"I wonder," said Father Payne one day at dinner, "whether any nation's
proverbs are such a disgrace to them as our national proverbs are to us.
Ours are horribly Anglo-Saxon and characteristic. They seem to me to have
been all invented by a shrewd, selfish, complacent, suspicious old farmer,
in a very small way of business, determined that he will not be
over-reached, and equally determined, too, that he will take full advantage
of the weakness of others. 'Charity begins at home,' 'Possession is nine
points of the law,' 'Don't count your chickens before they are hatched,'
'When poverty comes in at the door, love flies out of the window.' They are
all equally disgraceful. They deride all emotion, they despise imagination,
they are unutterably low and hard, and what is called sensible; they are
frankly unchristian as well as ungentlemanly. No wonder we are called a
nation of shopkeepers."
"But aren't we a great deal better than our proverbs?" said Barthrop: "do
they really express anything more than a contempt for weakness and
sentiment?"
"Yes," said Father Payne, "but I don't like them any better for that. Why
should we be ashamed of all our better feelings? I admit that we have a
sense of justice; but that only means that we care for material possessions
so much that we are afraid not to admit that others have the right to do
the same. The real obstacle to socialism in England is the sense of
sanctity about a man's savings. The moment that a man has saved a few
pounds, he agrees to any legislation that allows him to hold on to them."
"But aren't we, behind all that," said Barthrop, "an intensely sentimental
nation?"
"Yes," said Father Payne, "but that's a fault really--we don't believe in
real justice, only in picturesque justice. We are hopeless individualists.
We melt into tears over a child that is lost, or a dog that howls; and we
let all sorts of evil systems and arrangements grow and flourish. We can't
think algebraically, only arithmetically. We can be kind to a single case
of hardship; we can't take in a widespread system of oppression. We are
improving somewhat; but it is always the particular case that affects us,
and not the general principle."
"But to go back to our sense of possession," I said, "is that really much
more than a matter of climate? Does it mean more than this, that we, in a
temperate climate inclining to cold, need more elaborate houses and more
heat-producing food than nations who live in warmer climates? Are not the
nations who live in warmer climates less attached to material things simply
because they are less important?"
"There is something in that, no doubt," said Father Payne. "Of course,
where nature is more hostile to life, men will have to work longer hours to
support life than where 'the spicy breezes blow soft o'er Ceylon's isle.'
But it isn't that of which I complain--it is the awful sense of
respectability attaching to possessions, the hideous way in which we fill
our houses with things which we do not want or use, just because they are a
symbol of respectability. We like hoarding, and we like luxuries, not
because we enjoy them, but because we like other people to know that we can
pay for them. I do not imagine that there is any nation in the world whose
hospitality differs so much from the mode in which people actually live as
ours does. In a sensible society, if we wanted to see our friends, we
should ask them to bring their cold mutton round, and have a picnic. What
we do actually do is to have a meal which we can't afford, and which our
guests know is not in the least like our ordinary meals; and then we expect
to be asked back to a similarly ostentatious banquet."
"But isn't there something," said Barthrop, "in Dr. Johnson's dictum, that
a meal was good enough to eat, but not good enough to ask a man to? Isn't
it a good impulse to put your best before a guest?"
"Oh, no doubt," said Father Payne, "but there's a want of simplicity about
it if you only want to entertain people in order that they may see you do
it, and not because you want to see them. It's vulgar, somehow--that's what
I suspect our nation of being. Our inability to speak frankly of money is
another sign. We do money too much honour by being so reticent about it.
The fact is that it is the one sacred subject among us. People are reticent
about religion and books and art, because they are not sure that other
people are interested in them. But they are reticent about money as a
matter of duty, because they are sure that everyone is deeply interested.
People talk about money with nods and winks and hints--those are all the
signs of a sacred mystery!"
"Well, I wonder," said Barthrop, "whether we are as base as you seem to
think!"
"I will tell you when I will change my mind," said Father Payne; "all the
talk of noble aims and strong purposes will not deceive me. What would
convert me would be if I saw generous giving a custom so common that it
hardly excited remark. You see a few generous _wills_--but even then a
will which leaves money to public purposes is generally commented upon; and
it almost always means, too, if you look into it, that a man has had no
near relations, and that he has stuck to his money and the power it gives
him during his life. If I could see a few cases of men impoverishing
themselves and their families in their lifetime for public objects; if I
saw evidence of men who have heaped up wealth content to let their children
start again in the race, and determined to support the State rather than
the family; if I could hear of a rich man's children beseeching their
father to endow the State rather than themselves, and being ready to work
for a livelihood rather than to receive an inherited fortune; if I could
hear of a few rich men living simply and handing out their money for
general purposes,--then I would believe! But none of these things is
anything but a rare exception; a man who gives away his fortune, as Ruskin
did, in great handfuls, is generally thought to be slightly crazy; and,
speaking frankly, the worth of a man seems to depend not upon what he has
given to the world, but upon what he has gained from the world. You may say
it is a rough test;--so it is! But when we begin to feel that a man is
foolish in hoarding and wise in lavishing, instead of being foolish in
lavishing and wise in hoarding, then, and not till then, shall I believe
that we are a truly great nation. At present the man whom we honour most is
the man who has been generous to public necessities, and has yet retained a
large fortune for himself. That is the combination which we are not ashamed
to admire."