Rose told a story one night which amused Father Payne immensely. He had
been up in town, and had sate next a Minister's wife, who had been very
confidential. She had said to Rose that her husband had just been elected
into a small dining-club well known in London, where the numbers were very
limited, the society very choice, and where a single negative vote excluded
a candidate. "I don't think," said the good lady, "that my husband has ever
been so pleased at anything that has befallen him, not even when he was
first given office--such a distinguished club--and so exclusive!" Father
Payne laughed loud and shrill. "That's human nature at its nakedest!" he
said. "It's like Miss Tox, in _Dombey and Son_, you know, who, when
Dombey asked her if the school she recommended was select, said, 'It's
exclusion itself!' What people love is the power of being able to
_exclude_--not necessarily disagreeable people, or tiresome people,
but simply people who would like to be inside--
"'Loving not, hating not, just choosing so.'
"Those are the two great forces of society, you know--the exclusive force,
and the inclusive force: the force that says, 'We few, we happy few, we
band of brothers'; and the force which says, 'The more the merrier.' The
exclusive force is represented by caste and class, by gentility and
donnishness, by sectarianism and nationalism, and even by patriotism--and
the inclusive force is represented by Walt Whitmanism and Christianity."
"But what about St. Paul's words," said Lestrange, "'Honour all men: love
the brotherhood'?"
"That's an attempt to recognise both," said Father Payne, smiling. "Of
course you can't love everyone equally--that's the error of
democracy--democracy is really one of the exclusive forces, because it
excludes the heroes--it is '_mundus contra Athanasium_,'--it is best
illustrated by what the American democrat said to Charles Kingsley, 'My
principle is "whenever you see a head above the crowd, hit it."' Democracy
is, at its worst, the jealousy of the average man for the superior man."
"But which is the best principle?" said Vincent.
"Both are necessary," said Father Payne. "One must aim at inclusiveness, of
course: and we must be quite certain that we exclude on the ground of
qualities, and not on the ground of superficial differences. The best
influences in the world arise not from individuals but from groups--and
there is no sort of reason why groups should spoil their intensive
qualities by trying to admit outsiders. The strength of a group lies in the
fact that one gets the sense of fellowship and common purpose, of sympathy
and encouragement. A man who has to fight a battle single-handed is always
tempted to wonder whether, after all, it is worth all the trouble and
misunderstanding. But, on the other hand, you are at liberty to mistrust
the men who say that they don't want to know people. Do you remember how
Charles Lamb once said, 'I do hate the Trotters!' 'But I thought you didn't
know them?' said someone. 'That's just it,' said Charles Lamb, 'I never can
hate anyone that I know!' The best bred man is the man who finds it easy to
get on with everybody on equal terms: but it's part of the snobbishness of
human nature that exclusiveness is rather admired than otherwise. There's a
delightfully exclusive woman in one of Henry James' novels, who refuses to
be introduced to a family. She entirely declines, and the man who is
anxious to effect the introduction says, 'I can't think why you object to
them.' 'They are hopelessly vulgar,' says the incisive lady, 'and in this
short life, that is enough!' But St. Paul's remark is really very good,
because it means 'Treat everyone with courtesy--but reserve your fine
affections for the inner circle, whose worth you really know!'--it's a
better theory than that of the man who said, 'It is enough for me to be
with those whom I love!' That's rather inhuman."
"Do you remember," said Barthrop, "the lines in Tennyson's Guinevere, which
sum up the knightly attributes?
"'High thought, and amiable words,
And courtliness, and the desire of fame,
And love of truth, and all that makes a man.'"
"That's very interesting and curious!" said Father Payne. "Dear me, I had
forgotten that--did Tennyson say that?--Come--let's have it again!"
Barthrop repeated the lines again.
"Now, that's the gentlemanly ideal of the sixties," said Father Payne,
"and, good heavens, how offensive it sounds! The most curious part of it
really is 'the desire of fame'--of course, a hundred years ago, no one made
any secret of that! You remember Nelson's frank confession, made not once,
but many times, that he pursued glory, 'Defeat--or Westminster
Abbey'--didn't he say that?"
"But surely people pursue fame as much as ever?" said Vincent.
"I daresay," said Father Payne, "but it isn't now considered good taste to
say so. You have got to pretend, at all events, that you wish to benefit
humanity now-a-days. If a man had said to Ruskin or Carlyle, 'Why do you
write all these books?' and they replied, 'It is because of my desire for
fame,' it would have been thought vulgar. There's that odd story of Robert
Browning, when he received an ovation at Oxford, and someone said to him,
'I suppose you don't care about all this,' he said, 'It is what I have
waited for all my life!' I wonder if he _did_ say it! I think he must
have done, because it is exactly the sort of thing that one is supposed not
to say--and I confess I don't like it--it seems to me vain, and not proud,
I don't mind a kind of pride--I think a man ought to know what he is
worth: but I hate vanity. Perhaps that's only because I haven't been a
success myself."
"But mayn't you desire fame?" said Vincent. "It seems to me rather priggish
to condemn it!"
