l dream, I don't, on the whole, believe in art for art's sake, and
I don't think I believe in prayer for prayer's sake. But I don't propound
my ideas as final. I think it possible--I can't say more--that a life
devoted to the absorption of beautiful impressions may affect the
atmosphere of the world--we are bound up with each other behind the scenes
in mysterious ways--and similarly I think that lives of contemplative
prayer _may_ affect the world. I should not attempt to discourage
anyone from such a vocation. But it can't be taken for granted, and I think
that a man must show cause, apart from mere inclination, why he should not
live the common life of the world, and mingle with his fellows."

"Then prayer, you think," I said, "is to you just one of the natural
processes of life?"

"That's about it!" said Father Payne. "It seems to me as definite a way of
getting strength and clearness of view and hope and goodness, as eating and
sleeping are ways of getting strength of another kind. To neglect it is to
run the risk of living a hurried, muddled, self-absorbed life. I can't
explain it, any more than I can explain eating or breathing. It just seems
to me a condition of fine life, which we can practise to our help and
comfort, and neglect to our hurt. I don't think I can say more about it
than that, my boy!"

LXIX

THE SHADOW

One evening, when I was sitting with Barthrop in the smoking-room and the
others had gone away, he said to me suddenly, "There's something I want to
speak to you about: I have been worrying about it for some little time, and
it's a bad thing to do that. I daresay it is all nonsense, but I am
bothered about the Father. I don't think he is well, and I don't think he
thinks he is well. He is much thinner, you know, and he isn't in good
spirits. I don't mean that he isn't cheerful in a way, but it's an effort
to him. Now, have you noticed anything?"

I thought for a minute, and then I said, "No, I don't think I have! He's
thinner, of course, but he joked to me about that--he said he had turned
the corner, as people do, and he wasn't going to be a pursy old party when
he got older. Now that you mention it, I think he has been rather silent
and abstracted lately. But then he often is that, you know, when we are all
together. And in his private talks with me--and I have had several
lately--he has seemed to me more tender and affectionate than usual even;
not so amusing, perhaps, not bubbling o