Someone said rashly, after dinner to-night, that the one detestable and
unpardonable thing in a man was pose. A generalisation of this kind acted
on Father Payne very often like a ferret on a rabbit. He had been
mournfully abstracted during dinner, shaking his head slowly, and turning
his eyes to heaven when he was asked leading questions. But now he said: "I
don't think that is reasonable--you might as well say that you always
disliked length in a book. A book has got to be some length--it is as short
as it's long. Of course, the moment you begin to say, 'How long this book
is!' you mean that it is too long, and excess is a fault. Do you remember
the subject proposed in a school debating society, 'That too much athletics
is worthy of our admiration'? Pose is like that--when you become conscious
of pose it is generally disagreeable--that is, if it is meant to deceive:
but it is often amusing too, like the pose of the unjust judge in the
parable, who prefaces his remarks by saying, 'Though I fear not God,
neither regard man.'"
"Oh, but you know what I mean, Father," said the speaker, "the pose of
knowing when you don't know, and being well-bred when you are snobbish, and
being kind when you are mean, and so on."
"I think you mean humbug rather than pose," said Father Payne; "but even
so, I don't agree with you. I have a friend who would be intolerable, but
for his pose of being agreeable. He isn't agreeable, and he doesn't feel
agreeable; but he behaves as if he was, and it is the only thing that makes
him bearable. What you really mean is the pose of superiority--the man
whose motives are always just ahead of your own, and whose taste is always
slightly finer, and who knows the world a little better. But there is a lot
of pose that isn't that. What _is_ pose, after all? Can anyone define
it?"
"It's an artist's phrase, I think," said Barthrop; "it means a position in
which you look your best."
"Like the Archbishop who was always painted in a gibbous attitude--first
quarter, you know--with his back turned to you, and his face just visible
over his lawn sleeve," said Father Payne, "but that was in order to hide an
excrescence on his left cheek. Do you remember what Lamb said of Barry
Cornwall's wen on the nape of his neck? Some one said that Barry Cornwall
was thinking of having it cut off. 'I hope he won't do that,' said Lamb, 'I
rather like it--it's redundant, like his poetry!' I rather agree with Lamb.
I like people to be a little redundant, and a harmless pose is pure
redundancy: it only means that a man is up to some innocent game or other,
some sort of mystification, and is enjoying himself. It's like a summer
haze over the landscape. Now, there's another friend of mine who was once
complimented on his 'uplifted' look. Whenever he thinks of it, and that's
pretty often, he looks uplifted, like a bird drinking, with his eyes fixed
on some far-off vision. I don't mind that! It's only a wish to look his
best. It's partly a wish to give pleasure, you know. It's the same thing
that makes people wear their hair long, or dress in a flamboyant way. I'll
tell you a little story. You know Bertie Nash, the artist. I met him once
in a Post Office, and he was buying a sheet of halfpenny stamps. I asked
him if he was going to send out some circulars. He looked at me sadly, and
said, 'No, I always use these--I can't use the penny stamps--such a crude
red!' Now, he didn't do that to impress me: but it was a pose in a way, and
he liked feeling so sensitive to colour."
"But oughtn't one to avoid all that sort of nonsense?" said some one; "it's
better surely to be just what you are."
"Yes, but what _are_ you, after all?" said Father Payne; "your moods
vary. It would be hopeless if everyone tried to keep themselves down to
their worst level for the sake of sincerity. The point is that you ought to
try to keep at your best level, even if you don't feel so. Hang it, good
manners are a pose, if it comes to that. The essence of good manners is
sometimes to conceal what you are feeling. Is it a pose to behave amiably
when you are tired or cross?"
"No, but that is in order not to make other people uncomfortable," said
Vincent.
