Father Payne by A.C. Benson

I suppose I had said something high-minded, showing a supposed contempt of money, for Father Payne looked at me in silence.

"You mustn't say such things," said he, at last. "I'll tell you why! What you said was perfectly genuine, and I have no doubt you feel it -- but, if I may say so, it's like talking about a place where you have never been, as if you had visited it, when you have only read about it in the guide-book. I don't mean that you wish to deceive for an instant -- but you simply don't know! That's the tragic thing about money -- that it is both so important and so unimportant. If you have enough money, you need never give it a thought; if you haven't, it's the devil! It's like health -- no one who hasn't been on the wrong side of the dividing line knows what a horrible place the wrong side is. Those two things -- I daresay there are others -- poverty and ill-health -- put a man on the rack. The healthy man, and the man with a sufficient income, are apt to think that the poor man and the ill man make a great fuss about very little.