s influence was that he took not a critical or even a
dispassionate view of each of us, but an enthusiastic view. He took no
pleasure in our shortcomings; they were rather of the nature of an active
personal disappointment. The result was simply that you were natural with
him, but natural with the added sense that he liked you and thought well of
you, and expected friendship and even brilliance from you. You felt that he
knew you well, and recognised your faults and weaknesses, but that he knew
your best side even better, and enjoyed the presence of it. I never knew
anyone who was so appreciative, and though I said foolish things to him
sometimes, I felt that he was glad that I should be my undisguised self. It
was thus delicately flattering to be with him, and it gave confidence and
self-respect. That was the basis of our whole life, the goodwill and
affection of Father Payne, and the desire to please him.

IX

FATHER PAYNE

Father Payne was a big solid man, as I have said, but he contrived to give
the impression of being even bigger than he was. It was like the Irish
estate, of which its owner said that it had more land to the acre than any
place he knew. This was the result, I suppose, of what Barthrop once dryly
called the "effortless expansion" of Father Payne's personality. I suppose
he was about six-foot-two in height, and he must have weighed fifteen stone
or even more. He was not stout, but all his limbs were solid, so that he
filled his clothes. His hands were big, his feet were big. He wore a rather
full beard: he was slightly bald when I knew him, but his hair grew rather
long and curly. He always wore old clothes--but you were never conscious of
what he wore: he never looked, as some people do, like a suit of clothes
with a person inside them. Thinking it over, it seems to me that the reason
why you noticed his clothes so little, when you were with him, was because
you were always observing his face, or his hands, which were extremely
characteristic of him, or his motions, which had a lounging sort of grace
about them. Heavy men are apt on occasions to look lumbering, but Father
Payne never looked that. His whole body was under his full control. When he
walked, he swung easily along; when he moved, he moved impetuously and
eagerly. But his face was the most remarkable thing about him. It had no
great distinction of feature, and it was sanguine, often sunburnt, in hue.
But, solid as it was, it was all