“Oh, come!” Grimshaw said, “the English have their virtues.”
The priest bowed his head in courtesy.
“It is one of their traditions,” Robert Grimshaw said, “to give tobacco instead of pence to beggars. It is less demoralizing.”
Again the priest bowed.
“Precisely so,” he said. “It is less demoralizing. It gives less pleasure. I imagine that when the English blest spirit descends from heaven once a year to the place of torment, he will bear a drop of water to place upon the sufferer’s tongue. It will be less demoralizing than the drop of healing oil that you and I will bear. Also, it will teach the poor soul to know its place.... Tell me, my son,” he added suddenly, “do we not, you and I, feel lonely in this place?”
“Well, it is a very good place,” Robert Grimshaw said. “I think it is the best place in the world.”
“Eemeision!” the priest said. “I do not say that it is not. And in that is shown the truth of the saying:‘How evil are the good places of this world!’”
“Assuredly you have fasted long, Father,” Grimshaw said.
“To a demoralizing degree!” the priest answered ironically. “And let us consider where that leads us. If we have fasted long, we have given ourselves to the angelic hosts. We have given our very substance to these sweet beggars. So we have demoralized the poor of heaven by the alms of our bodies.”
“Surely,” Robert Grimshaw said, “if we overburden our bodies with fasting, we demoralize the image of our Creator and Saviour?”