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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:16:25 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:16:25 -0700 |
| commit | d47032609678473e707cb258979c57a8849e6f29 (patch) | |
| tree | 9dde0955f0cb15825c20ea5d709988574c00de0b /1047-h | |
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diff --git a/1047-h/1047-h.htm b/1047-h/1047-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..58d00b0 --- /dev/null +++ b/1047-h/1047-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,17581 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + The New Machiavelli, by H. G. Wells + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1047 ***</div> + + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h1> + THE NEW MACHIAVELLI + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + by H. G. Wells + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="toc"> + <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <b>BOOK THE FIRST: THE MAKING OF A MAN</b> + </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER THE FIRST ~~ CONCERNING A BOOK THAT WAS + NEVER WRITTEN </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER THE SECOND ~~ BROMSTEAD AND MY FATHER + </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER THE THIRD ~~ SCHOLASTIC </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER THE FOURTH ~~ ADOLESCENCE </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> <b>BOOK THE SECOND: MARGARET</b> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER THE FIRST ~~ MARGARET IN STAFFORDSHIRE + </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER THE SECOND ~~ MARGARET IN LONDON </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER THE THIRD ~~ MARGARET IN VENICE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER THE FOURTH ~~ THE HOUSE IN WESTMINSTER + </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> <b>BOOK THE THIRD: THE HEART OF POLITICS</b> + </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER THE FIRST ~~ THE RIDDLE FOR THE + STATESMAN </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER THE SECOND ~~ SEEKING ASSOCIATES </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER THE THIRD ~~ SECESSION </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER THE FOURTH ~~ THE BESETTING OF SEX </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0016"> <b>BOOK THE FOURTH: ISABEL</b> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER THE FIRST ~~ LOVE AND SUCCESS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER THE SECOND ~~ THE IMPOSSIBLE POSITION + </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER THE THIRD ~~ THE BREAKING POINT </a> + </p> + </blockquote> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <h1> + BOOK THE FIRST: THE MAKING OF A MAN + </h1> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE FIRST ~~ CONCERNING A BOOK THAT WAS NEVER WRITTEN + </h2> + <p> + 1 + </p> + <p> + Since I came to this place I have been very restless, wasting my energies + in the futile beginning of ill-conceived books. One does not settle down + very readily at two and forty to a new way of living, and I have found + myself with the teeming interests of the life I have abandoned still + buzzing like a swarm of homeless bees in my head. My mind has been full of + confused protests and justifications. In any case I should have found + difficulties enough in expressing the complex thing I have to tell, but it + has added greatly to my trouble that I have a great analogue, that a + certain Niccolo Machiavelli chanced to fall out of politics at very much + the age I have reached, and wrote a book to engage the restlessness of his + mind, very much as I have wanted to do. He wrote about the relation of the + great constructive spirit in politics to individual character and + weaknesses, and so far his achievement lies like a deep rut in the road of + my intention. It has taken me far astray. It is a matter of many weeks now—diversified + indeed by some long drives into the mountains behind us and a memorable + sail to Genoa across the blue and purple waters that drowned Shelley—since + I began a laboured and futile imitation of “The Prince.” I sat up late + last night with the jumbled accumulation; and at last made a little fire + of olive twigs and burnt it all, sheet by sheet—to begin again clear + this morning. + </p> + <p> + But incidentally I have re-read most of Machiavelli, not excepting those + scandalous letters of his to Vettori, and it seems to me, now that I have + released myself altogether from his literary precedent, that he still has + his use for me. In spite of his vast prestige I claim kindred with him and + set his name upon my title-page, in partial intimation of the matter of my + story. He takes me with sympathy not only by reason of the dream he + pursued and the humanity of his politics, but by the mixture of his + nature. His vices come in, essential to my issue. He is dead and gone, all + his immediate correlations to party and faction have faded to + insignificance, leaving only on the one hand his broad method and + conceptions, and upon the other his intimate living personality, exposed + down to its salacious corners as the soul of no contemporary can ever be + exposed. Of those double strands it is I have to write, of the subtle + protesting perplexing play of instinctive passion and desire against too + abstract a dream of statesmanship. But things that seemed to lie very far + apart in Machiavelli's time have come near to one another; it is no simple + story of white passions struggling against the red that I have to tell. + </p> + <p> + The state-making dream is a very old dream indeed in the world's history. + It plays too small a part in novels. Plato and Confucius are but the + highest of a great host of minds that have had a kindred aspiration, have + dreamt of a world of men better ordered, happier, finer, securer. They + imagined cities grown more powerful and peoples made rich and + multitudinous by their efforts, they thought in terms of harbours and + shining navies, great roads engineered marvellously, jungles cleared and + deserts conquered, the ending of muddle and diseases and dirt and misery; + the ending of confusions that waste human possibilities; they thought of + these things with passion and desire as other men think of the soft lines + and tender beauty of women. Thousands of men there are to-day almost + mastered by this white passion of statecraft, and in nearly every one who + reads and thinks you could find, I suspect, some sort of answering + response. But in every one it presents itself extraordinarily entangled + and mixed up with other, more intimate things. + </p> + <p> + It was so with Machiavelli. I picture him at San Casciano as he lived in + retirement upon his property after the fall of the Republic, perhaps with + a twinge of the torture that punished his conspiracy still lurking in his + limbs. Such twinges could not stop his dreaming. Then it was “The Prince” + was written. All day he went about his personal affairs, saw homely + neighbours, dealt with his family, gave vent to everyday passions. He + would sit in the shop of Donato del Corno gossiping curiously among + vicious company, or pace the lonely woods of his estate, book in hand, + full of bitter meditations. In the evening he returned home and went to + his study. At the entrance, he says, he pulled off his peasant clothes + covered with the dust and dirt of that immediate life, washed himself, put + on his “noble court dress,” closed the door on the world of toiling and + getting, private loving, private hating and personal regrets, sat down + with a sigh of contentment to those wider dreams. + </p> + <p> + I like to think of him so, with brown books before him lit by the light of + candles in silver candlesticks, or heading some new chapter of “The + Prince,” with a grey quill in his clean fine hand. + </p> + <p> + So writing, he becomes a symbol for me, and the less none because of his + animal humour, his queer indecent side, and because of such lapses into + utter meanness as that which made him sound the note of the begging-letter + writer even in his “Dedication,” reminding His Magnificence very urgently, + as if it were the gist of his matter, of the continued malignity of + fortune in his affairs. These flaws complete him. They are my reason for + preferring him as a symbol to Plato, of whose indelicate side we know + nothing, and whose correspondence with Dionysius of Syracuse has perished; + or to Confucius who travelled China in search of a Prince he might + instruct, with lapses and indignities now lost in the mists of ages. They + have achieved the apotheosis of individual forgetfulness, and Plato has + the added glory of that acquired beauty, that bust of the Indian Bacchus + which is now indissolubly mingled with his tradition. They have passed + into the world of the ideal, and every humbug takes his freedoms with + their names. But Machiavelli, more recent and less popular, is still all + human and earthly, a fallen brother—and at the same time that nobly + dressed and nobly dreaming writer at the desk. + </p> + <p> + That vision of the strengthened and perfected state is protagonist in my + story. But as I re-read “The Prince” and thought out the manner of my now + abandoned project, I came to perceive how that stir and whirl of human + thought one calls by way of embodiment the French Revolution, has altered + absolutely the approach to such a question. Machiavelli, like Plato and + Pythagoras and Confucius two hundred odd decades before him, saw only one + method by which a thinking man, himself not powerful, might do the work of + state building, and that was by seizing the imagination of a Prince. + Directly these men turned their thoughts towards realisation, their + attitudes became—what shall I call it?—secretarial. + Machiavelli, it is true, had some little doubts about the particular + Prince he wanted, whether it was Caesar Borgia of Giuliano or Lorenzo, but + a Prince it had to be. Before I saw clearly the differences of our own + time I searched my mind for the modern equivalent of a Prince. At various + times I redrafted a parallel dedication to the Prince of Wales, to the + Emperor William, to Mr. Evesham, to a certain newspaper proprietor who was + once my schoolfellow at City Merchants', to Mr. J. D. Rockefeller—all + of them men in their several ways and circumstances and possibilities, + princely. Yet in every case my pen bent of its own accord towards irony + because—because, although at first I did not realise it, I myself am + just as free to be a prince. The appeal was unfair. The old sort of + Prince, the old little principality has vanished from the world. The + commonweal is one man's absolute estate and responsibility no more. In + Machiavelli's time it was indeed to an extreme degree one man's affair. + But the days of the Prince who planned and directed and was the source and + centre of all power are ended. We are in a condition of affairs infinitely + more complex, in which every prince and statesman is something of a + servant and every intelligent human being something of a Prince. No + magnificent pensive Lorenzos remain any more in this world for secretarial + hopes. + </p> + <p> + In a sense it is wonderful how power has vanished, in a sense wonderful + how it has increased. I sit here, an unarmed discredited man, at a small + writing-table in a little defenceless dwelling among the vines, and no + human being can stop my pen except by the deliberate self-immolation of + murdering me, nor destroy its fruits except by theft and crime. No King, + no council, can seize and torture me; no Church, no nation silence me. + Such powers of ruthless and complete suppression have vanished. But that + is not because power has diminished, but because it has increased and + become multitudinous, because it has dispersed itself and specialised. It + is no longer a negative power we have, but positive; we cannot prevent, + but we can do. This age, far beyond all previous ages, is full of powerful + men, men who might, if they had the will for it, achieve stupendous + things. + </p> + <p> + The things that might be done to-day! The things indeed that are being + done! It is the latter that give one so vast a sense of the former. When I + think of the progress of physical and mechanical science, of medicine and + sanitation during the last century, when I measure the increase in general + education and average efficiency, the power now available for human + service, the merely physical increment, and compare it with anything that + has ever been at man's disposal before, and when I think of what a little + straggling, incidental, undisciplined and uncoordinated minority of + inventors, experimenters, educators, writers and organisers has achieved + this development of human possibilities, achieved it in spite of the + disregard and aimlessness of the huge majority, and the passionate + resistance of the active dull, my imagination grows giddy with dazzling + intimations of the human splendours the justly organised state may yet + attain. I glimpse for a bewildering instant the heights that may be + scaled, the splendid enterprises made possible. + </p> + <p> + But the appeal goes out now in other forms, in a book that catches at + thousands of readers for the eye of a Prince diffused. It is the old + appeal indeed for the unification of human effort, the ending of + confusions, but instead of the Machiavellian deference to a flattered + lord, a man cries out of his heart to the unseen fellowship about him. The + last written dedication of all those I burnt last night, was to no single + man, but to the socially constructive passion—in any man.... + </p> + <p> + There is, moreover, a second great difference in kind between my world and + Machiavelli's. We are discovering women. It is as if they had come across + a vast interval since his time, into the very chamber of the statesman. + </p> + <p> + 2 + </p> + <p> + In Machiavelli's outlook the interest of womanhood was in a region of life + almost infinitely remote from his statecraft. They were the vehicle of + children, but only Imperial Rome and the new world of to-day have ever had + an inkling of the significance that might give them in the state. They did + their work, he thought, as the ploughed earth bears its crops. Apart from + their function of fertility they gave a humorous twist to life, stimulated + worthy men to toil, and wasted the hours of Princes. He left the thought + of women outside with his other dusty things when he went into his study + to write, dismissed them from his mind. But our modern world is burthened + with its sense of the immense, now half articulate, significance of women. + They stand now, as it were, close beside the silver candlesticks, speaking + as Machiavelli writes, until he stays his pen and turns to discuss his + writing with them. + </p> + <p> + It is this gradual discovery of sex as a thing collectively portentous + that I have to mingle with my statecraft if my picture is to be true which + has turned me at length from a treatise to the telling of my own story. In + my life I have paralleled very closely the slow realisations that are + going on in the world about me. I began life ignoring women, they came to + me at first perplexing and dishonouring; only very slowly and very late in + my life and after misadventure, did I gauge the power and beauty of the + love of man and woman and learnt how it must needs frame a justifiable + vision of the ordered world. Love has brought me to disaster, because my + career had been planned regardless of its possibility and value. But + Machiavelli, it seems to me, when he went into his study, left not only + the earth of life outside but its unsuspected soul. + </p> + <p> + 3 + </p> + <p> + Like Machiavelli at San Casciano, if I may take this analogy one step + further, I too am an exile. Office and leading are closed to me. The + political career that promised so much for me is shattered and ended for + ever. + </p> + <p> + I look out from this vine-wreathed veranda under the branches of a stone + pine; I see wide and far across a purple valley whose sides are terraced + and set with houses of pine and ivory, the Gulf of Liguria gleaming + sapphire blue, and cloud-like baseless mountains hanging in the sky, and I + think of lank and coaly steamships heaving on the grey rollers of the + English Channel and darkling streets wet with rain, I recall as if I were + back there the busy exit from Charing Cross, the cross and the + money-changers' offices, the splendid grime of giant London and the crowds + going perpetually to and fro, the lights by night and the urgency and + eventfulness of that great rain-swept heart of the modern world. + </p> + <p> + It is difficult to think we have left that—for many years if not for + ever. In thought I walk once more in Palace Yard and hear the clink and + clatter of hansoms and the quick quiet whirr of motors; I go in vivid + recent memories through the stir in the lobbies, I sit again at eventful + dinners in those old dining-rooms like cellars below the House—dinners + that ended with shrill division bells, I think of huge clubs swarming and + excited by the bulletins of that electoral battle that was for me the + opening opportunity. I see the stencilled names and numbers go up on the + green baize, constituency after constituency, amidst murmurs or loud + shouting.... + </p> + <p> + It is over for me now and vanished. That opportunity will come no more. + Very probably you have heard already some crude inaccurate version of our + story and why I did not take office, and have formed your partial + judgement on me. And so it is I sit now at my stone table, half out of + life already, in a warm, large, shadowy leisure, splashed with sunlight + and hung with vine tendrils, with paper before me to distil such wisdom as + I can, as Machiavelli in his exile sought to do, from the things I have + learnt and felt during the career that has ended now in my divorce. + </p> + <p> + I climbed high and fast from small beginnings. I had the mind of my party. + I do not know where I might not have ended, but for this red blaze that + came out of my unguarded nature and closed my career for ever. