by George Moore
‘I wished to make my correspondent’s acquaintance,’ Father O’Grady murmured; ‘and there is much that it is difficult to put down on paper without creating a wrong impression, whereas in talk one is present to rectify any mistakes one may drop into. I am thinking now of the last subject dealt with in our correspondence, that I should have informed myself regarding Mr. Poole’s writing before I consented to allow Nora Glynn to accept the post of secretary.’
‘You must forgive me, Father O’Grady,’ Father Oliver cried.
‘There is nothing to forgive, Father Oliver; but this criticism surprised me, for you have known Miss Nora Glynn longer than I have, and it seems strange that you should have forgotten already her steadfastness. Nothing that I could have said would have availed, and it seems to me that you were mistaken in asking me to urge Miss Glynn to decline the chance of improving her circumstances. I could not compel Miss Glynn even if I had wished to compel her. But we have discussed that question; let it pass.’
‘All the same,’ Father Oliver interjected, ‘if one sees a woman going into danger, surely one may warn her. A word of warning dropped casually is sometimes effective.’
‘But it is fatal to insist,’ Father O’Grady remarked; ‘and one should not try to bar the way — that is my experience at least.’
‘Well, your experiences are longer than mine, Father O’Grady, I submit. The mistake I made will certainly not be repeated. But since hearing from you I’ve heard from Miss Glynn, and the remarks she makes in her letters about Mr. Poole’s literary work, unless indeed he be a Catholic, alarm me.’
‘Biblical criticism is not a Catholic characteristic,’ Father O’Grady answered. ‘So Miss Glynn has written to you?’
‘Yes, but nothing definite about Mr. Poole’s work — nothing definite. Do you know anything, Father O’Grady, about this man’s writing? What is his reputation in the literary world?’
‘I’ve heard a great deal about him,’ Father O’Grady answered. ‘I’ve made inquiries and have read some of Mr. Poole’s books, and have seen them reviewed in the newspapers; I’ve heard his opinions discussed, and his opinions are anti-Christian, inasmuch as he denies the divinity of our Lord.’
‘Could anybody be more anti-Christian than that?’ Father Oliver asked.
‘Yes, very much more,’ Father O’Grady replied. ‘There have always been people, and their number is increasing, who say that Christianity is not only untruthful but, what is worse, a great evil, having set men one against the other, creating wars innumerable. Millions have owed their deaths to tortures they have received because they differed regarding some trifling passage in Scripture. There can be no doubt of that, but it is equally true that Christianity has enabled many more millions to live as much from a practical point of view as from a spiritual. If Christianity had not been a necessity it would not have triumphed;’ and Father O’Grady continued to speak of Mr. Poole’s historical accounts of the history of the rise and influence of Christianity till Father Oliver interrupted him, crying out:
‘And it is with that man her life will henceforth be passed, reading the books he reads and writes, and, what is worse, listening to his insidious conversation, to his subtle sophistries, for, no doubt, he is an eloquent and agreeable talker.’
‘You think, then,’ Father O’Grady said, ‘that a Christian forfeits his faith if he inquires?’
‘No, if I thought that I should cease to be a Christian. She is not inquiring the matter out of her own account; she is an enforced listener, and hears only one side. Every day a plausible account is being poured into her ears, and her circumstances are such as would tempt her to give a willing ear to Mr. Poole’s beliefs that God has not revealed his existence, and that we are free to live as we please, nature being our only guide. I cannot imagine a young woman living in a more dangerous atmosphere than this.
‘All you tell me, Father O’Grady, frightens me. I discovered my suspicions to you in my letters, but I can express myself better in talking than on paper — far better. It is only now that I realize how wrongly I acted towards this young woman. I was frightened in a measure before, but the reality of my guilt has never appeared so distinctly to me till now. You have revealed it to me, and I’m thinking now of what account I could give to God were I to die to-morrow. “Thou hast caused a soul to be lost,” he would say. “The sins of the flesh are transitory like the flesh, the sins of the faith are deeper,” may be God’s judgment. Father O’Grady, I’m frightened, frightened; my fear is great, and at this moment I feel like a man on his deathbed. My agony is worse, for I’m in good health and can see clearly, whereas the dying man understands little. The senses numb as death approaches.’
