Colonel"s was in the secret, and he spoke of it as one of the most beautiful homes he had ever seen.
Someone of us criticised the story, and asked whether it was not a case of refined selfishness. He added rather incisively that the expenditure of money on charitable objects seemed to him to show that the Colonel"s conscience was ill at ease.
Father Payne was very indignant. He said the world had gone mad on philanthropy and social service. Three-quarters of it was only fussy ambition. He went on to say that a beautiful and simple life was probably the thing most worth living in the world, and that two people could hardly be better employed than in making each other happy. He said that he did not believe in self-denial unless people liked it. Was it really a finer life to chatter at dinner-parties and tea-parties, and occasionally to inspect an orphanage? Perspiration was not the only evidence of G.o.dliness. Why, was it to be supposed that one could not live worthily unless one was always poking one"s nose into one"s neighbour"s concerns? He said that you might as well say that it was refined selfishness to have a rose-tree in your garden, unless you cut off every bud the moment it appeared and sent it to a hospital. If the critic really believed what he said, Aveley was no place for him. Let him go to Chicago!
XXVI
OF FEAR
I forget what led up to the subject; perhaps I did not hear; but Father Payne said, "It isn"t for nothing that "the fearful" head the list of all the abominable people--murderers, sorcerers, idolaters; and liars--who are reserved for the lake of fire and brimstone! Fear is the one thing that we are always wrong in yielding to: I don"t mean timidity and cowardice, but the sort of heavy, mild, and rather pious sort of foreboding that wakes one up early in the morning, and that takes all the wind out of one"s sails; fear of not being liked, of having given offence, of living uselessly, of wasting time and opportunities. Whatever we do, we must not lead an apologetic kind of life. If we on the whole intend to do something which we think may be wrong, it is better to do it--it is wrong to be cautious and prudent. I love experiments."
"Isn"t that rather immoral?" said Lestrange.
"No, my dear boy," said Father Payne, "we must make mistakes: better make them! I am not speaking of things obviously wrong, cruel, unkind, ungenerous, spiteful things; but it is right to give oneself away, to yield to impulses, not to take advice too much, and not to calculate consequences too much. I hate the Robinson Crusoe method of balancing pros and cons.
Live your own life, do what you are inclined to do, as long as you really do it. That is probably the best way of serving the world. Don"t be argued into things, or bullied out of them. You need not parade it--but rebel silently. It is absolutely useless going about knocking people down. That proves nothing except that you are stronger. Don"t show up people, or fight people; establish a stronger influence if you can, and make people see that it is happier and pleasanter to live as you live. Make them envy you--don"t make them fear you. You must not play with fear, and you must not yield to fear."
XXVII
OF ARISTOCRACY
Father Payne came into the hall one morning after breakfast when I was opening a parcel of books which had arrived for me. It was a fine, sunny day, and the sun lit up the portrait framed in the panelling over the mantelpiece, an old and skilful copy (at least I suppose it was a copy) of Reynolds" fine portrait of James, tenth Earl of Shropshire. Father Payne regarded the picture earnestly. "Isn"t he magnificent?" he said. "But he was a very poor creature really, and came to great grief. My great-great-grandfather! His granddaughter married my grandfather. Now look at that--that"s the best we can do in the way of breeding! There"s a man whose direct ancestors, father to son, had simply the best that money can buy--fine houses to live in, power, the pick of the matrimonial market, the best education, a fine tradition, every inducement to behave like a hero; and what did he do--he gambled away his inheritance, and died of drink and bad courses. We can"t get what we want, it would seem, by breeding human beings, though we can do it with cows and pigs. Where and how does the thing go wrong? His father and mother were both of them admirable people--fine in every sense of the word.
"And then people talk, too, as if we had got rid of idolatry! We make a man a peer, we heap wealth upon him, and then we worship him for his magnificence, and are deeply affected if he talks civilly to us. We don"t do it quite so much now, perhaps--but in that man"s day, think what an aroma of rank and splendour is cast, even in Boswell"s _Life of Johnson_, over a dinner-party where a man like that was present! If he paid Johnson the most trumpery of compliments, Johnson bowed low, and down it went on Boswell"s cuff! Yet we go on perpetuating it. We don"t require that such a man should be active, public-spirited, wise. If he is fond of field-sports, fairly business-like, kindly, courteous, decently virtuous, we think him a great man, and feel mildly elated at meeting him and being spoken to civilly by him. I don"t mean that only sn.o.bs feel that; but respectable people, who don"t pursue fashion, would be more pleased if an Earl they knew turned up and asked for a cup of tea than if the worthiest of their neighbours did so. I don"t exaggerate the power of rank--it doesn"t make a man necessarily powerful now, but a very little ability, backed up by rank, will go a long way. A great general or a great statesman likes to be made an Earl; and yet a good many people would like an Earl of long descent quite as much. There are a lot of people about who feel as Melbourne did when he said he liked the Garter so much because there was no d----d merit about it. I believe we admire people who inherit magnificence better than we admire people who earn it; and while that feeling is there, what can be done to alter it?"