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE SECOND ~~ BROMSTEAD AND MY FATHER + </h2> + <p> + 1 + </p> + <p> + I dreamt first of states and cities and political things when I was a + little boy in knickerbockers. + </p> + <p> + When I think of how such things began in my mind, there comes back to me + the memory of an enormous bleak room with its ceiling going up to heaven + and its floor covered irregularly with patched and defective oilcloth and + a dingy mat or so and a “surround” as they call it, of dark stained wood. + Here and there against the wall are trunks and boxes. There are cupboards + on either side of the fireplace and bookshelves with books above them, and + on the wall and rather tattered is a large yellow-varnished geological map + of the South of England. Over the mantel is a huge lump of white coral + rock and several big fossil bones, and above that hangs the portrait of a + brainy gentleman, sliced in half and displaying an interior of intricate + detail and much vigour of coloring. It is the floor I think of chiefly; + over the oilcloth of which, assumed to be land, spread towns and villages + and forts of wooden bricks; there are steep square hills (geologically, + volumes of Orr's CYCLOPAEDIA OF THE SCIENCES) and the cracks and spaces of + the floor and the bare brown surround were the water channels and open sea + of that continent of mine. + </p> + <p> + I still remember with infinite gratitude the great-uncle to whom I owe my + bricks. He must have been one of those rare adults who have not forgotten + the chagrins and dreams of childhood. He was a prosperous west of England + builder; including my father he had three nephews, and for each of them he + caused a box of bricks to be made by an out-of-work carpenter, not the + insufficient supply of the toyshop, you understand, but a really adequate + quantity of bricks made out of oak and shaped and smoothed, bricks about + five inches by two and a half by one, and half-bricks and quarter-bricks + to correspond. There were hundreds of them, many hundreds. I could build + six towers as high as myself with them, and there seemed quite enough for + every engineering project I could undertake. I could build whole towns + with streets and houses and churches and citadels; I could bridge every + gap in the oilcloth and make causeways over crumpled spaces (which I + feigned to be morasses), and on a keel of whole bricks it was possible to + construct ships to push over the high seas to the remotest port in the + room. And a disciplined population, that rose at last by sedulous begging + on birthdays and all convenient occasions to well over two hundred, of + lead sailors and soldiers, horse, foot and artillery, inhabited this + world. + </p> + <p> + Justice has never been done to bricks and soldiers by those who write + about toys. The praises of the toy theatre have been a common theme for + essayists, the planning of the scenes, the painting and cutting out of the + caste, penny plain twopence coloured, the stink and glory of the + performance and the final conflagration. I had such a theatre once, but I + never loved it nor hoped for much from it; my bricks and soldiers were my + perpetual drama. I recall an incessant variety of interests. There was the + mystery and charm of the complicated buildings one could make, with long + passages and steps and windows through which one peeped into their + intricacies, and by means of slips of card one could make slanting ways in + them, and send marbles rolling from top to base and thence out into the + hold of a waiting ship. Then there were the fortresses and gun + emplacements and covered ways in which one's soldiers went. And there was + commerce; the shops and markets and store-rooms full of nasturtium seed, + thrift seed, lupin beans and suchlike provender from the garden; such + stuff one stored in match-boxes and pill-boxes, or packed in sacks of old + glove fingers tied up with thread and sent off by waggons along the great + military road to the beleaguered fortress on the Indian frontier beyond + the worn places that were dismal swamps. And there were battles on the + way. + </p> + <p> + That great road is still clear in my memory. I was given, I forget by what + benefactor, certain particularly fierce red Indians of lead—I have + never seen such soldiers since—and for these my father helped me to + make tepees of brown paper, and I settled them in a hitherto desolate + country under the frowning nail-studded cliffs of an ancient trunk. Then I + conquered them and garrisoned their land. (Alas! they died, no doubt + through contact with civilisation—one my mother trod on—and + their land became a wilderness again and was ravaged for a time by a + clockwork crocodile of vast proportions.) And out towards the coal-scuttle + was a region near the impassable thickets of the ragged hearthrug where + lived certain china Zulus brandishing spears, and a mountain country of + rudely piled bricks concealing the most devious and enchanting caves and + several mines of gold and silver paper. Among these rocks a number of + survivors from a Noah's Ark made a various, dangerous, albeit frequently + invalid and crippled fauna, and I was wont to increase the uncultivated + wildness of this region further by trees of privet-twigs from the garden + hedge and box from the garden borders. By these territories went my + Imperial Road carrying produce to and fro, bridging gaps in the oilcloth, + tunnelling through Encyclopaedic hills—one tunnel was three volumes + long—defended as occasion required by camps of paper tents or brick + blockhouses, and ending at last in a magnificently engineered ascent to a + fortress on the cliffs commanding the Indian reservation. + </p> + <p> + My games upon the floor must have spread over several years and developed + from small beginnings, incorporating now this suggestion and now that. + They stretch, I suppose, from seven to eleven or twelve. I played them + intermittently, and they bulk now in the retrospect far more significantly + than they did at the time. I played them in bursts, and then forgot them + for long periods; through the spring and summer I was mostly out of doors, + and school and classes caught me early. And in the retrospect I see them + all not only magnified and transfigured, but fore-shortened and confused + together. A clockwork railway, I seem to remember, came and went; one or + two clockwork boats, toy sailing ships that, being keeled, would do + nothing but lie on their beam ends on the floor; a detestable lot of + cavalrymen, undersized and gilt all over, given me by a maiden aunt, and + very much what one might expect from an aunt, that I used as Nero used his + Christians to ornament my public buildings; and I finally melted some into + fratricidal bullets, and therewith blew the rest to flat splashes of lead + by means of a brass cannon in the garden. + </p> + <p> + I find this empire of the floor much more vivid and detailed in my memory + now than many of the owners of the skirts and legs and boots that went + gingerly across its territories. Occasionally, alas! they stooped to + scrub, abolishing in one universal destruction the slow growth of whole + days of civilised development. I still remember the hatred and disgust of + these catastrophes. Like Noah I was given warnings. Did I disregard them, + coarse red hands would descend, plucking garrisons from fortresses and + sailors from ships, jumbling them up in their wrong boxes, clumsily so + that their rifles and swords were broken, sweeping the splendid curves of + the Imperial Road into heaps of ruins, casting the jungle growth of + Zululand into the fire. + </p> + <p> + “Well, Master Dick,” the voice of this cosmic calamity would say, “you + ought to have put them away last night. No! I can't wait until you've + sailed them all away in ships. I got my work to do, and do it I will.” + </p> + <p> + And in no time all my continents and lands were swirling water and swiping + strokes of house-flannel. + </p> + <p> + That was the worst of my giant visitants, but my mother too, dear lady, + was something of a terror to this microcosm. She wore spring-sided boots, + a kind of boot now vanished, I believe, from the world, with dull bodies + and shiny toes, and a silk dress with flounces that were very destructive + to the more hazardous viaducts of the Imperial Road. She was always, I + seem to remember, fetching me; fetching me for a meal, fetching me for a + walk or, detestable absurdity! fetching me for a wash and brush up, and + she never seemed to understand anything whatever of the political systems + across which she came to me. Also she forbade all toys on Sundays except + the bricks for church-building and the soldiers for church parade, or a + Scriptural use of the remains of the Noah's Ark mixed up with a wooden + Swiss dairy farm. But she really did not know whether a thing was a church + or not unless it positively bristled with cannon, and many a Sunday + afternoon have I played Chicago (with the fear of God in my heart) under + an infidel pretence that it was a new sort of ark rather elaborately done. + </p> + <p> + Chicago, I must explain, was based upon my father's description of the pig + slaughterings in that city and certain pictures I had seen. You made your + beasts—which were all the ark lot really, provisionally conceived as + pigs—go up elaborate approaches to a central pen, from which they + went down a cardboard slide four at a time, and dropped most satisfyingly + down a brick shaft, and pitter-litter over some steep steps to where a + head slaughterman (ne Noah) strung a cotton loop round their legs and sent + them by pin hooks along a wire to a second slaughterman with a chipped + foot (formerly Mrs. Noah) who, if I remember rightly, converted them into + Army sausage by means of a portion of the inside of an old alarum clock. + </p> + <p> + My mother did not understand my games, but my father did. He wore + bright-coloured socks and carpet slippers when he was indoors—my + mother disliked boots in the house—and he would sit down on my + little chair and survey the microcosm on the floor with admirable + understanding and sympathy. + </p> + <p> + It was he who gave me most of my toys and, I more than suspect, most of my + ideas. “Here's some corrugated iron,” he would say, “suitable for roofs + and fencing,” and hand me a lump of that stiff crinkled paper that is used + for packing medicine bottles. Or, “Dick, do you see the tiger loose near + the Imperial Road?—won't do for your cattle ranch.” And I would find + a bright new lead tiger like a special creation at large in the world, and + demanding a hunting expedition and much elaborate effort to get him safely + housed in the city menagerie beside the captured dragon crocodile, tamed + now, and his key lost and the heart and spring gone out of him. + </p> + <p> + And to the various irregular reading of my father I owe the inestimable + blessing of never having a boy's book in my boyhood except those of Jules + Verne. But my father used to get books for himself and me from the + Bromstead Institute, Fenimore Cooper and Mayne Reid and illustrated + histories; one of the Russo-Turkish war and one of Napier's expedition to + Abyssinia I read from end to end; Stanley and Livingstone, lives of + Wellington, Napoleon and Garibaldi, and back volumes of PUNCH, from which + I derived conceptions of foreign and domestic politics it has taken years + of adult reflection to correct. And at home permanently we had Wood's + NATURAL HISTORY, a brand-new illustrated Green's HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH + PEOPLE, Irving's COMPANIONS OF COLUMBUS, a great number of unbound parts + of some geographical work, a VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD I think it was called, + with pictures of foreign places, and Clarke's NEW TESTAMENT with a map of + Palestine, and a variety of other informing books bought at sales. There + was a Sowerby's BOTANY also, with thousands of carefully tinted pictures + of British plants, and one or two other important works in the + sitting-room. I was allowed to turn these over and even lie on the floor + with them on Sundays and other occasions of exceptional cleanliness. + </p> + <p> + And in the attic I found one day a very old forgotten map after the + fashion of a bird's-eye view, representing the Crimea, that fascinated me + and kept me for hours navigating its waters with a pin. + </p> + <p> + 2 + </p> + <p> + My father was a lank-limbed man in easy shabby tweed clothes and with his + hands in his trouser pockets. He was a science teacher, taking a number of + classes at the Bromstead Institute in Kent under the old Science and Art + Department, and “visiting” various schools; and our resources were eked + out by my mother's income of nearly a hundred pounds a year, and by his + inheritance of a terrace of three palatial but structurally unsound stucco + houses near Bromstead Station. + </p> + <p> + They were big clumsy residences in the earliest Victorian style, + interminably high and with deep damp basements and downstairs coal-cellars + and kitchens that suggested an architect vindictively devoted to the + discomfort of the servant class. If so, he had overreached himself and + defeated his end, for no servant would stay in them unless for exceptional + wages or exceptional tolerance of inefficiency or exceptional freedom in + repartee. Every storey in the house was from twelve to fifteen feet high + (which would have been cool and pleasant in a hot climate), and the stairs + went steeply up, to end at last in attics too inaccessible for occupation. + The ceilings had vast plaster cornices of classical design, fragments of + which would sometimes fall unexpectedly, and the wall-papers were bold and + gigantic in pattern and much variegated by damp and ill-mended rents. + </p> + <p> + As my father was quite unable to let more than one of these houses at a + time, and that for the most part to eccentric and undesirable tenants, he + thought it politic to live in one of the two others, and devote the rent + he received from the let one, when it was let, to the incessant necessary + repairing of all three. He also did some of the repairing himself and, + smoking a bull-dog pipe the while, which my mother would not allow him to + do in the house, he cultivated vegetables in a sketchy, unpunctual and not + always successful manner in the unoccupied gardens. The three houses faced + north, and the back of the one we occupied was covered by a grape-vine + that yielded, I remember, small green grapes for pies in the spring, and + imperfectly ripe black grapes in favourable autumns for the purposes of + dessert. The grape-vine played an important part in my life, for my father + broke his neck while he was pruning it, when I was thirteen. + </p> + <p> + My father was what is called a man of ideas, but they were not always good + ideas. My grandfather had been a private schoolmaster and one of the + founders of the College of Preceptors, and my father had assisted him in + his school until increasing competition and diminishing attendance had + made it evident that the days of small private schools kept by unqualified + persons were numbered. Thereupon my father had roused himself and had + qualified as a science teacher under the Science and Art Department, which + in these days had charge of the scientific and artistic education of the + mass of the English population, and had thrown himself into science + teaching and the earning of government grants therefor with great if + transitory zeal and success. + </p> + <p> + I do not remember anything of my father's earlier and more energetic time. + I was the child of my parents' middle years; they married when my father + was thirty-five and my mother past forty, and I saw only the last decadent + phase of his educational career. + </p> + <p> + The Science and Art Department has vanished altogether from the world, and + people are forgetting it now with the utmost readiness and generosity. + Part of its substance and staff and spirit survive, more or less + completely digested into the Board of Education. + </p> + <p> + The world does move on, even in its government. It is wonderful how many + of the clumsy and limited governing bodies of my youth and early manhood + have given place now to more scientific and efficient machinery. When I + was a boy, Bromstead, which is now a borough, was ruled by a strange body + called a Local Board—it was the Age of Boards—and I still + remember indistinctly my father rejoicing at the breakfast-table over the + liberation of London from the corrupt and devastating control of a + Metropolitan Board of Works. Then there were also School Boards; I was + already practically in politics before the London School Board was + absorbed by the spreading tentacles of the London County Council. + </p> + <p> + It gives a measure of the newness of our modern ideas of the State to + remember that the very beginnings of public education lie within my + father's lifetime, and that many most intelligent and patriotic people + were shocked beyond measure at the State doing anything of the sort. When + he was born, totally illiterate people who could neither read a book nor + write more than perhaps a clumsy signature, were to be found everywhere in + England; and great masses of the population were getting no instruction at + all. Only a few schools flourished upon the patronage of exceptional + parents; all over the country the old endowed grammar schools were to be + found sinking and dwindling; many of them had closed altogether. In the + new great centres of population multitudes of children were sweated in the + factories, darkly ignorant and wretched and the under-equipped and + under-staffed National and British schools, supported by voluntary + contributions and sectarian rivalries, made an ineffectual fight against + this festering darkness. It was a condition of affairs clamouring for + remedies, but there was an immense amount of indifference and prejudice to + be overcome before any remedies were possible. Perhaps some day some + industrious and lucid historian will disentangle all the muddle of + impulses and antagonisms, the commercialism, utilitarianism, obstinate + conservatism, humanitarian enthusiasm, out of which our present + educational organisation arose. I have long since come to believe it + necessary that all new social institutions should be born in confusion, + and that at first they should present chiefly crude and ridiculous + aspects. The distrust of government in the Victorian days was far too + great, and the general intelligence far too low, to permit the State to go + about the new business it was taking up in a businesslike way, to train + teachers, build and equip schools, endow pedagogic research, and provide + properly written school-books. These things it was felt MUST be provided + by individual and local effort, and