CHAPTER X
OVER THE WALNUTS, AND THE ——
Father Letheby did come up, and we had one of those pleasant meetings on which my memory dwells with gratitude. I hope he thinks of them tenderly, too; for I believe he gave more pleasure and edification than he received. We old men are garrulous, and rather laudatory of the past than enthusiastic about the present. And this must needs chafe the nerves of those whose eyes are always turned toward the sanguine future. Well, this evening we had the famous epilogue of the Third Book of the Odes of Horace for discussion, and our thoughts turned on the poet's certainty of immortality,—the immortality of fame, in which alone he believed. I remarked what a curious thing it was that men are forever craving for that which, when attained, they fling aside and despise.
"I remember a good old priest," I said, "who was very angry because he did not receive the ecclesiastical honors that sometimes accompany old age. And when I asked, rather foolishly indeed, of what possible use could they be to him, the answer was, he would like to die with his full meed of honors. Well, he got them at last; and after a few months his regret was that he had spent nine pounds on the rochet and mozetta."
"Do you think he would be satisfied to go back to the condition of a 'simplex sacerdos' again, and to be called 'Father'?" said my curate.
"I do. He had received recognition and was satisfied," I replied.
"There must be something in it. I remember now that bitter letter about Fame, which Tennyson wrote when he had attained a world-wide reputation. He found Fame to be hostility from his peers, indifference from his superiors, worship from those he despised. He would barter all his Fame for £5,000 a year; and was sorry he ever wrote a line."
"What then is it all? Of what consequence was it to Horace that a poor old priest, in the Ultima Thule of the earth, should find a little pleasure in his lines, some eighteen hundred years after his death?" I said, half musingly.
"None whatever. But these passions are the minor wheels of human action, and therefore of human progress, when the great motor, religion, is set aside."
"And you think God permits them for that reason?"