“I wonder,” said Father Payne one day at dinner, “whether any nation’s proverbs are such a disgrace to them as our national proverbs are to us.  Ours are horribly Anglo-Saxon and characteristic.  They seem to me to have been all invented by a shrewd, selfish, complacent, suspicious old farmer, in a very small way of business, determined that he will not be over-reached, and equally determined, too, that he will take full advantage of the weakness of others.  ‘Charity begins at home,’ ’Possession is nine points of the law,’ ‘Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched,’ ‘When poverty comes in at the door, love flies out of the window.’  They are all equally disgraceful.  They deride all emotion, they despise imagination, they are unutterably low and hard, and what is called sensible; they are frankly unchristian as well as ungentlemanly.  No wonder we are called a nation of shopkeepers.”

“But aren’t we a great deal better than our proverbs?” said Barthrop:  “do they really express anything more than a contempt for weakness and sentiment?”

“Yes,” said Father Payne, “but I don’t like them any better for that.  Why should we be ashamed of all our better feelings?  I admit that we have a sense of justice; but that only means that we care for material possessions so much that we are afraid not to admit that others have the right to do the same.  The real obstacle to socialism in England is the sense of sanctity about a man’s savings.  The moment that a man has saved a few pounds, he agrees to any legislation that allows him to hold on to them.”

“But aren’t we, behind all that,” said Barthrop, “an intensely sentimental nation?”

“Yes,” said Father Payne, “but that’s a fault really - we don’t believe in real justice, only in picturesque justice.  We are hopeless individualists.  We melt into tears over a child that is lost, or a dog that howls; and we let all sorts of evil systems and arrangements grow and flourish.  We can’t think algebraically, only arithmetically.  We can be kind to a single case of hardship; we can’t take in a widespread system of oppression.  We are improving somewhat; but it is always the particular case that affects us, and not the general principle.”

“But to go back to our sense of possession,” I said, “is that really much more than a matter of climate?  Does it mean more than this, that we, in a temperate climate inclining to cold, need more elaborate houses and more heat-producing food than nations who live in warmer climates?  Are not the nations who live in warmer climates less attached to material things simply because they are less important?”

“There is something in that, no doubt,” said Father Payne.  “Of course, where nature is more hostile to life, men will have to work longer hours to support life than where ‘the spicy breezes blow soft o’er Ceylon’s isle.’  But it isn’t that of which I complain - it is the awful sense of respectability attaching to possessions, the hideous way in which we fill our houses with things which we do not want or use, just because they are a symbol of respectability.  We like hoarding, and we like luxuries, not because we enjoy them, but because we like other people to know that we can pay for them.  I do not imagine that there is any nation in the world whose hospitality differs so much from the mode in which people actually live as ours does.  In a sensible society, if we wanted to see our friends, we should ask them to bring their cold mutton round, and have a picnic.  What we do actually do is to have a meal which we can’t afford, and which our guests know is not in the least like our ordinary meals; and then we expect to be asked back to a similarly ostentatious banquet.”

“But isn’t there something,” said Barthrop, “in Dr. Johnson’s dictum, that a meal was good enough to eat, but not good enough to ask a man to?  Isn’t it a good impulse to put your best before a guest?”

“Oh, no doubt,” said Father Payne, “but there’s a want of simplicity about it if you only want to entertain people in order that they may see you do it, and not because you want to see them.  It’s vulgar, somehow - that’s what I suspect our nation of being.  Our inability to speak frankly of money is another sign.  We do money too much honour by being so reticent about it.  The fact is that it is the one sacred subject among us.  People are reticent about religion and books and art, because they are not sure that other people are interested in them.  But they are reticent about money as a matter of duty, because they are sure that everyone is deeply interested.  People talk about money with nods and winks and hints - those are all the signs of a sacred mystery!”

“Well, I wonder,” said Barthrop, “whether we are as base as you seem to think!”

“I will tell you when I will change my mind,” said Father Payne; “all the talk of noble aims and strong purposes will not deceive me.  What would convert me would be if I saw generous giving a custom so common that it hardly excited remark.  You see a few generous wills - but even then a will which leaves money to public purposes is generally commented upon; and it almost always means, too, if you look into it, that a man has had no near relations, and that he has stuck to his money and the power it gives him during his life.  If I could see a few cases of men impoverishing themselves and their families in their lifetime for public objects; if I saw evidence of men who have heaped up wealth content to let their children start again in the race, and determined to support the State rather than the family; if I could hear of a rich man’s children beseeching their father to endow the State rather than themselves, and being ready to work for a livelihood rather than to receive an inherited fortune; if I could hear of a few rich men living simply and handing out their money for general purposes, - then I would believe!  But none of these things is anything but a rare exception; a man who gives away his fortune, as Ruskin did, in great handfuls, is generally thought to be slightly crazy; and, speaking frankly, the worth of a man seems to depend not upon what he has given to the world, but upon what he has gained from the world.  You may say it is a rough test; - so it is!  But when we begin to feel that a man is foolish in hoarding and wise in lavishing, instead of being foolish in lavishing and wise in hoarding, then, and not till then, shall I believe that we are a truly great nation.  At present the man whom we honour most is the man who has been generous to public necessities, and has yet retained a large fortune for himself.  That is the combination which we are not ashamed to admire.”