since it was manifest that it was + individual and local effort that were in default, it was reluctantly + agreed to stimulate them by money payments. The State set up a machinery + of examination both in Science and Art and for the elementary schools; and + payments, known technically as grants, were made in accordance with the + examination results attained, to such schools as Providence might see fit + to send into the world. In this way it was felt the Demand would be + established that would, according to the beliefs of that time, inevitably + ensure the Supply. An industry of “Grant earning” was created, and this + would give education as a necessary by-product. + </p> + <p> + In the end this belief was found to need qualification, but Grant-earning + was still in full activity when I was a small boy. So far as the Science + and Art Department and my father are concerned, the task of examination + was entrusted to eminent scientific men, for the most part quite + unaccustomed to teaching. You see, if they also were teaching similar + classes to those they examined, it was feared that injustice might be + done. Year after year these eminent persons set questions and employed + subordinates to read and mark the increasing thousands of answers that + ensued, and having no doubt the national ideal of fairness well developed + in their minds, they were careful each year to re-read the preceding + papers before composing the current one, in order to see what it was usual + to ask. As a result of this, in the course of a few years the recurrence + and permutation of questions became almost calculable, and since the + practical object of the teaching was to teach people not science, but how + to write answers to these questions, the industry of Grant-earning assumed + a form easily distinguished from any kind of genuine education whatever. + </p> + <p> + Other remarkable compromises had also to be made with the spirit of the + age. The unfortunate conflict between Religion and Science prevalent at + this time was mitigated, if I remember rightly, by making graduates in + arts and priests in the established church Science Teachers EX OFFICIO, + and leaving local and private enterprise to provide schools, diagrams, + books, material, according to the conceptions of efficiency prevalent in + the district. Private enterprise made a particularly good thing of the + books. A number of competing firms of publishers sprang into existence + specialising in Science and Art Department work; they set themselves to + produce text-books that should supply exactly the quantity and quality of + knowledge necessary for every stage of each of five and twenty subjects + into which desirable science was divided, and copies and models and + instructions that should give precisely the method and gestures esteemed + as proficiency in art. Every section of each book was written in the idiom + found to be most satisfactory to the examiners, and test questions + extracted from papers set in former years were appended to every chapter. + By means of these last the teacher was able to train his class to the very + highest level of grant-earning efficiency, and very naturally he cast all + other methods of exposition aside. First he posed his pupils with + questions and then dictated model replies. + </p> + <p> + That was my father's method of instruction. I attended his classes as an + elementary grant-earner from the age of ten until his death, and it is so + I remember him, sitting on the edge of a table, smothering a yawn + occasionally and giving out the infallible formulae to the industriously + scribbling class sitting in rows of desks before him. Occasionally he + would slide to his feet and go to a blackboard on an easel and draw on + that very slowly and deliberately in coloured chalks a diagram for the + class to copy in coloured pencils, and sometimes he would display a + specimen or arrange an experiment for them to see. The room in the + Institute in which he taught was equipped with a certain amount of + apparatus prescribed as necessary for subject this and subject that by the + Science and Art Department, and this my father would supplement with maps + and diagrams and drawings of his own. + </p> + <p> + But he never really did experiments, except that in the class in + systematic botany he sometimes made us tease common flowers to pieces. He + did not do experiments if he could possibly help it, because in the first + place they used up time and gas for the Bunsen burner and good material in + a ruinous fashion, and in the second they were, in his rather careless and + sketchy hands, apt to endanger the apparatus of the Institute and even the + lives of his students. Then thirdly, real experiments involved washing up. + And moreover they always turned out wrong, and sometimes misled the too + observant learner very seriously and opened demoralising controversies. + Quite early in life I acquired an almost ineradicable sense of the + unscientific perversity of Nature and the impassable gulf that is fixed + between systematic science and elusive fact. I knew, for example, that in + science, whether it be subject XII., Organic Chemistry, or subject XVII., + Animal Physiology, when you blow into a glass of lime-water it instantly + becomes cloudy, and if you continue to blow it clears again, whereas in + truth you may blow into the stuff from the lime-water bottle until you are + crimson in the face and painful under the ears, and it never becomes + cloudy at all. And I knew, too, that in science if you put potassium + chlorate into a retort and heat it over a Bunsen burner, oxygen is + disengaged and may be collected over water, whereas in real life if you do + anything of the sort the vessel cracks with a loud report, the potassium + chlorate descends sizzling upon the flame, the experimenter says “Oh! + Damn!” with astonishing heartiness and distinctness, and a lady student in + the back seats gets up and leaves the room. + </p> + <p> + Science is the organised conquest of Nature, and I can quite understand + that ancient libertine refusing to co-operate in her own undoing. And I + can quite understand, too, my father's preference for what he called an + illustrative experiment, which was simply an arrangement of the apparatus + in front of the class with nothing whatever by way of material, and the + Bunsen burner clean and cool, and then a slow luminous description of just + what you did put in it when you were so ill-advised as to carry the affair + beyond illustration, and just exactly what ought anyhow to happen when you + did. He had considerable powers of vivid expression, so that in this way + he could make us see all he described. The class, freed from any + unpleasant nervous tension, could draw this still life without flinching, + and if any part was too difficult to draw, then my father would produce a + simplified version on the blackboard to be copied instead. And he would + also write on the blackboard any exceptionally difficult but grant-earning + words, such as “empyreumatic” or “botryoidal.” + </p> + <p> + Some words in constant use he rarely explained. I remember once sticking + up my hand and asking him in the full flow of description, “Please, sir, + what is flocculent?” + </p> + <p> + “The precipitate is.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, sir, but what does it mean?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! flocculent!” said my father, “flocculent! Why—” he extended his + hand and arm and twiddled his fingers for a second in the air. “Like + that,” he said. + </p> + <p> + I thought the explanation sufficient, but he paused for a moment after + giving it. “As in a flock bed, you know,” he added and resumed his + discourse. + </p> + <p> + 3 + </p> + <p> + My father, I am afraid, carried a natural incompetence in practical + affairs to an exceptionally high level. He combined practical + incompetence, practical enterprise and a thoroughly sanguine temperament, + in a manner that I have never seen paralleled in any human being. He was + always trying to do new things in the briskest manner, under the + suggestion of books or papers or his own spontaneous imagination, and as + he had never been trained to do anything whatever in his life properly, + his futilities were extensive and thorough. At one time he nearly gave up + his classes for intensive culture, so enamoured was he of its + possibilities; the peculiar pungency of the manure he got, in pursuit of a + chemical theory of his own, has scarred my olfactory memories for a + lifetime. The intensive culture phase is very clear in my memory; it came + near the end of his career and when I was between eleven and twelve. I was + mobilised to gather caterpillars on several occasions, and assisted in + nocturnal raids upon the slugs by lantern-light that wrecked my + preparation work for school next day. My father dug up both lawns, and + trenched and manured in spasms of immense vigour alternating with periods + of paralysing distaste for the garden. And for weeks he talked about eight + hundred pounds an acre at every meal. + </p> + <p> + A garden, even when it is not exasperated by intensive methods, is a thing + as exacting as a baby, its moods have to be watched; it does not wait upon + the cultivator's convenience, but has times of its own. Intensive culture + greatly increases this disposition to trouble mankind; it makes a garden + touchy and hysterical, a drugged and demoralised and over-irritated + garden. My father got at cross purposes with our two patches at an early + stage. Everything grew wrong from the first to last, and if my father's + manures intensified nothing else, they certainly intensified the + Primordial Curse. The peas were eaten in the night before they were three + inches high, the beans bore nothing but blight, the only apparent result + of a spraying of the potatoes was to develop a PENCHANT in the cat for + being ill indoors, the cucumber frames were damaged by the catapulting of + boys going down the lane at the back, and all your cucumbers were + mysteriously embittered. That lane with its occasional passers-by did much + to wreck the intensive scheme, because my father always stopped work and + went indoors if any one watched him. His special manure was apt to arouse + a troublesome spirit of inquiry in hardy natures. + </p> + <p> + In digging his rows and shaping his patches he neglected the guiding + string and trusted to his eye altogether too much, and the consequent + obliquity and the various wind-breaks and scare-crows he erected, and + particularly an irrigation contrivance he began and never finished by + which everything was to be watered at once by means of pieces of gutter + from the roof and outhouses of Number 2, and a large and particularly + obstinate clump of elder-bushes in the abolished hedge that he had failed + to destroy entirely either by axe or by fire, combined to give the gardens + under intensive culture a singularly desolate and disorderly appearance. + He took steps towards the diversion of our house drain under the influence + of the Sewage Utilisation Society; but happily he stopped in time. He + hardly completed any of the operations he began; something else became + more urgent or simply he tired; a considerable area of the Number 2 + territory was never even dug up. + </p> + <p> + In the end the affair irritated him beyond endurance. Never was a man less + horticulturally-minded. The clamour of these vegetables he had launched + into the world for his service and assistance, wore out his patience. He + would walk into the garden the happiest of men after a day or so of + disregard, talking to me of history perhaps or social organisation, or + summarising some book he had read. He talked to me of anything that + interested him, regardless of my limitations. Then he would begin to note + the growth of the weeds. “This won't do,” he would say and pull up a + handful. + </p> + <p> + More weeding would follow and the talk would become fragmentary. His hands + would become earthy, his nails black, weeds would snap off in his careless + grip, leaving the roots behind. The world would darken. He would look at + his fingers with disgusted astonishment. “CURSE these weeds!” he would say + from his heart. His discourse was at an end. + </p> + <p> + I have memories, too, of his sudden unexpected charges into the + tranquillity of the house, his hands and clothes intensively enriched. He + would come in like a whirlwind. “This damned stuff all over me and the + Agricultural Chemistry Class at six! Bah! AAAAAAH!” + </p> + <p> + My mother would never learn not to attempt to break him of swearing on + such occasions. She would remain standing a little stiffly in the scullery + refusing to assist him to the adjectival towel he sought. + </p> + <p> + “If you say such things—” + </p> + <p> + He would dance with rage and hurl the soap about. “The towel!” he would + cry, flicking suds from big fingers in every direction; “the towel! I'll + let the blithering class slide if you don't give me the towel! I'll give + up everything, I tell you—everything!”... + </p> + <p> + At last with the failure of the lettuces came the breaking point. I was in + the little arbour learning Latin irregular verbs when it happened. I can + see him still, his peculiar tenor voice still echoes in my brain, shouting + his opinion of intensive culture for all the world to hear, and slashing + away at that abominable mockery of a crop with a hoe. We had tied them up + with bast only a week or so before, and now half were rotten and half had + shot up into tall slender growths. He had the hoe in both hands and + slogged. Great wipes he made, and at each stroke he said, “Take that!” + </p> + <p> + The air was thick with flying fragments of abortive salad. It was a + fantastic massacre. It was the French Revolution of that cold tyranny, the + vindictive overthrow of the pampered vegetable aristocrats. After he had + assuaged his passion upon them, he turned for other prey; he kicked holes + in two of our noblest marrows, flicked off the heads of half a row of + artichokes, and shied the hoe with a splendid smash into the cucumber + frame. Something of the awe of that moment returns to me as I write of it. + </p> + <p> + “Well, my boy,” he said, approaching with an expression of beneficent + happiness, “I've done with gardening. Let's go for a walk like reasonable + beings. I've had enough of this”—his face was convulsed for an + instant with bitter resentment—“Pandering to cabbages.” + </p> + <p> + 4 + </p> + <p> + That afternoon's walk sticks in my memory for many reasons. One is that we + went further than I had ever been before; far beyond Keston and nearly to + Seven-oaks, coming back by train from Dunton Green, and the other is that + my father as he went along talked about himself, not so much to me as to + himself, and about life and what he had done with it. He monologued so + that at times he produced an effect of weird world-forgetfulness. I + listened puzzled, and at that time not understanding many things that + afterwards became plain to me. It is only in recent years that I have + discovered the pathos of that monologue; how friendless my father was and + uncompanioned in his thoughts and feelings, and what a hunger he may have + felt for the sympathy of the undeveloped youngster who trotted by his + side. + </p> + <p> + “I'm no gardener,” he said, “I'm no anything. Why the devil did I start + gardening? + </p> + <p> + “I suppose man was created to mind a garden... But the Fall let us out of + that! What was I created for? God! what was I created for?... + </p> + <p> + “Slaves to matter! Minding inanimate things! It doesn't suit me, you know. + I've got no hands and no patience. I've mucked about with life. Mucked + about with life.” He suddenly addressed himself to me, and for an instant + I started like an eavesdropper discovered. “Whatever you do, boy, whatever + you do, make a Plan. Make a good Plan and stick to it. Find out what life + is about—I never have—and set yourself to do whatever you + ought to do. I admit it's a puzzle.... + </p> + <p> + “Those damned houses have been the curse of my life. Stucco white + elephants! Beastly cracked stucco with stains of green—black and + green. Conferva and soot.... Property, they are!... Beware of Things, + Dick, beware of Things! Before you know where you are you are waiting on + them and minding them. They'll eat your life up. Eat up your hours and + your blood and energy! When those houses came to me, I ought to have sold + them—or fled the country. I ought to have cleared out. Sarcophagi—eaters + of men! Oh! the hours and days of work, the nights of anxiety those vile + houses have cost me! The painting! It worked up my arms; it got all over + me. I stank of it. It made me ill. It isn't living—it's minding.... + </p> + <p> + “Property's the curse of life. Property! Ugh! Look at this country all cut + up into silly little parallelograms, look at all those villas we passed + just now and those potato patches and that tarred shanty and the hedge! + Somebody's minding every bit of it like a dog tied to a cart's tail. + Patching it and bothering about it. Bothering! Yapping at every passer-by. + Look at that notice-board! One rotten worried little beast wants to keep + us other rotten little beasts off HIS patch,—God knows why! Look at + the weeds in it. Look at the mended fence!... There's no property worth + having, Dick, but money. That's only good to spend. All these things. + Human souls buried under a cartload of blithering rubbish.... + </p> + <p> + “I'm not a fool, Dick. I have qualities, imagination, a sort of go. I + ought to have made a better thing of life. + </p> + <p> + “I'm sure I could have done things. Only the old people pulled my leg. + They started me wrong. They never started me at all. I only began to find + out what life was like when I was nearly forty. + </p> + <p> + “If I'd gone to a university; if I'd had any sort of sound training, if I + hadn't slipped into the haphazard places that came easiest.... + </p> + <p> + “Nobody warned me. Nobody. It isn't a world we live in, Dick; it's a + cascade of accidents; it's a chaos exasperated by policemen! YOU be warned + in time, Dick. You stick to a plan. Don't wait for any one to show you the + way. Nobody will. There isn't a way till you make one. Get education, get + a good education. Fight your way to the top. It's your only chance. I've + watched you. You'll do no good at digging and property minding. There + isn't a neighbour in Bromstead won't be able to skin you at suchlike + games. You and I are the brainy unstable kind, topside or nothing. And if + ever those blithering houses come to you—don't have 'em. Give them + away! Dynamite 'em—and off! LIVE, Dick! I'll get rid of them for you + if I can, Dick, but remember what I say.”