"Well, it's very hard to draw the line," said Father Payne: "but what we
really mean by pose is, I imagine, the attempt to appear to be something
which you frankly are not--and that is where the word has changed its
sense, Barthrop. An artist's pose is something characteristic, which makes
a man look his best. What we generally mean by pose is the affecting a best
which one never reaches. Come, tell a story, some one! That's the best way
to get at a quality. Won't some one quote an illustration?"
"What about my friend Pearce, the schoolmaster?" said Vincent. "He read a
book about schoolmastering, and he said he didn't think much of it. He
added that the author seemed only to be giving elegant reasons for doing
things which the born schoolmaster did by instinct."
"Well, that's not a bad criticism," said Father Payne; "but it was pose if
he meant to convey that _he_ was a born schoolmaster. Is he one, by
the way?"
"No," said Vincent, "he is not: he is much ragged by the boys; but he
comforts himself by thinking that all schoolmasters are ragged, but that he
is rather more successful than most in dealing with it. He has a great deal
of moral dignity, has Pearce! I don't know where he would be without it!"
"Well, there's an instance," said Father Payne, "of a pose being of some
use. I think a real genuine pose often makes a man do better work in the
world than if he was drearily conscious of failure. It's a game, you
know--a dramatic game: and I think it's a sign of vitality and interest to
want to have a game. It's like the lawyer's clerk in _Our Mutual
Friend_, when Mr. Boffin calls to keep an appointment, being the
lawyer's only client; but the boy makes a show of looking it all up in a
ledger, runs his finger down a list of imaginary consultants, and says to
himself, 'Mr. Aggs, Mr. Baggs, Mr. Caggs, Mr. Daggs, Mr. Boffin--Yes, sir,
that is right!' Now there's no harm in that sort of thing--it's only a bit
of moral dignity, as Vincent says. It's no good acquiescing in being a
humble average person--we must do better than that! Most people believe in
themselves in spite of abundant evidence to the contrary--but it's better
than disbelieving in yourself. That's abject, you know."
"But if you accept the principle of pose," said Lestrange, "I don't see
that you can find fault with any pose."
"You might as well say," said Father Payne, "that if I accept the principle
of drinking alcohol, it doesn't matter how much I drink! Almost all
morality is relative--in fact, it is doubtful if it is ever absolute. The
mischief of pose is not when it makes a man try to be or to appear at his
best: but when a man lives a thoroughly unreal life, taking a high line in
theory and never troubling about practice, then it's incredible to what
lengths self-deception can go. Dr. Johnson said that he looked upon himself
as a polite man! It is quite easy to get to believe yourself impeccable in
certain points: and as one gets older, and less assailable, and less liable
to be pulled up and told the hard truth, it is astonishing how serenely you
can sail along. But that isn't pose exactly. It generally begins by a pose,
and becomes simple imperviousness; and that is, after all, the danger of
pose,--that it makes people blind to the truth about themselves."
"I'm getting muddled," said Vincent.
"It _is_ rather muddling," said Father Payne, "but, in a general way,
the point is this. When pose is a deliberate attempt to deceive other
people for your own credit, it is detestable. But when it is merely
harmless drama, to add to the interest of life and to retain your own
self-respect, it's an amiable foible, and need not be discouraged. The real
question is whether it is assumed seriously, or whether it is all a sort of
joke. We all like to play our little games, and I find it very easy to
forgive a person who enjoys dressing up, so to speak, and making remarks in
character. Come, I'll confess my sins in public. If I meet a stranger in
the roads, I rather like to be thought a bluff and hearty English squire,
striding about my broad acres. I prefer that to being thought a retired
crammer, a dominie who keeps a school and calls it an academy, as Lord
Auchinleck said of Johnson. But if I pretended in this house to be a kind
of abbot, and glided about in a cassock with a gold cross round my neck,
conferring a benediction on everyone, and then retired to my room to read a
French novel and to drink whisky-and-soda, that would be a very unpleasant
pose indeed!"
We all implored Father Payne to adopt it, and he said he would give it his
serious consideration.