Father Payne

Arthur Christopher Benson

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• Publié par: chios
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 37
• Langue: English

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Father Payne, by
Arthur Christopher Benson
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Title: Father Payne
Author: Arthur Christopher Benson
Release Date: May 4, 2004 [EBook #12264]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG
EBOOK FATHER PAYNE ***
Produced by David Newman and PG Distributed
Proofreaders. Produced from images provided by
the Million Book Project.FATHER PAYNE
By Arthur Christopher Benson
1915PREFACE
Often as I have thought of my old friend "Father
Payne," as we affectionately called him, I had
somehow never intended to write about him, or if I
did, it was "like as a dream when one awaketh," a
vision that melted away at the touch of common
life. Yet I always felt that his was one of those rich
personalities well worth depicting, if the attitude
and gesture with which he faced the world could be
caught and fixed. The difficulty was that he was a
man of ideas rather than of performance,
suggestive rather than active: and the whole
history of his experiment with life was evasive, and
even to ordinary views fantastic.
Besides, my own life has been a busy one, full of
hard ordinary work: it was not until the war gave
me, like many craftsmen, a most reluctant and
unwelcome space of leisure, that I ever had the
opportunity of considering the possibility of writing
this book. I am too old to be a combatant, and too
much of a specialist in literature to transmute my
activities. I lately found myself with my professional
occupations suddenly suspended, and moreover,
like many men who have followed a wholly peaceful
profession, plunged in a dark bewilderment as to
the onset of the forces governing the social life of
Europe. In the sad inactivity which followed, I set to
work to look through my old papers, for the sake of
distraction and employment, and found much
material almost ready for use, careful notes ofconversations, personal reminiscences, jottings of
characteristic touches, which seemed as if they
could be easily shaped. Moreover, the past
suddenly revived, and became eloquent and vivid. I
found in the beautiful memories of those glowing
days that I spent with Father Payne—it was only
three years—some consolation and
encouragement in my distress.
This little volume is the result. I am well aware that
the busy years which have intervened have taken
the edge off some of my recollections, while the
lapse of time has possibly touched others with a
sunset glow. That can hardly be avoided, and I am
not sure that I wish to avoid it.
I am not here concerned with either criticising or
endorsing Father Payne's views. I see both
inconsistencies and fallacies in them. I even detect
prejudices and misinterpretations of which I was
not conscious at the time. I have no wish to
idealise my subject unduly, but it is clear to me,
and I hope I have made it clear to others, that
Father Payne was a man who had a very definite
theory of life and faith, and who at all events lived
sincerely and even passionately in the light of his
beliefs. Moreover, when he came to put them to
the supreme test, the test of death, they did not
desert or betray him: he passed on his way
rejoicing.
He used, I remember, to warn us against
attempting too close an analysis of character. He
used to say that the consciousness of a man, theintuitive instinct which impelled him, his attack upon
experience, was a thing almost independent both
of his circumstances and of his reason. He used to
take his parable from the weaving of a tapestry,
and say that a box full of thread and a loom made
up a very small part of the process. It was the
inventive instinct of the craftsman, the faculty of
designing, that was all-important.
He himself was a man of large designs, but he
lacked perhaps the practical gift of embodiment. I