... + </p> + <p> + So it was my father discoursed, if not in those particular words, yet + exactly in that manner, as he slouched along the southward road, with + resentful eyes becoming less resentful as he talked, and flinging out + clumsy illustrative motions at the outskirts of Bromstead as we passed + along them. That afternoon he hated Bromstead, from its foot-tiring + pebbles up. He had no illusions about Bromstead or himself. I have the + clearest impression of him in his garden-stained tweeds with a + deer-stalker hat on the back of his head and presently a pipe sometimes + between his teeth and sometimes in his gesticulating hand, as he became + diverted by his talk from his original exasperation.... + </p> + <p> + This particular afternoon is no doubt mixed up in my memory with many + other afternoons; all sorts of things my father said and did at different + times have got themselves referred to it; it filled me at the time with a + great unprecedented sense of fellowship and it has become the symbol now + for all our intercourse together. If I didn't understand the things he + said, I did the mood he was in. He gave me two very broad ideas in that + talk and the talks I have mingled with it; he gave them to me very clearly + and they have remained fundamental in my mind; one a sense of the + extraordinary confusion and waste and planlessness of the human life that + went on all about us; and the other of a great ideal of order and economy + which he called variously Science and Civilisation, and which, though I do + not remember that he ever used that word, I suppose many people nowadays + would identify with Socialism,—as the Fabians expound it. + </p> + <p> + He was not very definite about this Science, you must understand, but he + seemed always to be waving his hand towards it,—just as his + contemporary Tennyson seems always to be doing—he belonged to his + age and mostly his talk was destructive of the limited beliefs of his + time, he led me to infer rather than actually told me that this Science + was coming, a spirit of light and order, to the rescue of a world groaning + and travailing in muddle for the want of it.... + </p> + <p> + 5 + </p> + <p> + When I think of Bromstead nowadays I find it inseparably bound up with the + disorders of my father's gardening, and the odd patchings and paintings + that disfigured his houses. It was all of a piece with that. + </p> + <p> + Let me try and give something of the quality of Bromstead and something of + its history. It is the quality and history of a thousand places round and + about London, and round and about the other great centres of population in + the world. Indeed it is in a measure the quality of the whole of this + modern world from which we who have the statesman's passion struggle to + evolve, and dream still of evolving order. + </p> + <p> + First, then, you must think of Bromstead a hundred and fifty years ago, as + a narrow irregular little street of thatched houses strung out on the + London and Dover Road, a little mellow sample unit of a social order that + had a kind of completeness, at its level, of its own. At that time its + population numbered a little under two thousand people, mostly engaged in + agricultural work or in trades serving agriculture. There was a + blacksmith, a saddler, a chemist, a doctor, a barber, a linen-draper (who + brewed his own beer); a veterinary surgeon, a hardware shop, and two + capacious inns. Round and about it were a number of pleasant gentlemen's + seats, whose owners went frequently to London town in their coaches along + the very tolerable high-road. The church was big enough to hold the whole + population, were people minded to go to church, and indeed a large + proportion did go, and all who married were married in it, and everybody, + to begin with, was christened at its font and buried at last in its + yew-shaded graveyard. Everybody knew everybody in the place. It was, in + fact, a definite place and a real human community in those days. There was + a pleasant old market-house in the middle of the town with a weekly + market, and an annual fair at which much cheerful merry making and homely + intoxication occurred; there was a pack of hounds which hunted within five + miles of London Bridge, and the local gentry would occasionally enliven + the place with valiant cricket matches for a hundred guineas a side, to + the vast excitement of the entire population. It was very much the same + sort of place that it had been for three or four centuries. A Bromstead + Rip van Winkle from 1550 returning in 1750 would have found most of the + old houses still as he had known them, the same trades a little improved + and differentiated one from the other, the same roads rather more + carefully tended, the Inns not very much altered, the ancient familiar + market-house. The occasional wheeled traffic would have struck him as the + most remarkable difference, next perhaps to the swaggering painted stone + monuments instead of brasses and the protestant severity of the + communion-table in the parish church,—both from the material point + of view very little things. A Rip van Winkle from 1350, again, would have + noticed scarcely greater changes; fewer clergy, more people, and + particularly more people of the middling sort; the glass in the windows of + many of the houses, the stylish chimneys springing up everywhere would + have impressed him, and suchlike details. The place would have had the + same boundaries, the same broad essential features, would have been still + itself in the way that a man is still himself after he has “filled out” a + little and grown a longer beard and changed his clothes. + </p> + <p> + But after 1750 something got hold of the world, something that was + destined to alter the scale of every human affair. + </p> + <p> + That something was machinery and a vague energetic disposition to improve + material things. In another part of England ingenious people were + beginning to use coal in smelting iron, and were producing metal in + abundance and metal castings in sizes that had hitherto been unattainable. + Without warning or preparation, increment involving countless + possibilities of further increment was coming to the strength of horses + and men. “Power,” all unsuspected, was flowing like a drug into the veins + of the social body. + </p> + <p> + Nobody seems to have perceived this coming of power, and nobody had + calculated its probable consequences. Suddenly, almost inadvertently, + people found themselves doing things that would have amazed their + ancestors. They began to construct wheeled vehicles much more easily and + cheaply than they had ever done before, to make up roads and move things + about that had formerly been esteemed too heavy for locomotion, to join + woodwork with iron nails instead of wooden pegs, to achieve all sorts of + mechanical possibilities, to trade more freely and manufacture on a larger + scale, to send goods abroad in a wholesale and systematic way, to bring + back commodities from overseas, not simply spices and fine commodities, + but goods in bulk. The new influence spread to agriculture, iron + appliances replaced wooden, breeding of stock became systematic, + paper-making and printing increased and cheapened. Roofs of slate and tile + appeared amidst and presently prevailed over the original Bromstead + thatch, the huge space of Common to the south was extensively enclosed, + and what had been an ill-defined horse-track to Dover, only passable by + adventurous coaches in dry weather, became the Dover Road, and was + presently the route first of one and then of several daily coaches. The + High Street was discovered to be too tortuous for these awakening + energies, and a new road cut off its worst contortions. Residential villas + appeared occupied by retired tradesmen and widows, who esteemed the place + healthy, and by others of a strange new unoccupied class of people who had + money invested in joint-stock enterprises. First one and then several + boys' boarding-schools came, drawing their pupils from London,—my + grandfather's was one of these. London, twelve miles to the north-west, + was making itself felt more and more. + </p> + <p> + But this was only the beginning of the growth period, the first trickle of + the coming flood of mechanical power. Away in the north they were casting + iron in bigger and bigger forms, working their way to the production of + steel on a large scale, applying power in factories. Bromstead had almost + doubted in size again long before the railway came; there was hardly any + thatch left in the High Street, but instead were houses with handsome + brass-knockered front doors and several windows, and shops with + shop-fronts all of square glass panes, and the place was lighted publicly + now by oil lamps—previously only one flickering lamp outside each of + the coaching inns had broken the nocturnal darkness. And there was talk, + it long remained talk,—of gas. The gasworks came in 1834, and about + that date my father's three houses must have been built convenient for the + London Road. They mark nearly the beginning of the real suburban quality; + they were let at first to City people still engaged in business. + </p> + <p> + And then hard on the gasworks had come the railway and cheap coal; there + was a wild outbreak of brickfields upon the claylands to the east, and the + Great Growth had begun in earnest. The agricultural placidities that had + formerly come to the very borders of the High Street were broken up north, + west and south, by new roads. This enterprising person and then that began + to “run up” houses, irrespective of every other enterprising person who + was doing the same thing. A Local Board came into existence, and with much + hesitation and penny-wise economy inaugurated drainage works. Rates became + a common topic, a fact of accumulating importance. Several chapels of zinc + and iron appeared, and also a white new church in commercial Gothic upon + the common, and another of red brick in the residential district out + beyond the brickfields towards Chessington. + </p> + <p> + The population doubled again and doubled again, and became particularly + teeming in the prolific “working-class” district about the deep-rutted, + muddy, coal-blackened roads between the gasworks, Blodgett's laundries, + and the railway goods-yard. Weekly properties, that is to say small houses + built by small property owners and let by the week, sprang up also in the + Cage Fields, and presently extended right up the London Road. A single + national school in an inconvenient situation set itself inadequately to + collect subscriptions and teach the swarming, sniffing, grimy offspring of + this dingy new population to read. The villages of Beckington, which used + to be three miles to the west, and Blamely four miles to the east of + Bromstead, were experiencing similar distensions and proliferations, and + grew out to meet us. All effect of locality or community had gone from + these places long before I was born; hardly any one knew any one; there + was no general meeting place any more, the old fairs were just common + nuisances haunted by gypsies, van showmen, Cheap Jacks and London roughs, + the churches were incapable of a quarter of the population. One or two + local papers of shameless veniality reported the proceedings of the local + Bench and the local Board, compelled tradesmen who were interested in + these affairs to advertise, used the epithet “Bromstedian” as one + expressing peculiar virtues, and so maintained in the general mind a weak + tradition of some local quality that embraced us all. Then the parish + graveyard filled up and became a scandal, and an ambitious area with an + air of appetite was walled in by a Bromstead Cemetery Company, and planted + with suitably high-minded and sorrowful varieties of conifer. A stonemason + took one of the earlier villas with a front garden at the end of the High + Street, and displayed a supply of urns on pillars and headstones and + crosses in stone, marble, and granite, that would have sufficed to + commemorate in elaborate detail the entire population of Bromstead as one + found it in 1750. + </p> + <p> + The cemetery was made when I was a little boy of five or six; I was in the + full tide of building and growth from the first; the second railway with + its station at Bromstead North and the drainage followed when I was ten or + eleven, and all my childish memories are of digging and wheeling, of woods + invaded by building, roads gashed open and littered with iron pipes amidst + a fearful smell of gas, of men peeped at and seen toiling away deep down + in excavations, of hedges broken down and replaced by planks, of + wheelbarrows and builders' sheds, of rivulets overtaken and swallowed up + by drain-pipes. Big trees, and especially elms, cleared of undergrowth and + left standing amid such things, acquired a peculiar tattered dinginess + rather in the quality of needy widow women who have seen happier days. + </p> + <p> + The Ravensbrook of my earlier memories was a beautiful stream. It came + into my world out of a mysterious Beyond, out of a garden, splashing + brightly down a weir which had once been the weir of a mill. (Above the + weir and inaccessible there were bulrushes growing in splendid clumps, and + beyond that, pampas grass, yellow and crimson spikes of hollyhock, and + blue suggestions of wonderland.) From the pool at the foot of this initial + cascade it flowed in a leisurely fashion beside a footpath,—there + were two pretty thatched cottages on the left, and here were ducks, and + there were willows on the right,—and so came to where great trees + grew on high banks on either hand and bowed closer, and at last met + overhead. This part was difficult to reach because of an old fence, but a + little boy might glimpse that long cavern of greenery by wading. Either I + have actually seen kingfishers there, or my father has described them so + accurately to me that he inserted them into my memory. I remember them + there anyhow. Most of that overhung part I never penetrated at all, but + followed the field path with my mother and met the stream again, where + beyond there were flat meadows, Roper's meadows. The Ravensbrook went + meandering across the middle of these, now between steep banks, and now + with wide shallows at the bends where the cattle waded and drank. Yellow + and purple loose-strife and ordinary rushes grew in clumps along the bank, + and now and then a willow. On rare occasions of rapture one might see a + rat cleaning his whiskers at the water's edge. The deep places were rich + with tangled weeds, and in them fishes lurked—to me they were big + fishes—water-boatmen and water-beetles traversed the calm surface of + these still deeps; in one pool were yellow lilies and water-soldiers, and + in the shoaly places hovering fleets of small fry basked in the sunshine—to + vanish in a flash at one's shadow. In one place, too, were Rapids, where + the stream woke with a start from a dreamless brooding into foaming panic + and babbled and hastened. Well do I remember that half-mile of rivulet; + all other rivers and cascades have their reference to it for me. And after + I was eleven, and before we left Bromstead, all the delight and beauty of + it was destroyed. + </p> + <p> + The volume of its water decreased abruptly—I suppose the new + drainage works that linked us up with Beckington, and made me first + acquainted with the geological quality of the London clay, had to do with + that—until only a weak uncleansing trickle remained. That at first + did not strike me as a misfortune. An adventurous small boy might walk + dryshod in places hitherto inaccessible. But hard upon that came the pegs, + the planks and carts and devastation. Roper's meadows, being no longer in + fear of floods, were now to be slashed out into parallelograms of untidy + road, and built upon with rows of working-class cottages. The roads came,—horribly; + the houses followed. They seemed to rise in the night. People moved into + them as soon as the roofs were on, mostly workmen and their young wives, + and already in a year some of these raw houses stood empty again from + defaulting tenants, with windows broken and wood-work warping and rotting. + The Ravensbrook became a dump for old iron, rusty cans, abandoned boots + and the like, and was a river only when unusual rains filled it for a day + or so with an inky flood of surface water.... + </p> + <p> + That indeed was my most striking perception in the growth of Bromstead. + The Ravensbrook had been important to my imaginative life; that way had + always been my first choice in all my walks with my mother, and its rapid + swamping by the new urban growth made it indicative of all the other + things that had happened just before my time, or were still, at a less + dramatic pace, happening. I realised that building was the enemy. I began + to understand why in every direction out of Bromstead one walked past + scaffold-poles into litter, why fragments of broken brick and cinder + mingled in every path, and the significance of the universal + notice-boards, either white and new or a year old and torn and battered, + promising sites, proffering houses to be sold or let, abusing and + intimidating passers-by for fancied trespass, and protecting rights of + way. + </p> + <p> + It is difficult to disentangle now what I understood at this time and what + I have since come to understand, but it seems to me that even in those + childish days I was acutely aware of an invading and growing disorder. The + serene rhythms of the old established agriculture, I see now, were + everywhere being replaced by cultivation under notice and snatch crops; + hedges ceased to be repaired, and were replaced by cheap iron railings or + chunks of corrugated iron; more and more hoardings sprang up, and + contributed more and more to the nomad tribes of filthy paper scraps that + flew before the wind and overspread the country. The outskirts of + Bromstead were a maze of exploitation roads that led nowhere, that ended + in tarred fences studded with nails (I don't remember barbed wire in those + days; I think the Zeitgeist did not produce that until later), and in + trespass boards that used vehement language. Broken glass, tin cans, and + ashes and paper abounded. Cheap glass, cheap tin, abundant fuel, and a + free untaxed Press had rushed upon a