I was sitting in the garden one evening in summer with Father Payne and
Barthrop. Barthrop was going off next day to Oxford, and was trying to
persuade Father Payne to come too.
"No," he said, "I simply couldn't! Oxford is the city east of the sun and
west of the moon--like as a dream when one awaketh! I don't hold with
indulging fruitless sentiment, particularly about the past."
"But isn't it rather a pity?" said Barthrop. "After all, most emotions are
useless, if you come to that! Why should you cut yourself off from a place
you are so fond of, and which is quite the most beautiful place in England
too? Isn't it rather--well,--weak?"
"Yes," said Father Payne, "it's weak, no doubt! That is to say, if I were
differently made, more hard-hearted, more sure of myself, I should go, and
I should enjoy myself, and moon about, and bore you to death with old
stories about the chimes at midnight--everybody would be a dear old boy or
a good old soul, and I should hand out tips, and get perfectly maudlin in
the evenings over a glass of claret. That's the normal thing, no
doubt--that's what a noble-minded man in a novel of Thackeray's would do!"
"Well," said Barthrop, "you know best--but I expect that if you did take
the plunge and go there, you would find yourself quite at ease."
"I might," said Father Payne; "but then I also might not--and I prefer not
to risk it. You see, it would be merely wallowing in sentiment--and I don't
approve of sentiment. I want my emotions to live with, not to bathe in!"
"But you don't mind going back to London," said Barthrop.
"No," said Father Payne, "but that bucks me up. I was infernally unhappy in
London, and it puts me in a thoroughly sensible and cheerful mood to go and
look at the outside of my old lodgings, and the place where I used to
teach, and to say to myself, 'Thank God, that's all over!' Then I go on my
way rejoicing, and make no end of plans. But if I went to Oxford, I should
just remember how happy and young I was; and I might even commit the folly
of regretting the lapse of time, and of wishing I could have it back again.
I don't think it is wholesome to do anything which makes one discontented,
or anything which forces one to dwell on what one has lost. That doesn't
matter. Nothing really is ever lost, and it only takes the starch out of
one to think about it from that angle. I don't believe in the past. It
seems unalterable, and I suppose in a sense it is so. But if you begin to
dwell on unalterable things, you become a fatalist, and I'm always trying
to get away from that. The point is that no one is unalterable, and, thank
God, we are always altering. To potter about in the past is like grubbing
in an ash-heap, and shedding tears over broken bits of china. The plate, or
whatever it is, was pretty enough, and it had its place and its use; and
when the stuff of which it is made is wanted again, it will be used again.
It is simply fatuous to waste time over the broken pieces of old dreams and
visions; and I mean to use my emotions and my imagination to see new dreams
and finer visions. Perhaps the time will come when I can dream no more--the
brain gets tired and languid, no doubt. But even then I shall try to be
interested in what is going on."
"I see your point," said Barthrop; "but, for the life of me, I can't see
why the old place should not take its part in the new visions! When I go
down to Oxford I don't regret it. I go gratefully and happily about, and I
like to see the young men as jolly as I was, and as unaware what a good
time they are having. An old pal of mine is a Don, and he puts me up in
College, and it amuses me to go into Hall, and to see some of the young
lions at close quarters. It's all pure and simple refreshment."
"I've no doubt of it, old man," said Father Payne; "and it's an excellent
thing for you to go, and to draw fresh life from the ancient earth, like
Antaeus. But I'm not made that way. I'm not loyal--that is to say, I am not
faithful to things simply because I once admired and loved them. If you are
loyal in the right way, as you are, it's different. But these old
attachments are a kind of idolatry to me--a false worship. I'm naturally
full of unreasonable devotion to the old and beautiful things; but they get
round my neck like a mill-stone, and it is all so much more weight that I
have to carry. I sometimes go to see an old cousin of mine, a widow in the
country, who lives entirely in the past, never allows anything to be
changed in the house, never talks about anyone who isn't dead or ill. The
woman's life is simply buried under old memories, mountains of old china,
family plate, receipts for jam and marmalade--everything has got to be done
as it was in the beginning. Now most of her friends think that very
beautiful and tender, and talk of the old-world atmosphere of the place;
but I think it simply a stuffy waste of time. I don't tell her so--God
forbid! But I feel that she is lolling in an arbour by the roadside instead
of getting on. It's innocent enough, but it does not seem to me beautiful."
"But I still don't see why you give way to the feeling," said Barthrop.
"I'm sure that if I felt as you do about Oxford, or any other place, you
would tell me it was my duty to conquer it."
"Very likely!" said Father Payne. "But doctors don't feel bound to take
their own prescriptions! Everyone must decide for himself, and I know that
I should fall under the luxurious enchantment. I should go into cheap
raptures, I should talk about 'the tender grace of a day that is
dead'--it's no use putting your head in a noose to see what being strangled
feels like."
"But do you apply that to everything," I said, "old friendships, old
affections, old memories? They seem to me beautiful, and harmlessly
beautiful."
"Well, if you can use them up quite freshly, and make a poetical dish out
of them, for present consumption, I don't mind," said Father Payne. "But
that isn't my way--I'm not robust enough. It's all I can do to take things
in as they come along. Of course an old memory sometimes goes through one
like a sword, but I pull it out as quick as I can, and cast it away. I am
not going to dance with Death if I can help it! I have got my job cut out
for me, and I am not going to be hampered by old rubbish. Mind you, I don't
say that it was rubbish at the time; but I have no use for anything that I
can't use. Sentiment seems to me like letting valuable steam off. The
people I have loved are all there still, whether they are dead or alive.
They did a bit of the journey with me, and I enjoyed their company, and I
shall enjoy it again, if it so comes about. But we have to live our life,
and we can't keep more than a certain number of things in mind--that is an
obvious limitation. Do you remember the old fairy story of the man who
carried a magic goose, and everyone who touched it, or touched anyone who
touched it, could not leave go, with the result that there was a long train
of helpless people trotting about behind the man. I don't want to live like
that, with a long train of old memories and traditions and friendships and
furniture trailing helplessly behind me. My business is with my present
circle, my present work, and I can't waste my strength in drawing about
vehicles full of goods. If anyone wants me, here I am, and I will do my
best to meet his wishes; but I am not going to be frightened by words like
loyalty into pretending that I am going to stagger along carrying the whole
of my past. No, my boy," said Father Payne, turning to Barthrop, "you go to
Oxford, and enjoy yourself! But the old place is too tight about my heart
for me to put my nose into it. I'm a free man, and I am not going to be in
bondage to my old fancies. You may give my love to Corpus and to Wadham
Garden--it's all dreadfully bewitching--but I'm not going to run the risk
of falling in love with the phantom of the past--that's _La Belle Dame
Sans Merci_ for me, and I'm riding on--I'm riding on. I won't have the
hussy on my horse.
"I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sideways would she lean, and sing
A faery's song.
She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild and manna dew.
And sure in language strange she said,
'I love thee true,'"
He stopped a moment, as he often did when he made a quotation, overcome
with feeling. Then he smiled, and added half to himself, "No; I should say,
as Dr. Johnson said to the lady in Fleet Street; 'No, no; it won't do, my
girl!'"