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He called himself a Catholic. He was accustomed to say that
Papists required an epithet, they were Roman Catholic; but
the Church of England was Catholic in the best, the fullest,
and the noblest sense of the term. He was pleased to think
that his shaven face gave him the look of a priest, and in
his youth he had possessed an ascetic air which added to
the impression. He often related that on one of his holidays
in Boulogne, one of those holidays upon which his wife for
economy’s sake did not accompany him, when he was sit-
ting in a church, the cure had come up to him and invited
him to preach a sermon. He dismissed his curates when
they married, having decided views on the celibacy of the
unbeneficed clergy. But when at an election the Liberals had
written on his garden fence in large blue letters: This way to
Rome, he had been very angry, and threatened to prosecute
the leaders of the Liberal party in Blackstable. He made up
his mind now that nothing Josiah Graves said would induce
him to remove the candlesticks from the altar, and he mut-
tered Bismarck to himself once or twice irritably.
Suddenly he heard an unexpected noise. He pulled the
handkerchief off his face, got up from the sofa on which he
was lying, and went into the dining-room. Philip was seated
on the table with all his bricks around him. He had built a
monstrous castle, and some defect in the foundation had
just brought the structure down in noisy ruin.
‘What are you doing with those bricks, Philip? You know
you’re not allowed to play games on Sunday.’
Philip stared at him for a moment with frightened eyes,
and, as his habit was, flushed deeply.

0 Of Human Bondage