Remember, reader, that this letter was written by the last great English
writer, by the author of "Imaginary Portraits," the most beautiful of
all prose books. I should like to break off and tell of my delight in
reading "Imaginary Portraits," but I have told my delight elsewhere; go,
seek out what I have said in the pages of the _Pall Mall Magazine_ for
August 1904, for here I am obliged to tell you of myself. I give you
Pater's letter, for I wish you to read this book with reverence; never
forget that Pater's admiration has made this book a sacred book. Never
forget that.
My special pleasure in these early pages was to find that I thought
about Pater twenty years ago as I think about him now, and shall
certainly think of him till time everlasting, world without end. I have
been accused of changing my likes and dislikes--no one has changed less
than I, and this book is proof of my fidelity to my first ideas; the
ideas I have followed all my life are in this book--dear crescent moon
rising in the south-east above the trees at the end of the village
green. It was in that ugly but well-beloved village on the south coast I
discovered my love of Protestant England. It was on the downs that the
instinct of Protestantism lit up in me.
But when Zola asked me why I preferred Protestantism to Roman
Catholicism I could not answer him.
He had promised to write a preface for the French translation of the
"Mummer's Wife"; the translation had to be revised, months and months
passed away, and forgetting all about the "Mummer's Wife," I expressed
my opinion about Zola, which had been changing, a little too
fearlessly, and in view of my revolt he was obliged to break his promise
to write a Preface, and this must have been a great blow, for he was a
man of method, to whom any change of plan was disagreeable and
unnerving. He sent a letter, asking me to come to Medan, he would talk
to me about the "Confessions." Well do I remember going there with dear
Alexis in the May-time, the young corn six inches high in the fields,
and my delight in the lush luxuriance of the l'Oise. That dear morning
is remembered, and the poor master who reproved me a little
sententiously, is dead. He was sorrowful in that dreadful room of his,
fixed up with stained glass and morbid antiquities. He lay on a sofa
lecturing me till breakfast. Then I thought reproof was over, but after
a walk in the garden we went upstairs and he began again, saying he was
not angry. "It is the law of nature," he said, "for children to devour
their parents. I do not complain." I think he was aware he was playing a
part; his sofa was his stage; and he lay there theatrical as Leo XI. or
Beerbohm Tree, saying that the Roman Church was an artistic church, that
its rich externality and ceremonial were pagan. But I think he knew even
then, at the back of his mind, that I was right; that is why he pressed
me to give reasons for my preference. Zola came to hate Catholicism as
much as I, and his hatred was for the same reason as mine; we both
learnt that any religion which robs a man of the right of free-will and
private judgment degrades the soul, renders it lethargic and timid,
takes the edge off the intellect. Zola lived to write "that the Catholic
countries are dead, and the clergy are the worms in the corpses." The
observation is "quelconque"; I should prefer the more interesting
allegation that since the Reformation no born Catholic has written a
book of literary value! He would have had to concede that some converts
have written well; the convert still retains a little of his ancient
freedom, some of the intellectual virility he acquired elsewhere, but
the born Catholic is still-born. But however we may disapprove of
Catholicism, we can still admire the convert. Cardinal Manning was aware
of the advantages of a Protestant bringing up, and he often said that he
was glad he had been born a Protestant. His Eminence was, therefore, of
opinion that the Catholic faith should be reserved, and exclusively, for
converts, and in this he showed his practical sense, for it is easy to
imagine a country prosperous in which all the inhabitants should be
brought up Protestants or agnostics, and in which conversions to Rome
are only permitted after a certain age or in clearly defined
circumstances. There would be something beyond mere practical wisdom in
such law-giving, an exquisite sense of the pathos of human life and its
requirements; scapulars, indulgences and sacraments are needed by the
weak and the ageing, sacraments especially. "They make you believe but
they stupefy you;" these words are Pascal's, the great light of the
Catholic Church.