world quite unprepared to dispose of + these blessings when the fulness of enjoyment was past. + </p> + <p> + I suppose one might have persuaded oneself that all this was but the + replacement of an ancient tranquillity, or at least an ancient balance, by + a new order. Only to my eyes, quickened by my father's intimations, it was + manifestly no order at all. It was a multitude of incoordinated fresh + starts, each more sweeping and destructive than the last, and none of them + ever really worked out to a ripe and satisfactory completion. Each left a + legacy of products, houses, humanity, or what not, in its wake. It was a + sort of progress that had bolted; it was change out of hand, and going at + an unprecedented pace nowhere in particular. + </p> + <p> + No, the Victorian epoch was not the dawn of a new era; it was a hasty, + trial experiment, a gigantic experiment of the most slovenly and wasteful + kind. I suppose it was necessary; I suppose all things are necessary. I + suppose that before men will discipline themselves to learn and plan, they + must first see in a hundred convincing forms the folly and muddle that + come from headlong, aimless and haphazard methods. The nineteenth century + was an age of demonstrations, some of them very impressive demonstrations, + of the powers that have come to mankind, but of permanent achievement, + what will our descendants cherish? It is hard to estimate what grains of + precious metal may not be found in a mud torrent of human production on so + large a scale, but will any one, a hundred years from now, consent to live + in the houses the Victorians built, travel by their roads or railways, + value the furnishings they made to live among or esteem, except for + curious or historical reasons, their prevalent art and the clipped and + limited literature that satisfied their souls? + </p> + <p> + That age which bore me was indeed a world full of restricted and + undisciplined people, overtaken by power, by possessions and great new + freedoms, and unable to make any civilised use of them whatever; stricken + now by this idea and now by that, tempted first by one possession and then + another to ill-considered attempts; it was my father's exploitation of his + villa gardens on the wholesale level. The whole of Bromstead as I remember + it, and as I saw it last—it is a year ago now—is a dull + useless boiling-up of human activities, an immense clustering of + futilities. It is as unfinished as ever; the builders' roads still run out + and end in mid-field in their old fashion; the various enterprises jumble + in the same hopeless contradiction, if anything intensified. Pretentious + villas jostle slums, and public-house and tin tabernacle glower at one + another across the cat-haunted lot that intervenes. Roper's meadows are + now quite frankly a slum; back doors and sculleries gape towards the + railway, their yards are hung with tattered washing unashamed; and there + seem to be more boards by the railway every time I pass, advertising pills + and pickles, tonics and condiments, and suchlike solicitudes of a people + with no natural health nor appetite left in them.... + </p> + <p> + Well, we have to do better. Failure is not failure nor waste wasted if it + sweeps away illusion and lights the road to a plan. + </p> + <p> + 6 + </p> + <p> + Chaotic indiscipline, ill-adjusted effort, spasmodic aims, these give the + quality of all my Bromstead memories. The crowning one of them all rises + to desolating tragedy. I remember now the wan spring sunshine of that + Sunday morning, the stiff feeling of best clothes and aggressive + cleanliness and formality, when I and my mother returned from church to + find my father dead. He had been pruning the grape vine. He had never had + a ladder long enough to reach the sill of the third-floor windows—at + house-painting times he had borrowed one from the plumber who mixed his + paint—and he had in his own happy-go-lucky way contrived a + combination of the garden fruit ladder with a battered kitchen table that + served all sorts of odd purposes in an outhouse. He had stayed up this + arrangement by means of the garden roller, and the roller had at the + critical moment—rolled. He was lying close by the garden door with + his head queerly bent back against a broken and twisted rainwater pipe, an + expression of pacific contentment on his face, a bamboo curtain rod with a + tableknife tied to end of it, still gripped in his hand. We had been + rapping for some time at the front door unable to make him hear, and then + we came round by the door in the side trellis into the garden and so + discovered him. + </p> + <p> + “Arthur!” I remember my mother crying with the strangest break in her + voice, “What are you doing there? Arthur! And—SUNDAY!” + </p> + <p> + I was coming behind her, musing remotely, when the quality of her voice + roused me. She stood as if she could not go near him. He had always + puzzled her so, he and his ways, and this seemed only another enigma. Then + the truth dawned on her, she shrieked as if afraid of him, ran a dozen + steps back towards the trellis door and stopped and clasped her + ineffectual gloved hands, leaving me staring blankly, too astonished for + feeling, at the carelessly flung limbs. + </p> + <p> + The same idea came to me also. I ran to her. “Mother!” I cried, pale to + the depths of my spirit, “IS HE DEAD?” + </p> + <p> + I had been thinking two minutes before of the cold fruit pie that + glorified our Sunday dinner-table, and how I might perhaps get into the + tree at the end of the garden to read in the afternoon. Now an immense + fact had come down like a curtain and blotted out all my childish world. + My father was lying dead before my eyes.... I perceived that my mother was + helpless and that things must be done. + </p> + <p> + “Mother!” I said, “we must get Doctor Beaseley,—and carry him + indoors.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE THIRD ~~ SCHOLASTIC + </h2> + <p> + 1 + </p> + <p> + My formal education began in a small preparatory school in Bromstead. I + went there as a day boy. The charge for my instruction was mainly set off + by the periodic visits of my father with a large bag of battered fossils + to lecture to us upon geology. I was one of those fortunate youngsters who + take readily to school work, I had a good memory, versatile interests and + a considerable appetite for commendation, and when I was barely twelve I + got a scholarship at the City Merchants School and was entrusted with a + scholar's railway season ticket to Victoria. After my father's death a + large and very animated and solidly built uncle in tweeds from + Staffordshire, Uncle Minter, my mother's sister's husband, with a + remarkable accent and remarkable vowel sounds, who had plunged into the + Bromstead home once or twice for the night but who was otherwise unknown + to me, came on the scene, sold off the three gaunt houses with the utmost + gusto, invested the proceeds and my father's life insurance money, and got + us into a small villa at Penge within sight of that immense facade of + glass and iron, the Crystal Palace. Then he retired in a mood of + good-natured contempt to his native habitat again. We stayed at Penge + until my mother's death. + </p> + <p> + School became a large part of the world to me, absorbing my time and + interest, and I never acquired that detailed and intimate knowledge of + Penge and the hilly villadom round about, that I have of the town and + outskirts of Bromstead. + </p> + <p> + It was a district of very much the same character, but it was more + completely urbanised and nearer to the centre of things; there were the + same unfinished roads, the same occasional disconcerted hedges and trees, + the same butcher's horse grazing under a builder's notice-board, the same + incidental lapses into slum. The Crystal Palace grounds cut off a large + part of my walking radius to the west with impassable fences and + forbiddingly expensive turnstiles, but it added to the ordinary spectacle + of meteorology a great variety of gratuitous fireworks which banged and + flared away of a night after supper and drew me abroad to see them better. + Such walks as I took, to Croydon, Wembledon, West Wickham and Greenwich, + impressed upon me the interminable extent of London's residential suburbs; + mile after mile one went, between houses, villas, rows of cottages, + streets of shops, under railway arches, over railway bridges. I have + forgotten the detailed local characteristics—if there were any—of + much of that region altogether. I was only there two years, and half my + perambulations occurred at dusk or after dark. But with Penge I associate + my first realisations of the wonder and beauty of twilight and night, the + effect of dark walls reflecting lamplight, and the mystery of blue + haze-veiled hillsides of houses, the glare of shops by night, the glowing + steam and streaming sparks of railway trains and railway signals lit up in + the darkness. My first rambles in the evening occurred at Penge—I + was becoming a big and independent-spirited boy—and I began my + experience of smoking during these twilight prowls with the threepenny + packets of American cigarettes then just appearing in the world. + </p> + <p> + My life centred upon the City Merchants School. Usually I caught the + eight-eighteen for Victoria, I had a midday meal and tea; four nights a + week I stayed for preparation, and often I was not back home again until + within an hour of my bedtime. I spent my half holidays at school in order + to play cricket and football. This, and a pretty voracious appetite for + miscellaneous reading which was fostered by the Penge Middleton Library, + did not leave me much leisure for local topography. On Sundays also I sang + in the choir at St. Martin's Church, and my mother did not like me to walk + out alone on the Sabbath afternoon, she herself slumbered, so that I wrote + or read at home. I must confess I was at home as little as I could + contrive. + </p> + <p> + Home, after my father's death, had become a very quiet and uneventful + place indeed. My mother had either an unimaginative temperament or her + mind was greatly occupied with private religious solicitudes, and I + remember her talking to me but little, and that usually upon topics I was + anxious to evade. I had developed my own view about low-Church theology + long before my father's death, and my meditation upon that event had + finished my secret estrangement from my mother's faith. My reason would + not permit even a remote chance of his being in hell, he was so manifestly + not evil, and this religion would not permit him a remote chance of being + out yet. When I was a little boy my mother had taught me to read and write + and pray and had done many things for me, indeed she persisted in washing + me and even in making my clothes until I rebelled against these things as + indignities. But our minds parted very soon. She never began to understand + the mental processes of my play, she never interested herself in my school + life and work, she could not understand things I said; and she came, I + think, quite insensibly to regard me with something of the same hopeless + perplexity she had felt towards my father. + </p> + <p> + Him she must have wedded under considerable delusions. I do not think he + deceived her, indeed, nor do I suspect him of mercenariness in their + union; but no doubt he played up to her requirements in the half ingenuous + way that was and still is the quality of most wooing, and presented + himself as a very brisk and orthodox young man. I wonder why nearly all + love-making has to be fraudulent. Afterwards he must have disappointed her + cruelly by letting one aspect after another of his careless, sceptical, + experimental temperament appear. Her mind was fixed and definite, she + embodied all that confidence in church and decorum and the assurances of + the pulpit which was characteristic of the large mass of the English + people—for after all, the rather low-Church section WAS the largest + single mass—in early Victorian times. She had dreams, I suspect, of + going to church with him side by side; she in a little poke bonnet and a + large flounced crinoline, all mauve and magenta and starched under a + little lace-trimmed parasol, and he in a tall silk hat and peg-top + trousers and a roll-collar coat, and looking rather like the Prince + Consort,—white angels almost visibly raining benedictions on their + amiable progress. Perhaps she dreamt gently of much-belaced babies and an + interestingly pious (but not too dissenting or fanatical) little girl or + boy or so, also angel-haunted. And I think, too, she must have seen + herself ruling a seemly “home of taste,” with a vivarium in the + conservatory that opened out of the drawing-room, or again, making + preserves in the kitchen. My father's science-teaching, his diagrams of + disembowelled humanity, his pictures of prehistoric beasts that + contradicted the Flood, his disposition towards soft shirts and loose + tweed suits, his inability to use a clothes brush, his spasmodic reading + fits and his bulldog pipes, must have jarred cruelly with her rather + unintelligent anticipations. His wild moments of violent temper when he + would swear and smash things, absurd almost lovable storms that passed + like summer thunder, must have been starkly dreadful to her. She was + constitutionally inadaptable, and certainly made no attempt to understand + or tolerate these outbreaks. She tried them by her standards, and by her + standards they were wrong. Her standards hid him from her. The blazing + things he said rankled in her mind unforgettably. + </p> + <p> + As I remember them together they chafed constantly. Her attitude to nearly + all his moods and all his enterprises was a sceptical disapproval. She + treated him as something that belonged to me and not to her. “YOUR + father,” she used to call him, as though I had got him for her. + </p> + <p> + She had married late and she had, I think, become mentally self-subsisting + before her marriage. Even in those Herne Hill days I used to wonder what + was going on in her mind, and I find that old speculative curiosity return + as I write this. She took a considerable interest in the housework that + our generally servantless condition put upon her—she used to have a + charwoman in two or three times a week—but she did not do it with + any great skill. She covered most of our furniture with flouncey + ill-fitting covers, and she cooked plainly and without very much judgment. + The Penge house, as it contained nearly all our Bromstead things, was + crowded with furniture, and is chiefly associated in my mind with the + smell of turpentine, a condiment she used very freely upon the veneered + mahogany pieces. My mother had an equal dread of “blacks” by day and the + “night air,” so that our brightly clean windows were rarely open. + </p> + <p> + She took a morning paper, and she would open it and glance at the + headlines, but she did not read it until the afternoon and then, I think, + she was interested only in the more violent crimes, and in railway and + mine disasters and in the minutest domesticities of the Royal Family. Most + of the books at home were my father's, and I do not think she opened any + of them. She had one or two volumes that dated from her own youth, and she + tried in vain to interest me in them; there was Miss Strickland's QUEENS + OF ENGLAND, a book I remember with particular animosity, and QUEECHY and + the WIDE WIDE WORLD. She made these books of hers into a class apart by + sewing outer covers upon them of calico and figured muslin. To me in these + habiliments they seemed not so much books as confederated old ladies. + </p> + <p> + My mother was also very punctual with her religious duties, and rejoiced + to watch me in the choir. + </p> + <p> + On winter evenings she occupied an armchair on the other side of the table + at which I sat, head on hand reading, and she would be darning stockings + or socks or the like. We achieved an effect of rather stuffy + comfortableness that was soporific, and in a passive way I think she found + these among her happy times. On such occasions she was wont to put her + work down on her knees and fall into a sort of thoughtless musing that + would last for long intervals and rouse my curiosity. For like most young + people I could not imagine mental states without definite forms. + </p> + <p> + She carried on a correspondence with a number of cousins and friends, + writing letters in a slanting Italian hand and dealing mainly with births, + marriages and deaths, business starts (in the vaguest terms) and the + distresses of bankruptcy. + </p> + <p> + And yet, you know, she did have a curious intimate life of her own that I + suspected nothing of at the time, that only now becomes credible to me. + She kept a diary that is still in my possession, a diary of fragmentary + entries in a miscellaneous collection of pocket books. She put down the + texts of the sermons she heard, and queer stiff little comments on casual + visitors,—“Miss G. and much noisy shrieking talk about games and + such frivolities and CROQUAY. A. delighted and VERY ATTENTIVE.” Such + little human entries abound. She had an odd way of never writing a name, + only an initial; my father is always “A.,” and I am always “D.” It is + manifest she followed the domestic events in the life of the Princess of + Wales, who is now Queen Mother, with peculiar interest and sympathy. “Pray + G. all may be well,” she writes in one such crisis. + </p> + <p> + But there are things about myself that I still find too poignant to tell + easily, certain painful and clumsy circumstances of my birth in very great + detail, the distresses of my infantile ailments. Then later I find such + things as this: “Heard D. s——.” The “s” is evidently “swear “—“G. + bless and keep my boy from evil.” And again, with the thin handwriting + shaken by distress: “D. would not go to church, and hardened his heart and + said wicked infidel things, much disrespect of the clergy. The anthem is + tiresome!!! That men should set up to be wiser than their maker!!!” Then + trebly underlined: “I FEAR HIS FATHER'S TEACHING.” Dreadful little tangle + of misapprehensions and false judgments! More comforting for me to read, + “D. very kind and good. He grows more thoughtful every day.” I suspect + myself of forgotten hypocrisies. + </p> + <p> + At just one point my mother's papers seem to dip deeper. I think the death + of my father must have stirred her for the first time for many years to + think for herself. Even she could not go on living