They failed. Tait was the last of the line. Since his time, smaller men have drifted along with limited aims. Their aims are quite sensible, granting their belief. But they completely fail to stir the blood of those who seek for a vision of civilization in this world.
Perhaps men like Warham, Tillotson, and Tait had gone back behind Christianity to the ideals of Pericles. But to-day, when we are blindly groping for some coherent ordering of civilization, we can spare some sympathy for the men who in England tried to give new life to the old vision which for twelve hundred years had served Europe so well. In England the death of the old ideal had a nobility worthy of its services during its long life.
IV
To return to my theme of memories, we left the Archbishop standing on the vicarage hearthrug, laughing at the silly old gentleman who consoled himself with the thought of the eternal torture of his neighbours.
I can remember the old gentleman well. He was not at all cruel, but simply, incredibly silly. The Archbishop also knew him well, and that is why the religious aspect did not, at the moment, strike him.
Another picture of the old gentleman rises before me. He was taking the chair at a penny reading in the parish schoolroom, which in the evenings acted as an entertainment hall. A penny reading was a series of readings of extracts from good literature — or, at least, what was supposed to be good literature. For the humorous and pathetic pieces Dickens was the favourite author; and among the works of Dickens Pickwick was the chief favourite for the comic relief. A certain amount of romantic poetry also was a necessary part — usually Sir Walter Scott. One man did all the reading, someone to whom the parish looked for light and leading in literary matters. For example, a clergyman from a neighbouring parish, or a doctor, or a lawyer; in fact, someone whom the villagers would like to look at for an hour and a half. The entertainment cost a penny, as the name implies. The proceeds about paid for the cost of the gas and of the caretaker. The entertainer was repaid by a supper at the vicarage and a vote of thanks proposed by my father, who usually took the chair. Also I forgot to mention two or three songs, solos, with piano accompaniment, which came between the selections | read, and gave the reader a rest. We only rarely rose to a violin solo.
These penny readings spread to every village in southern England at that time. I know nothing about the North of England so far as concerns the details of its life. In the South we were fully occupied with our own village lives. We took no interest in the North of England, which manufactured our linen and woollen clothes; no interest in France, whose cliffs we could see on every fine evening; nor in North America, whose epic of development was the greatest contemporary fact in human history. I am