"Many fine things sound priggish when they are said," said Father Payne.
"But, to be frank, I don't think that a man ought to desire fame. I think
he may desire to do a thing well. I don't think he ought to desire to do it
better than other people. It is the wanting to beat other people which is
low. Why not wish them to do it well too?"
"You mean that the difference between pride and vanity lies there?" said
Barthrop.
"Yes, I do," said Father Payne, "and it is a pity that pride is included in
the deadly sins, because the word has changed its sense. Pride used to mean
the contempt of others--that's a deadly sin, if you like. It used to mean a
ghastly sort of self-satisfaction, arrived at by comparison of yourself
with others. But now to be called a proud man is a real compliment. It
means that a man can't condescend to anything mean or base. We ought all to
be proud--not proud _of_ anything, because that is vulgar, but ashamed
of doing anything which we know to be feeble or low. The Pharisee in the
parable was vain, not proud, because he was comparing himself with other
people. But it is all right to be grateful to God for having a sense of
decency, just as you may be grateful for having a sense of beauty. The
hatefulness of it comes in when you are secretly glad that other people
love indecency and ugliness."
"That is the exclusive feeling then?" said Barthrop.
"Yes, the bad kind of exclusiveness," said Father Payne--"the kind of
exclusiveness which ministers to self-satisfaction. And that is the fault
of the group when it becomes a coterie. The coterie means a set of inferior
people, bolstering up each other's vanity by mutual admiration. In a
coterie you purchase praise for your own bad work, by pretending to admire
the bad work of other people. But the real group is interested, not in each
other's fame, but in the common work."
"It seems to me confusing," said Vincent.
"Not a bit of it," said Father Payne; "we have to consider our limitations:
we are limited by time and space. You can't know everybody and love
everybody and admire everybody--and you can't sacrifice the joy and
happiness of real intimacy with a few for a diluted acquaintance with five
hundred people. But you mustn't think that your own group is the only
one--that is the bad exclusiveness--you ought to think that there are
thousands of intimate groups all over the world, which you could love just
as enthusiastically as you love your own, if you were inside them: and
then, apart from your own group, you ought to be prepared to find
reasonable and amiable and companionable people everywhere, and to be able
to put yourself in line with them. Why, good heavens, there are millions of
possible friends in the world! and one of my deepest and firmest hopes
about the next world, so to speak, is that there will be some chance of
communicating with them all at once, instead of shutting ourselves up in a
frowsy room like this, smelling of meat and wine. I don't deny you are very
good fellows, but if you think that you are the only fit and desirable
company in the world for me or for each other, I tell you plainly that you
are utterly mistaken. That's why I insist on your travelling about, to
avoid our becoming a coterie."
"Then it comes to this," said Vincent drily, "that you can't be inclusive,
and that you ought not to be exclusive?"
"Yes, that's exactly it!" said Father Payne. "You meant to shut me up with
one of our patent Oxford epigrams, I know--and, of course, it is deuced
smart! But put it the other way round, and it's all right. You can't help
being exclusive, and you must try to be inclusive--that's the truth, with
the Oxford tang taken out!"
We laughed at this, and Vincent reddened.
"Don't mind me, old man!" said Father Payne, "but try to make your epigrams
genial instead of contemptuous--inclusive rather than exclusive. They are
just as true, and the bitter flavour is only fit for the vitiated taste of
Dons." And Father Payne stretched out a large hand down the table, and
enclosed Vincent's in his own.
"Yes, it was a nasty turn," said Vincent, smiling, "I see what you mean."
"The world is a friendlier place than people know," said Father Payne. "We
have inherited a suspicion of the unknown and the unfamiliar. Don't you
remember how the ladies in _The Mill on the Floss_ mistrusted each
other's recipes, and ate dry bread in other houses rather than touch jam or
butter made on different methods. That is the old bad taint. But I think we
are moving in the right direction. I fancy that the awakening may be very
near, when we shall suddenly realise that we are all jolly good fellows,
and wonder that we have been so blind."
"A Roman Catholic friend of mine," said Rose--"he is a priest--told me that
he attended a clerical dinner the other day. The health of the Pope was
proposed, and they all got up and sang, 'For he's a jolly good fellow!'"
There was a loud laugh at this. "I like that," said Father Payne, "I like
their doing that! I expect that that is exactly what the Pope is! I should
dearly love to have a good long quiet talk with him! I think I could let in
a little light: and I should like to ask him if he enjoyed his fame, dear
old boy: and whether he was interested in his work! 'Why, Mr. Payne, it's
rather anxious work, you know, the care of all the churches'--I can hear
him saying--'but I rub along, and the time passes quickly! though, to be
sure, I'm not as young as I was once: and while I am on the subject, Mr.
Payne, you look to me to be getting on in years yourself!' And then I
should say 'Yes, your Holiness, I am a man that has seen trouble.' And he
would say, 'I'm sorry to hear that! Tell me all about it!' That's how we
should talk, like old friends, in a snug parlour in the Vatican, looking
out on the gardens!"