in any peace at all, + believing that he had indeed been flung headlong into hell. Of this + gnawing solicitude she never spoke to me, never, and for her diary also + she could find no phrases. But on a loose half-sheet of notepaper between + its pages I find this passage that follows, written very carefully. I do + not know whose lines they are nor how she came upon them. They run:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “And if there be no meeting past the grave; + If all is darkness, silence, yet 'tis rest. + Be not afraid ye waiting hearts that weep, + For God still giveth His beloved sleep, + And if an endless sleep He wills, so best.” + </pre> + <p> + That scrap of verse amazed me when I read it. I could even wonder if my + mother really grasped the import of what she had copied out. It affected + me as if a stone-deaf person had suddenly turned and joined in a whispered + conversation. It set me thinking how far a mind in its general effect + quite hopelessly limited, might range. After that I went through all her + diaries, trying to find something more than a conventional term of + tenderness for my father. But I found nothing. And yet somehow there grew + upon me the realisation that there had been love.... Her love for me, on + the other hand, was abundantly expressed. + </p> + <p> + I knew nothing of that secret life of feeling at the time; such expression + as it found was all beyond my schoolboy range. I did not know when I + pleased her and I did not know when I distressed her. Chiefly I was aware + of my mother as rather dull company, as a mind thorny with irrational + conclusions and incapable of explication, as one believing quite wilfully + and irritatingly in impossible things. So I suppose it had to be; life was + coming to me in new forms and with new requirements. It was essential to + our situation that we should fail to understand. After this space of years + I have come to realisations and attitudes that dissolve my estrangement + from her, I can pierce these barriers, I can see her and feel her as a + loving and feeling and desiring and muddle-headed person. There are times + when I would have her alive again, if only that I might be kind to her for + a little while and give her some return for the narrow intense affection, + the tender desires, she evidently lavished so abundantly on me. But then + again I ask how I could make that return? And I realise the futility of + such dreaming. Her demand was rigid, and to meet it I should need to act + and lie. + </p> + <p> + So she whose blood fed me, whose body made me, lies in my memory as I saw + her last, fixed, still, infinitely intimate, infinitely remote.... + </p> + <p> + My own case with my mother, however, does not awaken the same regret I + feel when I think of how she misjudged and irked my father, and turned his + weaknesses into thorns for her own tormenting. I wish I could look back + without that little twinge to two people who were both in their different + quality so good. But goodness that is narrow is a pedestrian and + ineffectual goodness. Her attitude to my father seems to me one of the + essentially tragic things that have come to me personally, one of those + things that nothing can transfigure, that REMAIN sorrowful, that I cannot + soothe with any explanation, for as I remember him he was indeed the most + lovable of weak spasmodic men. But my mother had been trained in a hard + and narrow system that made evil out of many things not in the least evil, + and inculcated neither kindliness nor charity. All their estrangement + followed from that. + </p> + <p> + These cramping cults do indeed take an enormous toll of human love and + happiness, and not only that but what we Machiavellians must needs + consider, they make frightful breaches in human solidarity. I suppose I am + a deeply religious man, as men of my quality go, but I hate more and more, + as I grow older, the shadow of intolerance cast by religious + organisations. All my life has been darkened by irrational intolerance, by + arbitrary irrational prohibitions and exclusions. Mahometanism with its + fierce proselytism, has, I suppose, the blackest record of + uncharitableness, but most of the Christian sects are tainted, tainted to + a degree beyond any of the anterior paganisms, with this same hateful + quality. It is their exclusive claim that sends them wrong, the vain + ambition that inspires them all to teach a uniform one-sided God and be + the one and only gateway to salvation. Deprecation of all outside the + household of faith, an organised undervaluation of heretical goodness and + lovableness, follows, necessarily. Every petty difference is exaggerated + to the quality of a saving grace or a damning defect. Elaborate + precautions are taken to shield the believer's mind against broad or + amiable suggestions; the faithful are deterred by dark allusions, by + sinister warnings, from books, from theatres, from worldly conversation, + from all the kindly instruments that mingle human sympathy. For only by + isolating its flock can the organisation survive. + </p> + <p> + Every month there came to my mother a little magazine called, if I + remember rightly, the HOME CHURCHMAN, with the combined authority of print + and clerical commendation. It was the most evil thing that ever came into + the house, a very devil, a thin little pamphlet with one woodcut + illustration on the front page of each number; now the uninviting visage + of some exponent of the real and only doctrine and attitudes, now some + coral strand in act of welcoming the missionaries of God's mysterious + preferences, now a new church in the Victorian Gothic. The vile rag it + was! A score of vices that shun the policeman have nothing of its subtle + wickedness. It was an outrage upon the natural kindliness of men. The + contents were all admirably adjusted to keep a spirit in prison. Their + force of sustained suggestion was tremendous. There would be dreadful + intimations of the swift retribution that fell upon individuals for + Sabbath-breaking, and upon nations for weakening towards Ritualism, or + treating Roman Catholics as tolerable human beings; there would be great + rejoicings over the conversion of alleged Jews, and terrible descriptions + of the death-beds of prominent infidels with boldly invented last words,—the + most unscrupulous lying; there would be the appallingly edifying careers + of “early piety” lusciously described, or stories of condemned criminals + who traced their final ruin unerringly to early laxities of the kind that + leads people to give up subscribing to the HOME CHURCHMAN. + </p> + <p> + Every month that evil spirit brought about a slump in our mutual love. My + mother used to read the thing and become depressed and anxious for my + spiritual welfare, used to be stirred to unintelligent pestering.... + </p> + <p> + 2 + </p> + <p> + A few years ago I met the editor of this same HOME CHURCHMAN. It was at + one of the weekly dinners of that Fleet Street dining club, the + Blackfriars. + </p> + <p> + I heard the paper's name with a queer little shock and surveyed the man + with interest. No doubt he was only a successor of the purveyor of + discords who darkened my boyhood. It was amazing to find an influence so + terrible embodied in a creature so palpably petty. He was seated some way + down a table at right angles to the one at which I sat, a man of mean + appearance with a greyish complexion, thin, with a square nose, a heavy + wiry moustache and a big Adam's apple sticking out between the wings of + his collar. He ate with considerable appetite and unconcealed relish, and + as his jaw was underhung, he chummed and made the moustache wave like + reeds in the swell of a steamer. It gave him a conscientious look. After + dinner he a little forced himself upon me. At that time, though the shadow + of my scandal was already upon me, I still seemed to be shaping for great + successes, and he was glad to be in conversation with me and anxious to + intimate political sympathy and support. I tried to make him talk of the + HOME CHURCHMAN and the kindred publications he ran, but he was manifestly + ashamed of his job so far as I was concerned. + </p> + <p> + “One wants,” he said, pitching himself as he supposed in my key, “to put + constructive ideas into our readers, but they are narrow, you know, very + narrow. Very.” He made his moustache and lips express judicious regret. + “One has to consider them carefully, one has to respect their attitudes. + One dare not go too far with them. One has to feel one's way.” + </p> + <p> + He chummed and the moustache bristled. + </p> + <p> + A hireling, beyond question, catering for a demand. I gathered there was a + home in Tufnell Park, and three boys to be fed and clothed and + educated.... + </p> + <p> + I had the curiosity to buy a copy of his magazine afterwards, and it + seemed much the same sort of thing that had worried my mother in my + boyhood. There was the usual Christian hero, this time with mutton-chop + whiskers and a long bare upper lip. The Jesuits, it seemed, were still + hard at it, and Heaven frightfully upset about the Sunday opening of + museums and the falling birth-rate, and as touchy and vindictive as ever. + There were two vigorous paragraphs upon the utter damnableness of the Rev. + R. J. Campbell, a contagious damnableness I gathered, one wasn't safe + within a mile of Holborn Viaduct, and a foul-mouthed attack on poor little + Wilkins the novelist—who was being baited by the moralists at that + time for making one of his big women characters, not being in holy + wedlock, desire a baby and say so.... + </p> + <p> + The broadening of human thought is a slow and complex process. We do go + on, we do get on. But when one thinks that people are living and dying + now, quarrelling and sulking, misled and misunderstanding, vaguely + fearful, condemning and thwarting one another in the close darknesses of + these narrow cults—Oh, God! one wants a gale out of Heaven, one + wants a great wind from the sea! + </p> + <p> + 3 + </p> + <p> + While I lived at Penge two little things happened to me, trivial in + themselves and yet in their quality profoundly significant. They had this + in common, that they pierced the texture of the life I was quietly taking + for granted and let me see through it into realities—realities I had + indeed known about before but never realised. Each of these experiences + left me with a sense of shock, with all the values in my life perplexingly + altered, attempting readjustment. One of these disturbing and illuminating + events was that I was robbed of a new pocket-knife and the other that I + fell in love. It was altogether surprising to me to be robbed. You see, as + an only child I had always been fairly well looked after and protected, + and the result was an amazing confidence in the practical goodness of the + people one met in the world. I knew there were robbers in the world, just + as I knew there were tigers; that I was ever likely to meet robber or + tiger face to face seemed equally impossible. + </p> + <p> + The knife as I remember it was a particularly jolly one with all sorts of + instruments in it, tweezers and a thing for getting a stone out of the + hoof of a horse, and a corkscrew; it had cost me a carefully accumulated + half-crown, and amounted indeed to a new experience in knives. I had had + it for two or three days, and then one afternoon I dropped it through a + hole in my pocket on a footpath crossing a field between Penge and + Anerley. I heard it fall in the way one does without at the time + appreciating what had happened, then, later, before I got home, when my + hand wandered into my pocket to embrace the still dear new possession I + found it gone, and instantly that memory of something hitting the ground + sprang up into consciousness. I went back and commenced a search. Almost + immediately I was accosted by the leader of a little gang of four or five + extremely dirty and ragged boys of assorted sizes and slouching carriage + who were coming from the Anerley direction. + </p> + <p> + “Lost anythink, Matey?” said he. + </p> + <p> + I explained. + </p> + <p> + “'E's dropped 'is knife,” said my interlocutor, and joined in the search. + </p> + <p> + “What sort of 'andle was it, Matey?” said a small white-faced sniffing boy + in a big bowler hat. + </p> + <p> + I supplied the information. His sharp little face scrutinised the ground + about us. + </p> + <p> + “GOT it,” he said, and pounced. + </p> + <p> + “Give it 'ere,” said the big boy hoarsely, and secured it. + </p> + <p> + I walked towards him serenely confident that he would hand it over to me, + and that all was for the best in the best of all possible worlds. + </p> + <p> + “No bloomin' fear!” he said, regarding me obliquely. “Oo said it was your + knife?” + </p> + <p> + Remarkable doubts assailed me. “Of course it's my knife,” I said. The + other boys gathered round me. + </p> + <p> + “This ain't your knife,” said the big boy, and spat casually. + </p> + <p> + “I dropped it just now.” + </p> + <p> + “Findin's keepin's, I believe,” said the big boy. + </p> + <p> + “Nonsense,” I said. “Give me my knife.” + </p> + <p> + “'Ow many blades it got?” + </p> + <p> + “Three.” + </p> + <p> + “And what sort of 'andle?” + </p> + <p> + “Bone.” + </p> + <p> + “Got a corkscrew like?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah! This ain't your knife no'ow. See?” + </p> + <p> + He made no offer to show it to me. My breath went. + </p> + <p> + “Look here!” I said. “I saw that kid pick it up. It IS my knife.” + </p> + <p> + “Rot!” said the big boy, and slowly, deliberately put my knife into his + trouser pocket. + </p> + <p> + I braced my soul for battle. All civilisation was behind me, but I doubt + if it kept the colour in my face. I buttoned my jacket and clenched my + fists and advanced on my antagonist—he had, I suppose, the advantage + of two years of age and three inches of height. “Hand over that knife,” I + said. + </p> + <p> + Then one of the smallest of the band assailed me with extraordinary vigour + and swiftness from behind, had an arm round my neck and a knee in my back + before I had the slightest intimation of attack, and so got me down. “I + got 'im, Bill,” squeaked this amazing little ruffian. My nose was + flattened by a dirty hand, and as I struck out and hit something like + sacking, some one kicked my elbow. Two or three seemed to be at me at the + same time. Then I rolled over and sat up to discover them all making off, + a ragged flight, footballing my cap, my City Merchants' cap, amongst them. + I leapt to my feet in a passion of indignation and pursued them. + </p> + <p> + But I did not overtake them. We are beings of mixed composition, and I + doubt if mine was a single-minded pursuit. I knew that honour required me + to pursue, and I had a vivid impression of having just been down in the + dust with a very wiry and active and dirty little antagonist of + disagreeable odour and incredible and incalculable unscrupulousness, + kneeling on me and gripping my arm and neck. I wanted of course to be even + with him, but also I doubted if catching him would necessarily involve + that. They kicked my cap into the ditch at the end of the field, and made + off compactly along a cinder lane while I turned aside to recover my + dishonoured headdress. As I knocked the dust out of that and out of my + jacket, and brushed my knees and readjusted my very crumpled collar, I + tried to focus this startling occurrence in my mind. + </p> + <p> + I had vague ideas of going to a policeman or of complaining at a police + station, but some boyish instinct against informing prevented that. No + doubt I entertained ideas of vindictive pursuit and murderous reprisals. + And I was acutely enraged whenever I thought of my knife. The thing indeed + rankled in my mind for weeks and weeks, and altered all the flavour of my + world for me. It was the first time I glimpsed the simple brute violence + that lurks and peeps beneath our civilisation. A certain kindly + complacency of attitude towards the palpably lower classes was qualified + for ever. + </p> + <p> + 4 + </p> + <p> + But the other experience was still more cardinal. It was the first clear + intimation of a new motif in life, the sex motif, that was to rise and + increase and accumulate power and enrichment and interweave with and at + last dominate all my life. + </p> + <p> + It was when I was nearly fifteen this happened. It is inseparably + connected in my mind with the dusk of warm September evenings. I never met + the girl I loved by daylight, and I have forgotten her name. It was some + insignificant name. + </p> + <p> + Yet the peculiar quality of the adventure keeps it shining darkly like + some deep coloured gem in the common setting of my memories. It came as + something new and strange, something that did not join on to anything else + in my life or connect with any of my thoughts or beliefs or habits; it was + a wonder, a mystery, a discovery about myself, a discovery about the whole + world. Only in after years did sexual feeling lose that isolation and + spread itself out to illuminate and pervade and at last possess the whole + broad vision of life. + </p> + <p> + It was in that phase of an urban youth's development, the phase of the + cheap cigarette, that this thing happened. One evening I came by chance on + a number of young people promenading by the light of a row of shops + towards Beckington, and, with all the glory of a glowing cigarette between + my lips, I joined their strolling number. These twilight parades of young + people, youngsters chiefly of the lower middle-class, are one of the odd + social developments of the great suburban growths—unkindly critics, + blind to the inner meanings of things, call them, I believe, Monkeys' + Parades—the shop apprentices, the young work girls, the boy clerks + and so forth, stirred by mysterious intimations, spend their first-earned + money upon collars and ties, chiffon hats, smart lace collars, + walking-sticks, sunshades or cigarettes, and come valiantly into the vague + transfiguring mingling of gaslight and evening, to walk up and down, to + eye meaningly, even to accost and make friends. It is a queer instinctive + revolt from the narrow limited friendless homes in which so many find + themselves, a going out towards something, romance if you will, beauty, + that has suddenly become a need—a need that hitherto has lain + dormant and unsuspected. They promenade. + </p> + <p> + Vulgar!