The truth--the truth--why can't people see
how splendid it is, and that it is one's only chance of getting on! To shut
your eyes to the possibility of the great man having a touch of the
commonplace, a touch of the ass, even a touch of the knave in him, doesn't
ennoble your conception of human nature. If you can only glorify humanity
by telling lies about it, and by ruling out all the flaws in it, you end by
being a sentimentalist. "See thou do it not ... worship God!" that's one of
the finest things in the Bible. Of course it is magnificent to see a streak
of the divine turning up again and again in human nature--but you have got
to wash the dirt to find the diamond. Believe in the beauty behind and in
and beyond us all--but don't worship the imperfect thing. This sort of book
is like selling the dirt out of which the diamonds have been washed, and
which would appear to have gained holiness by contact. I hate to see people
stopping short on the symbol and the illustration, instead of passing on to
the truth behind--it's idolatry. It's one degree better than worshipping
nothing; but the danger of idolatry is that you are content to get no
further: and that is what makes idolatry so ingenious a device of the
devil, that it persuades people to stop still and not to get on."
"But aren't you making too much out of it?" I said. "At the worst, this is
a harmless literary blunder, a foolish bit of hero-worship?"
"Yes," said Father Payne, "in a sense that is true, that these little
literary hucksters and pedlars don't do any very great harm--I don't mean
that they cause much mischief: but they are the symptom of a grave disease.
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