"There are only two sorts of people with whom it is impossible to live,"
said Father Payne one day, in a loud, mournful tone.
"Elderly women and young women, I suppose he means," said Rose softly.
"No," said Father Payne, "I protest! I adore sensible women, simple women,
clever women, all non-predatory women--it is they who will not live with
me. I forget they are not men, and they do not like that. And then they are
so much more unselfish than men, that they have generally axes to grind,
and I don't like that."
"Whom do you mean, then?" said I.
"Cads and Pharisees," said Father Payne, "and they are not two sorts
really, but one. They are the people without imagination. It is that which
destroys social life, the lack of imagination. The Pharisee is the cad with
a tincture of Puritanism."
"What is the cad, then?" said I.
"Well," said Father Payne, "he is very easy to detect, and not very easy to
define. He is the man who has got a perfectly definite idea of what he
wants, and he suffers from isolation. He can't put himself into anyone's
place, or get inside other people's minds. He is stupid, and he is
unperceptive. He does not detect the little looks, gestures, tones of
voice, which show when people are uncomfortable or disgusted. He is not
uncomfortable or easily disgusted himself, and he does not much mind other
people being so. He says what he thinks, and you have got to lump it.
Sometimes he is good-natured enough, and even brave. There is an admirable
sketch of a good-natured cad in one of Mrs. Walford's novels, who is the
acme of kind indelicacy. The cad is dreadful to live with, because he is
always making one ashamed, and ashamed of being ashamed, because many of
the things he does do not really matter very much. Then, when he is out of
sight and hearing, you cannot trust him. He makes mischief; he throws mud.
If he is vexed with you, he injures you with other people. We are all
criticised behind our backs, of course, and we have all faults which amuse
and interest our friends; and it is not caddish to criticise friends if one
is only interested in them. But the cad is not interested, except in
clearing other people out of his way. He is treacherous and spiteful. He
drops in upon you uninvited, and then he tells people he could not get
enough to eat. He repeats things you have said about your friends to the
people of whom you have spoken, leaving out all the justifications, and
says that he thinks they ought to know how you abuse them. He borrows money
of you, and if you ask him for repayment, he says he is not accustomed to
be dunned. He never can bring himself to apologise for anything, and if you
lose your temper with him, he says you are getting testy in your old age.
His one idea is to be formidable, and he says that he does not let people
take liberties with him. He takes a mean and solitary view of the world,
and other people are merely channels for his own wishes, or obstacles to
them. The only way is to keep him at arm's length, because he is not
disarmed by any generosity or trustfulness; the discovery of caddishness in
a man is the only excuse for breaking off a companionship. The worst of it
is that cads are sometimes very clever, and don't let the caddishness
appear till you are hooked. The mischief really is that the cad has no
morals, no sense of social duty."
"What about Pharisees?" said I.
"Well, the Pharisee has too many morals," said Father Payne. "He is the
person whose own tastes are a sort of standard. If you disagree with him,
he thinks you must be wicked. If your tastes differ from his, they are of
the nature of sin. You live under his displeasure. If he dresses for
dinner, it is sloppy and middle-class not to do so. If he doesn't dress for
dinner, the people who do are either wasting time or aping the manners of
the great. He is always very strong about wasting time. If he likes
gardening, he says it is the best sort of exercise; if he does not, he says
that it is bilious work muddling about in a corner. Everything that he does
is done on principle, but he uses his principles to bludgeon other people.
If you make him the subject of a harmless jest, he says that he cannot bear
personalities. You can please him only by deferring to him, and the only
way to manage him is by gross flattery. A Pharisee can be a gentleman, and
he isn't purely noxious like the cad; he is only unpleasant and
discouraging. He is quite impervious to argument, and only says that he
thought the principle he is contending for was generally accepted. The
Pharisee wants in a heavy way to improve the world, and thinks meanly of
it, while the cad thinks meanly of it, and wants to exploit it. The
Pharisee is a tyrant, and hates freedom; but you can often make a friend of
him by asking him a favour, if you are also prepared to be subsequently
reminded of the trouble he took to serve you.
"I think that the Pharisee perhaps does most harm in the end, because he
hates all experiments. He does harm to the young, because he makes them
dislike virtue and mistrust beauty. The cad does not corrupt--in fact, I
think he rather improves people, because he is so ugly a case of what no
one wishes to be--and it is better to hate people than to be frightened of
them. If we got a cad and a Pharisee in here, for instance, it would be
easier to get rid of the cad than the Pharisee."
"I begin to breathe more freely," said Vincent. "I had begun to review my
conscience."
Father Payne laughed. "It's all blank cartridge," he said.