looked upon him as a man of high poetical powers,
with a great range of hopes and visions, but
without the technical accomplishment which lends
these their final coherence. He was fully aware of
this himself, but he neither regretted it nor
disguised it. The truth was that his interest in
existence was so intense, that he lacked the power
of self-limitation needed for an artistic success.
What, however, he gave to all who came in touch
with him, was a strong sense of the richness and
greatness of life and all its issues. He taught us to
approach it with no preconceived theories, no
fears, no preferences. He had a great mistrust of
conventional interpretation and traditional
explanations. At the same time he abhorred
controversy and wrangling. He had no wish to
expunge the ideals of others, so long as they were
sincerely formed rather than meekly received.
Though I have come myself to somewhat different
conclusions, he at least taught me to draw my own
inferences from my own experiences, without
either deferring to or despising the conclusions of
others.The charm of his personality lay in his
independence, his sympathy, his eager freshness
of view, his purity of motive, his perfect simplicity;
and it is all this which I have attempted to depict,
rather than to trace his theories, or to present a
philosophy which was always concrete rather than
abstract, and passionate rather than deliberate. To
use a homely proverb, Father Payne was a man
who filled his chair!
Of one thing I feel sure, and that is that wherever
Father Payne is, and whatever he may be doing—
for I have as absolute a conviction of the continued
existence of his fine spirit as I have of the present
existence of my own—he will value my attempt to
depict him as he was. I remember his telling me a
story of Dr. Johnson, how in the course of his last
illness, when he could not open his letters, he
asked Boswell to read them for him. Boswell
opened a letter from some person in the North of
England, of a complimentary kind, and thinking it
would fatigue Dr. Johnson to have it read aloud,
merely observed that it was highly in his praise. Dr.
Johnson at once desired it to be read to him, and
said with great earnestness, "The applause of a
single human being is of great consequence."
Father Payne added that it was one of Johnson's
finest sayings, and had no touch of vanity or self-
satisfaction in it, but the vital stuff of humanity.
That I believe to be profoundly true: and that is the
spirit in which I have set all this down.
September 30, 1915.CONTENTS
I. FATHER PAYNE II. AVELEY III. THE SOCIETY
IV. THE SUMMONS V. THE SYSTEM VI. FATHER
PAYNE VII. THE MEN VIII. THE METHOD IX.
FATHER PAYNE X. CHARACTERISTICS XI.
CONVERSATION XII. OF GOING TO CHURCH
XIII. OF NEWSPAPERS XIV. OF HATE XV. OF
WRITING XVI. OF MARRIAGE XVII. OF LOVING
GOD XVIII. OF FRIENDSHIP XIX. OF PHYLLIS
XX. OF CERTAINTY XXI. OF BEAUTY XXII. OF
WAR XXIII. OF CADS AND PHARISEES XXIV. OF
CONTINUANCE XXV. OF PHILANTHROPY XXVI.
OF FEAR XXVII. OF ARISTOCRACY XXVIII. OF
CRYSTALS XXIX. EARLY LIFE XXX. OF
BLOODSUCKERS XXXI. OF INSTINCTS XXXII.
OF HUMILITY XXXIII. OF MEEKNESS XXXIV. OF
CRITICISM XXXV. OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY
XXXVI. OF BIOGRAPHY XXXVII. OF
POSSESSIONS XXXVIII. OF LONELINESS
XXXIX. OF THE WRITER'S LIFE XL. OF WASTE
XLI. OF EDUCATION XLII. OF RELIGION XLIII.
OF CRITICS XLIV. OF WORSHIP XLV. OF A
CHANGE OF RELIGION XLVI. OF AFFECTION
XLVII. OF RESPECT OF PERSONS XLVIII. OF
AMBIGUITY XLIX. OF BELIEF L. OF HONOUR
LI. OF WORK LII. OF COMPANIONSHIP LIII. OF
MONEY LIV. OF PEACEABLENESS LV. OF LIFE-
FORCE LVI. OF CONSCIENCE LVII. OF RANK
LVIII. OF BIOGRAPHY LIX. OF EXCLUSIVENESS
LX. OF TAKING LIFE LXI. OF BOOKISHNESSLXII. OF CONSISTENCY LXIII. OF WRENS AND
LILIES LXIV. OF POSE LXV. OF REVENANTS
LXVI. OF DISCIPLINE LXVII. OF INCREASE
LXVIII. OF PRAYER LXIX. THE SHADOW LXX.
OF WEAKNESS LXXI. THE BANK OF THE RIVER
LXXII. THE CROSSING LXXIII. AFTER-
THOUGHTS LXXIV. DEPARTURE