‘Have you spoken of the mistake you made in confession, Father Oliver?’
‘No, why should I?’ he answered, ‘for none here would understand me. But I’ll confess to you. You may have been sent to hear me. Who knows? Who can say?’ and he dropped on his knees crying: ‘Can I be forgiven if that soul be lost to God? Tell me if such a sin can be forgiven?’
‘We must not fall into the sin of despair,’ Father O’Grady answered. And he murmured the Latin formula Absolve te, etc., making the sign of the cross over the head of his penitent. For a while after the priests knelt together in prayer, and it was with a feeling that his burden had been lifted from him that Father Oliver rose from his knees, and, subdued in body and mind, stood looking through the room, conscious of the green grass showing through his window, lighted by a last ray of the setting sun. It was the wanness of this light that put the thought into his mind that it would soon be time to send round to the stables for his visitor’s car. His visitor! That small, frail man sitting in his armchair would soon be gone, carrying with him this, Father Oliver’s, confession. What had he confessed? Already he had forgotten, and both men stood face to face thinking of words wherewith they might break the silence.
‘I do not know,’ Father O’Grady said, ‘that I altogether share your fear that an anti-Christian atmosphere necessarily implies that the Catholic who comes into it will lose her faith, else faith would not be a pure gift from God. God doesn’t overload his creatures unbearably, nor does he put any stress upon them from which they cannot extricate themselves. I could cite many instances of men and women whose faith has been strengthened by hostile criticism; the very arguments that have been urged against their faith have forced them to discover other arguments, and in this way they have been strengthened in their Catholic convictions.’ And to Father Oliver’s question if he discerned any other influence except an intellectual influence in Mr. Poole, he answered that he had not considered this side of the question.
‘I don’t know what manner of man he is in his body,’ said Father Oliver, ‘but his mind is more dangerous. An intellectual influence is always more dangerous than a sensual influence, and the sins of faith are worse than the sins of the flesh. I never thought of him as a possible seducer. But there may be that danger too. I still think, Father O’Grady, that you might have warned Nora of her danger. Forgive me; I’m sure you did all that was necessary. You do forgive me?’
The men’s eyes met, and Father O’Grady said, as if he wished to change the subject:
‘You were born at Tinnick, were you not?’
‘Yes, I was born in Tinnick,’ Father Oliver repeated mechanically, almost as if he had not heard the question.
‘And your sisters are nuns?’
‘Yes, yes.’
‘Tell me how it all came about.’
‘How all what came about?’ Father Oliver asked, for he was a little dazed and troubled in his mind, and was, therefore, easily led to relate the story of the shop in Tinnick, his very early religious enthusiasms, and how he remembered himself always as a pious lad. On looking into the years gone by, he said that he saw himself more often than not by his bedside rapt in innocent little prayers. And afterwards at school he had been considered a pious lad. He rambled on, telling his story almost unconsciously, getting more thou
ghtful as he advanced into it, relating carefully the absurd episode of the hermitage in which, to emulate the piety of the old time, he chose Castle Island as a suitable spot for him to live in.
Father O’Grady listened, seriously moved by the story; and Father Oliver continued it, telling how Eliza, coming to see the priest in him, gave up her room to him as soon as their cousin the Bishop was consulted. And it was at this point of the narrative that Father O’Grady put a question.
‘Was no attempt,’ he asked, ‘made to marry you to some girl with a big fortune?’
And Father Oliver told of his liking for Annie McGrath and of his aversion for marriage, acquiescing that aversion might be too strong a word; indifference would more truthfully represent him.
