the line," said Vincent, "and when to
disregard the precept?"

"Ah," said Father Payne, "that's my great discovery, which no one else will
ever recognise--that is where the sense of beauty comes in!"

"I don't see that the sense of beauty has anything to do with morality,"
said Vincent.

"Ah, but that is because you are at heart a Puritan," said Father Payne;
"and the mistake of all Puritans is to disregard the sense of beauty--all
the really great saints have felt about morality as an artist feels about
beauty. They don't do good things because they are told to do them, but
because they feel them to be beautiful, splendid, attractive; and they
avoid having anything to do with evil things, because such things are ugly
and repellent."

"But when you have to do a thoroughly disagreeable thing," said Vincent,
"there often isn't anything beautiful about it either way. I'll give you a
small instance. Some months ago I had been engaged for a fortnight to go to
a thoroughly dull dinner-party with some dreary relations of mine, and a
man asked me to come and dine at his club and meet George Meredith, whom I
would have given simply anything to meet. Of course I couldn't do it--I had
to go on with the other thing. I had to do what I hated, without the
smallest hope of being anything but fearfully bored: and I had to give up
doing what would have interested me more than anything in the world. Of
course, that is only a small instance, but it will suffice."

"It all depends on how you behaved at your dinner-party when you got
there," said Father Payne, smiling; "were you sulky and cross, or were you
civil and decent?"

"I don't know," said Vincent; "I expect I was pretty much as usual. After
all, it wasn't their fault!"

"You are all right, my boy," said Father Payne; "you have got the sense of
beauty right enough, though you probably call it by some uncomfortable
name. I won't make you blush by praising you, but I give you a good mark
for the whole affair. If you had excused yourself, or asked to be let off,
or told a lie, it would have been ugly. What you did was in the best taste:
and that is what I mean. The ugly thing is to clutch and hold on. You did
more for yourself by being polite and honest than even George Meredith
could have done for you. What I mean by the sense of beauty, as applied to
morality, is that a man must be a gentleman first, and a moralist
afterwards, if he can. It is grabbing at your own sense of ri