out
the power of retiring within myself, or solitary confinement for life, I
should say, "Turnkey, lock the cell!"' Companionship doesn't seem to me the
normal thing. Solitude is the normal thing, with a few bits of talk thrown
in, like meals, for refreshment. But you can't lay down rules for people
about it. Some people are simply gregarious, and twitter together like
starlings in a shrubbery: that isn't talk--it's only a series of signals
and exclamations. The danger of solitude is that the machinery runs just as
you wish it to run--and that wears it out."

"But isn't your whole idea of talk rather strenuous--a little artificial?"
said Vincent.

"Not more so than fixed meals," said Father Payne, "or regular exercise.
But, of course silent companionship is the greatest boon of all. I have a
belief that even in silent companionship there is a real intermingling of
vital and mental currents, and that one is much pervaded and affected by
the people one lives with, even if one does not talk to them. The very
sight of some people is as bad as an argument! The ideal thing, of course,
is to have a few intimate friends and some comfortable acquaintances. But I
am rather a fatalist about friendship, and I think that most of us get
about as much as we deserve. Anyhow, it's all worth taking some trouble
about; and most people make the mistake of not taking any trouble or
putting themselves about; and that's not the way to behave!"

LIII

OF MONEY

I suppose I had said something high-minded, showing a supposed contempt of
money, for Father Payne looked at me in silence.

"You mustn't say such things," said he, at last. "I'll tell you why! What
you said was perfectly genuine, and I have no doubt you feel it--but, if
I may say so, it's like talking about a place where you have never been, as
if you had visited it, when you have only read about it in the guide-book.
I don't mean that you wish to deceive for an instant--but you simply don't
know! That's the tragic thing about money--that it is both so important and
so unimportant. If you have enough money, you need never give it a thought;
if you haven't, it's the devil! It's like health--no one who hasn't been on
the wrong side of the dividing line knows what a horrible place the wrong
side is. Those two things--I daresay there are others--poverty and
ill-health--put a man on the rack. The healthy man, and the man with a
sufficient income, are apt to think that the poor m