‘I wasn’t interested in Annie McGrath nor in any woman as far as I can remember until this unfortunate conduct of mine awakened an interest in Nora Glynn. And it would be strange, indeed, if it hadn’t awakened an interest in me,’ he muttered to himself. Father O’Grady suppressed the words that rose up in his mind, ‘Now I’m beginning to understand.’ And Father Oliver continued, like one talking to himself: ‘I’m thinking that I was singularly free from all temptations of the sensual life, especially those represented by womankind. I was ordained early, when I was twenty-two, and as soon as I began to hear confessions, the things that surprised me the most were the stories relating to those passionate attachments that men experience for women and women for men — attachments which sometimes are so intense that if the sufferer cannot obtain relief by the acquiescence of the object of their affections, he, if it be he, she, if it be she, cannot refrain from suicide. There have been cases of men and women going mad because their love was not reciprocated, and I used to listen to these stories wonderingly, unable to understand, bored by the relation.’
If Father Oliver had looked up at that moment, Father O’Grady’s eyes would have told him that he had revealed himself, and that perhaps Father O’Grady now knew more about him than he knew himself. But without withdrawing his eyes from the fire he continued talking till Catherine’s step was heard outside.
‘She’s coming to lay the cloth for our tea,’ Father Oliver said. And Father O’Grady answered:
‘I shall be glad of a cup of tea.’
‘Must you really go after tea?’ Father Oliver asked; and again he begged Father O’Grady to stay for dinner. But Father O’Grady, as if he felt that the object of his visit had been accomplished, spoke of the drive back to Tinnick and of the convenience of the branch line of railway. It was a convenience certainly, but it was also an inconvenience, owing to the fact that the trains run from Tinnick sometimes missed the mail train; and this led Father Oliver to speak of the work he was striving to accomplish, the roofing of Kilronan Abbey, and many other things, and the time passed without their feeling it till the car came round to take Father O’Grady away.
‘He goes as a dream goes,’ Father Oliver said, and a few minutes afterwards he was sitting alone by his turf fire, asking himself in what dreams differed from reality. For like a dream Father O’Grady had come and he had gone, never to return. ‘But does anything return?’ he asked himself, and he looked round his room, wondering why the chairs and tables did not speak to him, and why life was not different from what it was. He could hear Catherine at work in the kitchen preparing his dinner, she would bring it to him as she had done yesterday, he would eat it, he would sit up smoking his pipe for a while, and about eleven o’clock go to his bed. He would lie down in it, and rise and say Mass and see his parishioners. All these things he had done many times before, and he would go on doing them till the day of his death — Until the day of my death,’ he repeated, ‘never seeing her again, never seeing him. Why did he come here?’ And he was surprised that he could find no answer to any of the questions that he put to himself. ‘Nothing will happen again in my life — nothing of any interest. This is the end! And if I did go to London, of what should I speak to him? It will be better to try to forget it all, and return, if I can, to the man I was before I knew her;’ and he stood stock still, thinking that without this memory he would not be himself.
Father O’Grady’s coming had been a pleasure to him, for they had talked together; he had confessed to him; had been shriven. At that moment he caught sight of a newspaper upon his table. ‘Illustrated England,’ he muttered, his thoughts half away; and he fell to wondering how it had come into the house. ‘Father O’Grady must have left it,’ he said, and began to unroll the paper. But while unrolling it he stopped. Half his mind was still away, and he sat for fully ten minutes lost in sad sensations, and it was the newspaper slipping from his hand that awoke him. The first thing that caught his eye on opening the paper was an interview with Mr. Walter Poole, embellished with many photographs of Beechwood Hall.
‘Did O’Grady leave this paper here for me to read,’ he asked himself, ‘or did he forget to take it away with him? We talked of so many things that he may have forgotten it, forgotten even to mention it. How very strange!’
The lodge gates and the long drive, winding between different woods, ascending gradually to the hilltop on which Beechwood Hall was placed by an early eighteenth-century architect, seemed to the priest to be described with too much unction by the representative of Illustrated England. To the journalist Beechwood Hall stood on its hill, a sign and symbol of the spacious leisure of the eighteenth century and the long tradition that it represented, one that had not even begun to drop into decadence till 1850, a tradition that still existed, despite the fact that democracy was finding its way into the agricultural parts of England. The journalist was impressed, perhaps unduly impressed, by the noble hall and the quiet passages that seemed to preserve a memory of the many generations that had passed through them on different errands, now all hushed in the family vault.
