_ CHAPTER XLVII. OF RESPECT OF PERSONS
Father Payne had been out to luncheon one day with some neighbours. He had groaned over the prospect the day before, and had complained that such goings-on unsettled him.
"Well, Father," said Rose at dinner, "so you have got through your ordeal! Was it very bad?"
"Bad!" said Father Payne, "why should it be bad? I'm crammed with impressions--I'm a perfect mine of them."
"But you didn't like the prospect of going?" said Rose.
"No," said Father Payne, "I shrank from the strain--you phlegmatic, aristocratic people,--men-of-the-world, blases, highly-born and highly-placed,--have no conception of the strain these things are on a child of nature. You are used to such things, Rose, no doubt--you do not anticipate a luncheon-party with a mixture of curiosity and gloom. But it is good for me to go to such affairs--it is like a waterbreak in a stream--it aerates and agitates the mind. But _you_ don't realise the amount of observation I bring to bear on such an event--the strange house, the unfamiliar food, the new inscrutable people--everything has to be observed, dealt with, if possible accounted for, and if unaccountable, then inflexibly faced and recollected. A torrent of impressions has poured in upon me--to say nothing of the anxious consideration beforehand of topics of conversation, and modes of investigation! To stay in a new house crushes me with fatigue--and even a little party like this, which seems, I daresay, to some of you, a negligible, even a tedious thing, is to me rich in far-flung experience."
"Mayn't we have the benefit of some of it?" said Rose.
"Yes," said Father Payne, "you may--you must, indeed! I am grateful to you for introducing the subject--it is more graceful than if I had simply divested myself of my impressions unsolicited."
"What was it all about?" said Rose.
"Why," said Father Payne, "the answer to that is simple enough--it was to meet an American! I know that race! Who but an American would have heard of our little experiment here, and not only wanted to know--they all do that--but positively arranged to know? Yes, he was a hard-featured man--a man of wealth, I imagine--from some place, the grotesque and extravagant name of which I could not even accurately retain, in the State of Minnesota."
"Did he want to try a similar experiment?" said Barthrop.
"He did not," said Father Payne. "I gathered that he had no such intention--but he desired to investigate ours. He was full of compliments, of information, even of rhetoric. I have seldom heard a simple case stated more emphatically, or with such continuous emphasis. My mind simply reeled before it. He pursued me as a harpooner might pursue a whale. He had the whole thing out of me in no time. He interrogated me as a corkscrew interrogates a cork. That consumed the whole of luncheon. I made a poor show. My experiment, such as it is, stood none of the tests he applied to it. It appeared to be lacking in all earnestness and zeal. I was painfully conscious of my lack of earnestness. 'Well, sir,' he said at the conclusion of my examination-in-chief, 'I seem to detect that this business of yours is conducted mainly with a view to your own entertainment, and I admit that it causes me considerable disappointment.' The fact is, my boys," said Father Payne, surveying the table, "that we must be more conscious of higher aims here, and we must put them on a more commercial footing!"
"But that was not all?" said Barthrop.
"No, it was not all," said Father Payne; "and, to tell you the truth, I was more alarmed by than interested in the Minnesota merchant. I couldn't state my case--I failed in that--and I very much doubt if I could have convinced him that there was anything in it. Indeed, he said that my conceptions of culture were not as clear-cut as he had hoped."
"He seems to have been fairly frank," said Rose.
"He was frank, but not uncivil," said Father Payne. "He did not deride my absence of definiteness, he only deplored it. But I really got more out of the subsequent talk. We adjourned to a sort of portico, a pretty place looking on to a formal garden: it was really very charmingly done--a clever fake of an, old garden, but with nothing really beautiful about it. It looked as if no one had ever lived in it, though the illusion of age was skilfully contrived--old paving-stones, old bricks, old lead vases, but all looking as if they were shy, and had only been just introduced to each other. There was no harmony of use about it. But the talk--that was the amazing thing! Such pleasant intelligent people, nice smiling women, courteous grizzled men. By Jove, there wasn't a single writer or artist or musician that they didn't seem to know intimately! It was a literary party, I gathered: but even so there was a haze of politics and society about it--vistas of politicians and personages of every kind, all known intimately, all of them quoted, everything heard and whispered in the background of events--we had no foregrounds, I can tell you, nothing second-hand, no concealments or reticences. Everyone in the world worth knowing seemed to have confided their secrets to that group. It was a privilege, I can tell you! We simply swam in influences and authenticities. I seemed to be in the innermost shrine of the world's forces--where they get the steam up, you know!"
"But who are these people, after all?" said Rose.