—it is as vulgar as the spirit that calls the moth abroad in + the evening and lights the body of the glow-worm in the night. I made my + way through the throng, a little contemptuously as became a public + schoolboy, my hands in my pockets—none of your cheap canes for me!—and + very careful of the lie of my cigarette upon my lips. And two girls passed + me, one a little taller than the other, with dim warm-tinted faces under + clouds of dark hair and with dark eyes like pools reflecting stars. + </p> + <p> + I half turned, and the shorter one glanced back at me over her shoulder—I + could draw you now the pose of her cheek and neck and shoulder—and + instantly I was as passionately in love with the girl as I have ever been + before or since, as any man ever was with any woman. I turned about and + followed them, I flung away my cigarette ostentatiously and lifted my + school cap and spoke to them. + </p> + <p> + The girl answered shyly with her dark eyes on my face. What I said and + what she said I cannot remember, but I have little doubt it was something + absolutely vapid. It really did not matter; the thing was we had met. I + felt as I think a new-hatched moth must feel when suddenly its urgent + headlong searching brings it in tremulous amazement upon its mate. + </p> + <p> + We met, covered from each other, with all the nets of civilisation keeping + us apart. We walked side by side. + </p> + <p> + It led to scarcely more than that. I think we met four or five times + altogether, and always with her nearly silent elder sister on the other + side of her. We walked on the last two occasions arm in arm, furtively + caressing each other's hands, we went away from the glare of the shops + into the quiet roads of villadom, and there we whispered instead of + talking and looked closely into one another's warm and shaded face. + “Dear,” I whispered very daringly, and she answered, “Dear!” We had a + vague sense that we wanted more of that quality of intimacy and more. We + wanted each other as one wants beautiful music again or to breathe again + the scent of flowers. + </p> + <p> + And that is all there was between us. The events are nothing, the thing + that matters is the way in which this experience stabbed through the + common stuff of life and left it pierced, with a light, with a huge new + interest shining through the rent. + </p> + <p> + When I think of it I can recall even now the warm mystery of her face, her + lips a little apart, lips that I never kissed, her soft shadowed throat, + and I feel again the sensuous stir of her proximity.... + </p> + <p> + Those two girls never told me their surname nor let me approach their + house. They made me leave them at the corner of a road of small houses + near Penge Station. And quite abruptly, without any intimation, they + vanished and came to the meeting place no more, they vanished as a moth + goes out of a window into the night, and left me possessed of an + intolerable want.... + </p> + <p> + The affair pervaded my existence for many weeks. I could not do my work + and I could not rest at home. Night after night I promenaded up and down + that Monkeys' Parade full of an unappeasable desire, with a thwarted sense + of something just begun that ought to have gone on. I went backwards and + forwards on the way to the vanishing place, and at last explored the + forbidden road that had swallowed them up. But I never saw her again, + except that later she came to me, my symbol of womanhood, in dreams. How + my blood was stirred! I lay awake of nights whispering in the darkness for + her. I prayed for her. + </p> + <p> + Indeed that girl, who probably forgot the last vestiges of me when her + first real kiss came to her, ruled and haunted me, gave a Queen to my + imagination and a texture to all my desires until I became a man. + </p> + <p> + I generalised her at last. I suddenly discovered that poetry was about her + and that she was the key to all that had hitherto seemed nonsense about + love. I took to reading novels, and if the heroine could not possibly be + like her, dusky and warm and starlike, I put the book aside.... + </p> + <p> + I hesitate and add here one other confession. I want to tell this thing + because it seems to me we are altogether too restrained and secretive + about such matters. The cardinal thing in life sneaks in to us darkly and + shamefully like a thief in the night. + </p> + <p> + One day during my Cambridge days—it must have been in my first year + before I knew Hatherleigh—I saw in a print-shop window near the + Strand an engraving of a girl that reminded me sharply of Penge and its + dusky encounter. It was just a half length of a bare-shouldered, + bare-breasted Oriental with arms akimbo, smiling faintly. I looked at it, + went my way, then turned back and bought it. I felt I must have it. The + odd thing is that I was more than a little shamefaced about it. I did not + have it framed and hung in my room open to the criticism of my friends, + but I kept it in the drawer of my writing-table. And I kept that drawer + locked for a year. It speedily merged with and became identified with the + dark girl of Penge. That engraving became in a way my mistress. Often when + I had sported my oak and was supposed to be reading, I was sitting with it + before me. + </p> + <p> + Obeying some instinct I kept the thing very secret indeed. For a time + nobody suspected what was locked in my drawer nor what was locked in me. I + seemed as sexless as my world required. + </p> + <p> + 5 + </p> + <p> + These things stabbed through my life, intimations of things above and + below and before me. They had an air of being no more than incidents, + interruptions. + </p> + <p> + The broad substance of my existence at this time was the City Merchants + School. Home was a place where I slept and read, and the mooning + explorations of the south-eastern postal district which occupied the + restless evenings and spare days of my vacations mere interstices, giving + glimpses of enigmatical lights and distant spaces between the woven + threads of a school-boy's career. School life began for me every morning + at Herne Hill, for there I was joined by three or four other boys and the + rest of the way we went together. Most of the streets and roads we + traversed in our morning's walk from Victoria are still intact, the storms + of rebuilding that have submerged so much of my boyhood's London have + passed and left them, and I have revived the impression of them again and + again in recent years as I have clattered dinnerward in a hansom or hummed + along in a motor cab to some engagement. The main gate still looks out + with the same expression of ancient well-proportioned kindliness upon St. + Margaret's Close. There are imposing new science laboratories in Chambers + Street indeed, but the old playing fields are unaltered except for the big + electric trams that go droning and spitting blue flashes along the western + boundary. I know Ratten, the new Head, very well, but I have not been + inside the school to see if it has changed at all since I went up to + Cambridge. + </p> + <p> + I took all they put before us very readily as a boy, for I had a mind of + vigorous appetite, but since I have grown mentally to man's estate and + developed a more and more comprehensive view of our national process and + our national needs, I am more and more struck by the oddity of the + educational methods pursued, their aimless disconnectedness from the + constructive forces in the community. I suppose if we are to view the + public school as anything more than an institution that has just chanced + to happen, we must treat it as having a definite function towards the + general scheme of the nation, as being in a sense designed to take the + crude young male of the more or less responsible class, to correct his + harsh egotisms, broaden his outlook, give him a grasp of the contemporary + developments he will presently be called upon to influence and control, + and send him on to the university to be made a leading and ruling social + man. It is easy enough to carp at schoolmasters and set up for an + Educational Reformer, I know, but still it is impossible not to feel how + infinitely more effectually—given certain impossibilities perhaps—the + job might be done. + </p> + <p> + My memory of school has indeed no hint whatever of that quality of + elucidation it seems reasonable to demand from it. Here all about me was + London, a vast inexplicable being, a vortex of gigantic forces, that + filled and overwhelmed me with impressions, that stirred my imagination to + a perpetual vague enquiry; and my school not only offered no key to it, + but had practically no comment to make upon it at all. We were within + three miles of Westminster and Charing Cross, the government offices of a + fifth of mankind were all within an hour's stroll, great economic changes + were going on under our eyes, now the hoardings flamed with election + placards, now the Salvation Army and now the unemployed came trailing in + procession through the winter-grey streets, now the newspaper placards + outside news-shops told of battles in strange places, now of amazing + discoveries, now of sinister crimes, abject squalor and poverty, imperial + splendour and luxury, Buckingham Palace, Rotten Row, Mayfair, the slums of + Pimlico, garbage-littered streets of bawling costermongers, the inky + silver of the barge-laden Thames—such was the background of our + days. We went across St. Margaret's Close and through the school gate into + a quiet puerile world apart from all these things. We joined in the + earnest acquirement of all that was necessary for Greek epigrams and Latin + verse, and for the rest played games. We dipped down into something clear + and elegantly proportioned and time-worn and for all its high resolve of + stalwart virility a little feeble, like our blackened and decayed portals + by Inigo Jones. + </p> + <p> + Within, we were taught as the chief subjects of instruction, Latin and + Greek. We were taught very badly because the men who taught us did not + habitually use either of these languages, nobody uses them any more now + except perhaps for the Latin of a few Levantine monasteries. At the utmost + our men read them. We were taught these languages because long ago Latin + had been the language of civilisation; the one way of escape from the + narrow and localised life had lain in those days through Latin, and + afterwards Greek had come in as the vehicle of a flood of new and amazing + ideas. Once these two languages had been the sole means of initiation to + the detached criticism and partial comprehension of the world. I can + imagine the fierce zeal of our first Heads, Gardener and Roper, teaching + Greek like passionate missionaries, as a progressive Chinaman might teach + English to the boys of Pekin, clumsily, impatiently, with rod and harsh + urgency, but sincerely, patriotically, because they felt that behind it + lay revelations, the irresistible stimulus to a new phase of history. That + was long ago. A new great world, a vaster Imperialism had arisen about the + school, had assimilated all these amazing and incredible ideas, had gone + on to new and yet more amazing developments of its own. But the City + Merchants School still made the substance of its teaching Latin and Greek, + still, with no thought of rotating crops, sowed in a dream amidst the + harvesting. + </p> + <p> + There is no fierceness left in the teaching now. Just after I went up to + Trinity, Gates, our Head, wrote a review article in defence of our + curriculum. In this, among other indiscretions, he asserted that it was + impossible to write good English without an illuminating knowledge of the + classic tongues, and he split an infinitive and failed to button up a + sentence in saying so. His main argument conceded every objection a + reasonable person could make to the City Merchants' curriculum. He + admitted that translation had now placed all the wisdom of the past at a + common man's disposal, that scarcely a field of endeavour remained in + which modern work had not long since passed beyond the ancient + achievement. He disclaimed any utility. But there was, he said, a peculiar + magic in these grammatical exercises no other subjects of instruction + possessed. Nothing else provided the same strengthening and orderly + discipline for the mind. + </p> + <p> + He said that, knowing the Senior Classics he did, himself a Senior + Classic! + </p> + <p> + Yet in a dim confused way I think he was making out a case. In schools as + we knew them, and with the sort of assistant available, the sort of + assistant who has been trained entirely on the old lines, he could see no + other teaching so effectual in developing attention, restraint, sustained + constructive effort and various yet systematic adjustment. And that was as + far as his imagination could go. + </p> + <p> + It is infinitely easier to begin organised human affairs than end them; + the curriculum and the social organisation of the English public school + are the crowning instances of that. They go on because they have begun. + Schools are not only immortal institutions but reproductive ones. Our + founder, Jabez Arvon, knew nothing, I am sure, of Gates' pedagogic values + and would, I feel certain, have dealt with them disrespectfully. But + public schools and university colleges sprang into existence correlated, + the scholars went on to the universities and came back to teach the + schools, to teach as they themselves had been taught, before they had ever + made any real use of the teaching; the crowd of boys herded together, a + crowd perpetually renewed and unbrokenly the same, adjusted itself by + means of spontaneously developed institutions. In a century, by its very + success, this revolutionary innovation of Renascence public schools had + become an immense tradition woven closely into the fabric of the national + life. Intelligent and powerful people ceased to talk Latin or read Greek, + they had got what was wanted, but that only left the schoolmaster the + freer to elaborate his point. Since most men of any importance or + influence in the country had been through the mill, it was naturally a + little difficult to persuade them that it was not quite the best and most + ennobling mill the wit of man could devise. And, moreover, they did not + want their children made strange to them. There was all the machinery and + all the men needed to teach the old subjects, and none to teach whatever + new the critic might propose. Such science instruction as my father gave + seemed indeed the uninviting alternative to the classical grind. It was + certainly an altogether inferior instrument at that time. + </p> + <p> + So it was I occupied my mind with the exact study of dead languages for + seven long years. It was the strangest of detachments. We would sit under + the desk of such a master as Topham like creatures who had fallen into an + enchanted pit, and he would do his considerable best to work us up to + enthusiasm for, let us say, a Greek play. If we flagged he would lash + himself to revive us. He would walk about the class-room mouthing great + lines in a rich roar, and asking us with a flushed face and shining eyes + if it was not “GLORIOUS.” The very sight of Greek letters brings back to + me the dingy, faded, ink-splashed quality of our class-room, the banging + of books, Topham's disordered hair, the sheen of his alpaca gown, his deep + unmusical intonations and the wide striding of his creaking boots. + Glorious! And being plastic human beings we would consent that it was + glorious, and some of us even achieved an answering reverberation and a + sympathetic flush. I at times responded freely. We all accepted from him + unquestioningly that these melodies, these strange sounds, exceeded any + possibility of beauty that lay in the Gothic intricacy, the splash and + glitter, the jar and recovery, the stabbing lights, the heights and broad + distances of our English tongue. That indeed was the chief sin of him. It + was not that he was for Greek and Latin, but that he was fiercely against + every beauty that was neither classic nor deferred to classical canons. + </p> + <p> + And what exactly did we make of it, we seniors who understood it best? We + visualised dimly through that dust and the grammatical difficulties, the + spectacle of the chorus chanting grotesquely, helping out protagonist and + antagonist, masked and buskined, with the telling of incomprehensible + parricides, of inexplicable incest, of gods faded beyond symbolism, of + that Relentless Law we did not believe in for a moment, that no modern + western European can believe in. We thought of the characters in the + unconvincing wigs and costumes of our school performance. No Gilbert + Murray had come as yet to touch these things to life again. It was like + the ghost of an antiquarian's toy theatre, a ghost that crumbled and + condensed into a gritty dust of construing as one looked at it. + </p> + <p> + Marks, shindies, prayers and punishments, all flavoured with the leathery + stuffiness of time-worn Big Hall.... + </p> + <p> + And then out one would come through our grey old gate into the evening + light and the spectacle of London hurrying like a cataract, London in + black and brown and blue and gleaming silver, roaring like the very loom + of Time. We came out into the new world no teacher has yet had the power + and courage to grasp and expound. Life and death sang all about one, joys + and fears on such a scale, in such an intricacy as never Greek nor Roman + knew. The interminable procession of horse omnibuses went lumbering past, + bearing countless people we knew not whence, we knew not whither. Hansoms + clattered, foot passengers jostled one, a thousand appeals of shop and + boarding caught the eye. The multi-coloured lights of window and street + mingled with the warm glow of the declining day under the softly flushing + London skies; the ever-changing placards, the shouting news-vendors, told + of a kaleidoscopic drama all about the globe. One did not realise what had + happened to us, but the voice of Topham was suddenly drowned and lost, he + and his minute, remote gesticulations.... + </p> + <p> + That submerged and isolated curriculum did not even join on to living + interests where it might have done so. We were left absolutely to the + hints of the newspapers, to casual political speeches, to the cartoons of + the comic papers or a chance reading of some Socialist pamphlet for any + general ideas whatever about the huge swirling world process in which we + found ourselves. I always look back with particular exasperation to the + cessation of our modern history at the year 1815. There it pulled up + abruptly, as