"I don"t think I want to alter it," I said; "it is very picturesque!"
"Yes, there"s the mischief," said Father Payne, "it _is_ more picturesque, hang it all! The old aristocrat who feels like a prince and behaves like one, _is_ more picturesque than the person who has sweated himself into it. Think of the old Duke who was told he _must_ retrench, and that he need not have six still-room maids in his establishment, and said, after a brief period of reflection, "D----n it, a man must have a biscuit!" We _like_ insolence! That is to say, we like it in its place, because we admire power. It"s ten times more impressive than the meekness of the saint. The mischief is that we like anything from a man of power. If he is insolent, we think it grand; if he is stupid, we think it a sort of condescension; if he is mild and polite, we think it marvellous; if he is boorish, we think it is simple-minded. It is power that we admire, or rather success, and both can be inherited. If a man gets a big position in England, he is always said to grow into it; but that is because we care about the position more than we care about the man.
"When I was younger," he went on, "I used to like meeting successful people--it was only rarely that I got the chance--but I gradually discovered that they were not, on the whole, the interesting people.
Sometimes they were, of course, when they were big animated men, full of vitality and interest. But many men use themselves up in attaining success, and haven"t anything much to give you except their tired side. No, I soon found out that freshness was the interesting thing, wherever it was to be found--and, mind you, it isn"t very common. Many people have to arrive at success by resolute self-limitation; and that becomes very uninteresting.
Buoyancy, sympathy, quick interests, perceptiveness--that"s the supreme charm; and the worst of it is that it mostly belongs to the people who haven"t taken too much out of themselves. When we have got a really well-ordered State, no one will have any reason to work too hard, and then we shall all be the happier. These gigantic toilers, it"s a sort of morbidity, you know; the real success is to enjoy work, not to drudge yourself dry. One must overflow--not pump!"
"But what is an artist to do," I said, "who is simply haunted by the desire to make something beautiful?"
"He must hold his hand," said Father Payne; "he must learn to waste his time, and he must love wasting it. A habit of creative work is an awful thing."
"Come out for a turn," he went on; "never mind these rotten books; don"t get into a habit of reading--it"s like endlessly listening to good talk without ever joining in it--it makes a corpulent mind!"
We went and walked in the garden; he stopped before some giant hemlocks.
"Just look at those great things," he said, "built up as geometrically as a cathedral, tier above tier, and yet not _quite_ regular. There must be something very hard at work inside that, piling it all up, adding cell to cell, carrying out a plan, and enjoying it all. Yet the beauty of it is that it isn"t perfectly regular. You see the underlying scheme, yet the separate shoots are not quite mechanical--they lean away from each other, that joint is a trifle shorter--there wasn"t quite room at the start in that stem, and the pressure goes on showing right up to the top, I suppose our lives would look very nearly as geometrical to anyone who _knew_--really knew; but how little geometrical we feel! I don"t suppose this hemlock is cursed by the power of thinking it might have done otherwise, or envies the roses. We mustn"t spend time in envying, or repenting either--or still less in renouncing life."
"But if I want to renounce it," I said, "why shouldn"t I?"
"Yes, there you have me," said Father Payne; "we know so little about ourselves, that we don"t always know whether we do better to renounce a thing or to seize it. Make experiments, I say--don"t make habits."
"But you are always drilling me into habits," I said.
He gave me a little shake with his hand. "Yes, the habit of being able to do a thing," he said, "not the habit of being unable to do anything else!
Hang these metaphysics, if that is what they are! What I want you young men to do is to get a firm hold upon life, and to feel that it is a finer thing than any little presentment of it. I want you to feel and enjoy for yourselves, and to live freely and generously. Bad things happen to all of us, of course; but we mustn"t mind that--not to be petty or quarrelsome, or hidebound or prudish or over-particular, that"s the point. To leave other people alone, except on the rare occasions when they are not letting other people alone; to be peaceable, and yet not to be afraid; not to be hurt and vexed; to practise forgetting; not to want to pouch things! It"s all very well for me to talk," he said; "I made a sufficient hash of it, when I was poor and miserable and overworked; and then I was transplanted out of a slum window-box into a sunny garden, just in time; yet I"m sure that most of my old troubles were in a way of my own making, because I hated being so insignificant; but I fear that was a little poison lurking in me from the Earls of Shropshire. That is the odd thing about ambitions, that they seem so often like regaining a lost position rather than making a new one. The truth is that we are caged; and the only thing to do is to think about the cage as little as we can."
XXVIII
OF CRYSTALS
One day I was strolling down the garden among the winding paths, when I came suddenly upon Father Payne, who was hurrying towards the house. He had in each of his hands a large roughly spherical stone, and looked at me a little shamefacedly.
"You look, Father," I said, "as if you were going to stone Stephen."
He laughed, and looked at the stones. "Yes," he said, "they are what the Greeks called "hand-fillers," for use in battle--but I have no nefarious designs."