"Only that I would not get too fond of it all," said Father Payne, smiling,
"and that I would share it with other people. But I have got very fond of
it, and I haven't shared it. Asking people to stay with you, that they may
see what a nice place you have to live in, is hardly sharing it. It is
rather the other way--the last refinement of possession, in fact!"
"It's very odd," he went on, "that I should love this little bit of the
world so much as I do. It's called mine--that's a curious idea. I have got
very little power over it. I can't prevent the trees and flowers from
growing here, or the birds from nesting here, if they have a mind to do so.
I can only keep human beings out of it, more or less. And yet I love it
with a sort of passion, so that I want other people to love it too. I
should like to think that after I am gone, some one should come here and
see how exquisitely beautiful it is, and wish to keep it and tend it.
That's what lies behind the principle of inheritance; it isn't the money or
the position only that we desire to hand on to our children--it's the love
of the earth and all that grows out of it; and possession means the desire
of keeping it unspoiled and beautiful, I could weep at the idea of this all
being swept away, and a bdellium-mine being started here, with a
factory-chimney and rows of little houses; and yet I suppose that if the
population increased, and the land was all nationalised, a great deal of
the beauty of England would go.
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