he is practically a teetotaller; he is tirelessly kind with
the younger children, and can keep them amused for a day on end; and,
last and most urgent of all, he has made himself equally popular with
the eldest daughter, who is ready to go to church with him tomorrow."

A man warmly concerned with any large theories has always
a relish for applying them to any triviality. The great specialist
having condescended to the priest's simplicity, condescended expansively.
He settled himself with comfort in his arm-chair and began to talk in
the tone of a somewhat absent-minded lecturer:

"Even in a minute instance, it is best to look first to
the main tendencies of Nature. A particular flower may not be dead
in early winter, but the flowers are dying; a particular pebble
may never be wetted with the tide, but the tide is coming in.
To the scientific eye all human history is a series of collective movements,
destructions or migrations, like the massacre of flies in winter
or the return of birds in spring. Now the root fact in all history is Race.
Race produces religion; Race produces legal and ethical wars.
There is no stronger case than that of the wild, unworldly and
perishing stock which we commonly call the Celts, of whom your friends
the MacNabs are specimens. Small, swarthy, and of this dreamy and
drifting blood, they accept easily the superstitious explanation of
any incidents, just as they still accept (you will excuse me for saying)
that superstitious explanation of all incidents which you
and your Church represent. It is not remarkable that such people,
with the sea moaning behind them and the Church (excuse me again)
droning in front of them, should put fantastic features into what are
probably plain events. You, with your small parochial responsibilities,
see only this particular Mrs MacNab, terrified with this particular tale