Father Oliver looked down the column rapidly, and it was not until the footman who admitted the journalist was dismissed by the butler, who himself conducted the journalist to the library, that Father Oliver said: ‘We have at last arrived at the castle of learning in which the great Mr. Poole sits sharpening the pen which is to slay Christianity. But Christianity will escape Mr. Poole’s pen. It, has outlived many such attacks in the past. We shall see, however, what kind of nib he uses, fine or blunt?’ The journalist followed the butler down the long library overlooking green sward to a quiet nook, if he might venture to speak of Mr. Walter Poole’s study as a quiet nook. It seemed to surprise him that Mr. Walter Poole should rise from his writing-table and come forward to meet him, and he expressed his gratitude to Mr. Walter Poole, whose time was of great importance, for receiving him. And after all this unction came a flattering description of Mr. Walter Poole himself.
He was, in the interviewer’s words, a young man, tall and clean-shaven, with a high nose which goes well with an eye-glass. The chin is long and drops straight; his hair is mustard-coloured and glossy, and it curls very prettily about the broad, well-shapen forehead. He is reserved at first, and this lends a charm to the promise, which is very soon granted you, of making the acquaintance with the thoughts and ideas which have interested Mr. Walter Poole since boyhood — in fine, which have given him his character. If he seems at first sight to conceal himself from you, it is from shyness, or because he is reluctant to throw open his mind to the casual curious. Why should he not keep his mind for his own enjoyment and for the enjoyment of his friends, treating it like his pleasure grounds or park? His books are not written for the many but for the few, and he does not desire a larger audience than those with whom he is in natural communion from the first, and this without any faintest appearance of affectation.
‘I suppose it isn’t fair,’ the priest said, ‘to judge a man through his interviewer; but if this interviewer doesn’t misrepresent Mr. Walter Poole, Mr. Walter Poole is what is commonly known as a very superior person. He would appear from this paper,’ the priest said, ‘to be a man between thirty and forty, not many years older than myself.’ The priest’s tho
ughts floated away back into the past, and, returning suddenly with a little start to the present, he continued reading the interview, learning from it that Mr. Walter Poole’s conversation was usually gentle, like a quiet river, and very often, like a quiet river, it rushed rapidly when Mr. Walter Poole became interested in his subject.
‘How very superior all this is,’ the priest said. ‘The river of thought in him,’ the interviewer continued, ’is deep or shallow, according to the need of the moment. If, for instance, Mr. Walter Poole is asked if he be altogether sure that it is wise to disturb people in their belief in the traditions and symbols that have held sway for centuries, he will answer quickly that if truth lies behind the symbols and traditions, it will be in the interest of the symbols and traditions to inquire out the truth, for blind belief — in other words, faith — is hardly a merit, or if it be a merit it is a merit that cannot be denied to the savages who adore idols. But the civilized man is interested in his history, and the Bible deserves scientific recognition, for it has a history certainly and is a history. “We are justified, therefore,” Mr. Walter Poole pleaded, “in seeking out the facts, and the search is conducted as much in the interests of theology as of science; for though history owes nothing to theology, it cannot be denied that theology owes a great deal to history.”’
‘He must have thought himself very clever when he made that remark to the interviewer,’ the priest muttered; and he walked up and down his room, thinking of Nora Glynn living in this unchristian atmosphere.
He picked up the paper again and continued reading, for he would have to write to Nora about Father O’Grady’s visit and about the interview in Illustrated England.
The interviewer inquired if Mr. Walter Poole was returning to Palestine, and Mr. Walter Poole replied that there were many places that he would like to revisit, Galilee, for instance, a country that St. Paul never seemed to have visited, which, to say the least, was strange. Whereupon a long talk began about Paul and Jesus, Mr. Walter Poole maintaining that Paul’s teaching was identical with that of Jesus, and that Peter was a clown despised by Paul and Jesus.