"My dear Rose!" said Father Payne. "You mustn't destroy my illusions in that majestic manner! What would I not have given to be able to ask myself that question! To me they were simply the innermost circle, to whom the writers and artists of the day told their dreams, and from whom they sought encouragement and sympathy. That was enough for me. I stored my memory with anecdotes and noble names, like the man in _Pride and Prejudice_."
"But what did it all come to?" said Rose.
"Well," said Father Payne, "to tell you the truth, it didn't amount to very much! At the time I was dazzled and stupefied--but subsequent reflection has convinced me that the cooking was better than the food, so to speak."
"You mean that it was mostly humbug?" said Rose.
"Well, I wouldn't go quite as far as that," said Father Payne, "but it was not very nutritive--no, the nutriment was lacking! Come, I'll tell you frankly what I did think, as I came away. I thought these pretty people very adventurous, very quick, very friendly. But I don't truly think they were interested in the real thing at all--only interested in the words of the wise, and in the unconsidered trifles of the Major Prophets, so to speak. I didn't think it exactly pretentious--but they obviously only cared for people of established reputation. They didn't admire the ideas behind, only the reputations of the people who said the things. They had undoubtedly seen and heard the great people--I confess it amazed me to think how easily the men of mark can be exploited--but I did not discern that they cared about the things represented,--only about the representatives. The American was different. He, I think, cared about the ideas, though he cared about them in the wrong way. I mean that he claimed to find everything distinct, whereas the big things are naturally indistinct. They loom up in a shadowy way, and the American was examining them through field-glasses. But my other friends seemed to me to be only interested in the people who had the entree, so to speak--the priests of the shrine. They had noticed everything that doesn't matter about the high and holy ones--how they looked, spoke, dressed, behaved. It was awfully clever, some of it; one of the women imitated Legard the essayist down to the ground--the way he pontificates, you know--but nothing else. They were simply interested in the great men, and not interested in what make the great men different from other people, but simply in their resemblance to other people. Even great people have to eat, you know! Legard himself eats, though it's a leisurely process; and this woman imitated the way he forked up a bit, held it till the bit dropped off, and put the empty fork into his mouth. It was excruciatingly funny--I'll admit that. But they missed the point, after all. They didn't care about Legard's books a bit--they cared much more about that funny cameo ring he wears on his tie!"
"It all seems to me horribly vulgar," said Kaye.
"No, it was no more vulgar than a dance of gnats," said Father Payne. "They were all alive, those people. They were just gnats, now I come to think of it! They had stung all the great men of the day--even drawn a little blood--and they were intoxicated by it. Mind, I don't say that it is worth doing, that kind of thing! But they were having their fun--and the only mistake they made was in thinking they cared about these people for the right reasons. No, the only really rueful part of the business was the revelation to me of what the great people can put up with, in the way of being feted, and the extent to which they seem able to give themselves away to these pretty women. It must be enervating, I think, and even exhausting, to be so pawed and caressed; but it's natural enough, and if it amuses them, I'm not going to find fault. My only fear is that Legard and the rest think they are really _living_ with these people. They are not doing that; they are only being roped in for the fun of the performance. These charming ladies just ensnare the big people, make them chatter, and then get together, as they did to-day, and compare the locks of hair they have snipped from their Samsons. But it isn't a bit malicious--it's simply childish; and, by Jove, I enjoyed myself tremendously. Now, don't pull a long face, Kaye! Of course it was very cheap--and I don't say that anyone ought to enjoy that sort of thing enough to pursue it. But if it comes in my way, why, it is like a dish of sweetmeats! I don't approve of it, but it was like a story out of Boccaccio, full of life and zest, even though the pestilence was at work down in the city. We must not think ill of life too easily! I don't say that these people are living what is called the highest life. But, after all, I only saw them amusing themselves. There were some children about, nice children, sensibly dressed, well-behaved, full of go, and yet properly drilled. These women are good wives and good mothers; and I expect they have both spirit and tenderness, when either is wanted. I'm not going to bemoan their light-mindedness; at all events, I thought it was very pleasant, and they were very good to me. They saw I wasn't a first-hander or a thoroughbred, and they made it easy for me. No, it was a happy time for me--and, by George, how they fed us! I expect the women looked after all that. I daresay that, as far as economics go, it was all wrong, and that these people are only a sort of scum on the surface of society. But it is a pretty scum, shot with bright colours. Anyhow, it is no good beginning by trying to alter _them_! If you could alter everything else, they would fall into line, because they are good-humoured and sensible. And as long as people are kindly and full of life, I shall not complain; I would rather have that than a dreary high-mindedness."
Father Payne rose. "Oh, do go on, Father!" said someone.
"No, my boy," said Father Payne, "I'm boiling over with impressions--rooms, carpets, china, flowers, ladies' dresses! But that must all settle down a bit. In a few days I'll interrogate my memory, like Wordsworth, and see if there is anything of permanent worth there!" _