though it had come upon something indelicate.... + </p> + <p> + But, after all, what would Topham or Flack have made of the huge + adjustments of the nineteenth century? Flack was the chief cricketer on + the staff; he belonged to that great cult which pretends that the place of + this or that county in the struggle for the championship is a matter of + supreme importance to boys. He obliged us to affect a passionate interest + in the progress of county matches, to work up unnatural enthusiasms. What + a fuss there would be when some well-trained boy, panting as if from + Marathon, appeared with an evening paper! “I say, you chaps, Middlesex all + out for a hundred and five!” + </p> + <p> + Under Flack's pressure I became, I confess, a cricket humbug of the first + class. I applied myself industriously year by year to mastering scores and + averages; I pretended that Lords or the Oval were the places nearest + Paradise for me. (I never went to either.) Through a slight mistake about + the county boundary I adopted Surrey for my loyalty, though as a matter of + fact we were by some five hundred yards or so in Kent. It did quite as + well for my purposes. I bowled rather straight and fast, and spent endless + hours acquiring the skill to bowl Flack out. He was a bat in the + Corinthian style, rich and voluminous, and succumbed very easily to a low + shooter or an unexpected Yorker, but usually he was caught early by long + leg. The difficulty was to bowl him before he got caught. He loved to lift + a ball to leg. After one had clean bowled him at the practice nets one + deliberately gave him a ball to leg just to make him feel nice again. + </p> + <p> + Flack went about a world of marvels dreaming of leg hits. He has been + observed, going across the Park on his way to his highly respectable club + in Piccadilly, to break from profound musings into a strange brief dance + that ended with an imaginary swipe with his umbrella, a roofer, over the + trees towards Buckingham Palace. The hit accomplished, Flack resumed his + way. + </p> + <p> + Inadequately instructed foreigners would pass him in terror, needlessly + alert. + </p> + <p> + 6 + </p> + <p> + These schoolmasters move through my memory as always a little distant and + more than a little incomprehensible. Except when they wore flannels, I saw + them almost always in old college caps and gowns, a uniform which greatly + increased their detachment from the world of actual men. Gates, the head, + was a lean loose-limbed man, rather stupid I discovered when I reached the + Sixth and came into contact with him, but honest, simple and very eager to + be liberal-minded. He was bald, with an almost conical baldness, with a + grizzled pointed beard, small featured and, under the stresses of a + Zeitgeist that demanded liberality, with an expression of puzzled but + resolute resistance to his own unalterable opinions. He made a tall + dignified figure in his gown. In my junior days he spoke to me only three + or four times, and then he annoyed me by giving me a wrong surname; it was + a sore point because I was an outsider and not one of the old school + families, the Shoesmiths, the Naylors, the Marklows, the Tophams, the + Pevises and suchlike, who came generation after generation. I recall him + most vividly against the background of faded brown book-backs in the old + library in which we less destructive seniors were trusted to work, with + the light from the stained-glass window falling in coloured patches on his + face. It gave him the appearance of having no colour of his own. He had a + habit of scratching the beard on his cheek as he talked, and he used to + come and consult us about things and invariably do as we said. That, in + his phraseology, was “maintaining the traditions of the school.” + </p> + <p> + He had indeed an effect not of a man directing a school, but of a man + captured and directed by a school. Dead and gone Elizabethans had begotten + a monster that could carry him about in its mouth. + </p> + <p> + Yet being a man, as I say, with his hair a little stirred by a Zeitgeist + that made for change, Gates did at times display a disposition towards + developments. City Merchants had no modern side, and utilitarian spirits + were carping in the PALL MALL GAZETTE and elsewhere at the omissions from + our curriculum, and particularly at our want of German. Moreover, four + classes still worked together with much clashing and uproar in the old Big + Hall that had once held in a common tumult the entire school. Gates used + to come and talk to us older fellows about these things. + </p> + <p> + “I don't wish to innovate unduly,” he used to say. “But we ought to get in + some German, you know,—for those who like it. The army men will be + wanting it some of these days.” + </p> + <p> + He referred to the organisation of regular evening preparation for the + lower boys in Big Hall as a “revolutionary change,” but he achieved it, + and he declared he began the replacement of the hacked wooden tables, at + which the boys had worked since Tudor days, by sloping desks with safety + inkpots and scientifically adjustable seats, “with grave misgivings.” And + though he never birched a boy in his life, and was, I am convinced, + morally incapable of such a scuffle, he retained the block and birch in + the school through all his term of office, and spoke at the Headmasters' + Conference in temperate approval of corporal chastisement, comparing it, + dear soul! to the power of the sword.... + </p> + <p> + I wish I could, in some measure and without tediousness, convey the effect + of his discourses to General Assembly in Big Hall. But that is like trying + to draw the obverse and reverse of a sixpence worn to complete + illegibility. His tall fine figure stood high on the days, his thoughtful + tenor filled the air as he steered his hazardous way through sentences + that dragged inconclusive tails and dropped redundant prepositions. And he + pleaded ever so urgently, ever so finely, that what we all knew for Sin + was sinful, and on the whole best avoided altogether, and so went on with + deepening notes and even with short arresting gestures of the right arm + and hand, to stir and exhort us towards goodness, towards that modern, + unsectarian goodness, goodness in general and nothing in particular, which + the Zeitgeist seemed to indicate in those transitional years. + </p> + <p> + 7 + </p> + <p> + The school never quite got hold of me. Partly I think that was because I + was a day-boy and so freer than most of the boys, partly because of a + temperamental disposition to see things in my own way and have my private + dreams, partly because I was a little antagonised by the family traditions + that ran through the school. I was made to feel at first that I was a rank + outsider, and I never quite forgot it. I suffered very little bullying, + and I never had a fight—in all my time there were only three fights—but + I followed my own curiosities. I was already a very keen theologian and + politician before I was fifteen. I was also intensely interested in modern + warfare. I read the morning papers in the Reading Room during the midday + recess, never missed the illustrated weeklies, and often when I could + afford it I bought a PALL MALL GAZETTE on my way home. + </p> + <p> + I do not think that I was very exceptional in that; most intelligent boys, + I believe, want naturally to be men, and are keenly interested in men's + affairs. There is not the universal passion for a magnified puerility + among them it is customary to assume. I was indeed a voracious reader of + everything but boys' books—which I detested—and fiction. I + read histories, travel, popular science and controversy with particular + zest, and I loved maps. School work and school games were quite + subordinate affairs for me. I worked well and made a passable figure at + games, and I do not think I was abnormally insensitive to the fine quality + of our school, to the charm of its mediaeval nucleus, its Gothic + cloisters, its scraps of Palladian and its dignified Georgian extensions; + the contrast of the old quiet, that in spite of our presence pervaded it + everywhere, with the rushing and impending London all about it, was indeed + a continual pleasure to me. But these things were certainly not the living + and central interests of my life. + </p> + <p> + I had to conceal my wider outlook to a certain extent—from the + masters even more than from the boys. Indeed I only let myself go freely + with one boy, Britten, my especial chum, the son of the Agent-General for + East Australia. We two discovered in a chance conversation A PROPOS of a + map in the library that we were both of us curious why there were Malays + in Madagascar, and how the Mecca pilgrims came from the East Indies before + steamships were available. Neither of us had suspected that there was any + one at all in the school who knew or cared a rap about the Indian Ocean, + except as water on the way to India. But Britten had come up through the + Suez Canal, and his ship had spoken a pilgrim ship on the way. It gave him + a startling quality of living knowledge. From these pilgrims we got to a + comparative treatment of religions, and from that, by a sudden plunge, to + entirely sceptical and disrespectful confessions concerning Gates' last + outbreak of simple piety in School Assembly. We became congenial intimates + from that hour. + </p> + <p> + The discovery of Britten happened to me when we were both in the Lower + Fifth. Previously there had been a watertight compartment between the + books I read and the thoughts they begot on the one hand and human + intercourse on the other. Now I really began my higher education, and + aired and examined and developed in conversation the doubts, the ideas, + the interpretations that had been forming in my mind. As we were both + day-boys with a good deal of control over our time we organised walks and + expeditions together, and my habit of solitary and rather vague prowling + gave way to much more definite joint enterprises. I went several times to + his house, he was the youngest of several brothers, one of whom was a + medical student and let us assist at the dissection of a cat, and once or + twice in vacation time he came to Penge, and we went with parcels of + provisions to do a thorough day in the grounds and galleries of the + Crystal Palace, ending with the fireworks at close quarters. We went in a + river steamboat down to Greenwich, and fired by that made an excursion to + Margate and back; we explored London docks and Bethnal Green Museum, + Petticoat Lane and all sorts of out-of-the-way places together. + </p> + <p> + We confessed shyly to one another a common secret vice, “Phantom warfare.” + When we walked alone, especially in the country, we had both developed the + same practice of fighting an imaginary battle about us as we walked. As we + went along we were generals, and our attacks pushed along on either side, + crouching and gathering behind hedges, cresting ridges, occupying copses, + rushing open spaces, fighting from house to house. The hillsides about + Penge were honeycombed in my imagination with the pits and trenches I had + created to check a victorious invader coming out of Surrey. For him West + Kensington was chiefly important as the scene of a desperate and + successful last stand of insurrectionary troops (who had seized the Navy, + the Bank and other advantages) against a royalist army—reinforced by + Germans—advancing for reasons best known to themselves by way of + Harrow and Ealing. It is a secret and solitary game, as we found when we + tried to play it together. We made a success of that only once. All the + way down to Margate we schemed defences and assailed and fought them as we + came back against the sunset. Afterwards we recapitulated all that + conflict by means of a large scale map of the Thames and little paper + ironclads in plan cut out of paper. + </p> + <p> + A subsequent revival of these imaginings was brought about by Britten's + luck in getting, through a friend of his father's, admission for us both + to the spectacle of volunteer officers fighting the war game in Caxton + Hall. We developed a war game of our own at Britten's home with nearly a + couple of hundred lead soldiers, some excellent spring cannons that shot + hard and true at six yards, hills of books and a constantly elaborated set + of rules. For some months that occupied an immense proportion of our + leisure. Some of our battles lasted several days. We kept the game a + profound secret from the other fellows. They would not have understood. + </p> + <p> + And we also began, it was certainly before we were sixteen, to write, for + the sake of writing. We liked writing. We had discovered Lamb and the best + of the middle articles in such weeklies as the SATURDAY GAZETTE, and we + imitated them. Our minds were full of dim uncertain things we wanted to + drag out into the light of expression. Britten had got hold of IN + MEMORIAM, and I had disinterred Pope's ESSAY ON MAN and RABBI BEN EZRA, + and these things had set our theological and cosmic solicitudes talking. I + was somewhere between sixteen and eighteen, I know, when he and I walked + along the Thames Embankment confessing shamefully to one another that we + had never read Lucretius. We thought every one who mattered had read + Lucretius. + </p> + <p> + When I was nearly sixteen my mother was taken ill very suddenly, and died + of some perplexing complaint that involved a post-mortem examination; it + was, I think, the trouble that has since those days been recognised as + appendicitis. This led to a considerable change in my circumstances; the + house at Penge was given up, and my Staffordshire uncle arranged for me to + lodge during school terms with a needy solicitor and his wife in Vicars + Street, S. W., about a mile and a half from the school. So it was I came + right into London; I had almost two years of London before I went to + Cambridge. + </p> + <p> + Those were our great days together. Afterwards we were torn apart; Britten + went to Oxford, and our circumstances never afterwards threw us + continuously together until the days of the BLUE WEEKLY. + </p> + <p> + As boys, we walked together, read and discussed the same books, pursued + the same enquiries. We got a reputation as inseparables and the nickname + of the Rose and the Lily, for Britten was short and thick-set with dark + close curling hair and a ruddy Irish type of face; I was lean and + fair-haired and some inches taller than he. Our talk ranged widely and yet + had certain very definite limitations. We were amazingly free with + politics and religion, we went to that little meeting-house of William + Morris's at Hammersmith and worked out the principles of Socialism pretty + thoroughly, and we got up the Darwinian theory with the help of Britten's + medical-student brother and the galleries of the Natural History Museum in + Cromwell Road. Those wonderful cases on the ground floor illustrating + mimicry, dimorphism and so forth, were new in our times, and we went + through them with earnest industry and tried over our Darwinism in the + light of that. Such topics we did exhaustively. But on the other hand I do + not remember any discussion whatever of human sex or sexual relationships. + There, in spite of intense secret curiosities, our lips were sealed by a + peculiar shyness. And I do not believe we ever had occasion either of us + to use the word “love.” It was not only that we were instinctively shy of + the subject, but that we were mightily ashamed of the extent of our + ignorance and uncertainty in these matters. We evaded them elaborately + with an assumption of exhaustive knowledge. + </p> + <p> + We certainly had no shyness about theology. We marked the emancipation of + our spirits from the frightful teachings that had oppressed our boyhood, + by much indulgence in blasphemous wit. We had a secret literature of + irreverent rhymes, and a secret art of theological caricature. Britten's + father had delighted his family by reading aloud from Dr. Richard + Garnett's TWILIGHT OF THE GODS, and Britten conveyed the precious volume + to me. That and the BAB BALLADS were the inspiration of some of our + earliest lucubrations. + </p> + <p> + For an imaginative boy the first experience of writing is like a tiger's + first taste of blood, and our literary flowerings led very directly to the + revival of the school magazine, which had been comatose for some years. + But there we came upon a disappointment. + </p> + <p> + 8 + </p> + <p> + In that revival we associated certain other of the Sixth Form boys, and + notably one for whom our enterprise was to lay the foundations of a career + that has ended in the House of Lords, Arthur Cossington, now Lord + Paddockhurst. Cossington was at that time a rather heavy, rather + good-looking boy who was chiefly eminent in cricket, an outsider even as + we were and preoccupied no doubt, had we been sufficiently detached to + observe him, with private imaginings very much of the same quality and + spirit as our own. He was, we were inclined to think, rather a + sentimentalist, rather a poseur, he affected a concise emphatic style, + played chess very well, betrayed a belief in will-power, and earned + Britten's secret hostility, Britten being a sloven, by the invariable + neatness of his collars and ties. He came into our magazine with a vigour + that we found extremely surprising and unwelcome. + </p> + <p> + Britten and I had wanted to write. We had indeed figured our project + modestly as a manuscript magazine of satirical, liberal and brilliant + literature by which in some rather inexplicable way the vague tumult of + ideas that teemed within us was to find form and expression; Cossington, + it was manifest from the outset, wanted neither to write nor writing, but + a magazine. I remember the inaugural meeting in Shoesmith major's study—we + had had great trouble in getting it together—and how effectually + Cossington bolted with the proposal. + </p> + <p> + “I think we fellows ought to run a magazine,” said Cossington. “The school + used to have one. A school like this ought to have a magazine.” + </p> + <p> + “The last one died in '84,” said Shoesmith from the hearthrug. “Called the + OBSERVER. Rot rather.” + </p> + <p> + “Bad title,” said Cossington. + </p> + <p> + “There was a TATLER before that,” said Britten, sitting on the writing + table at the window that was closed to deaden the cries of the Lower + School at play, and clashing his boots together. + </p> + <p> + “We want something suggestive of City Merchants.” + </p> + <p> + “CITY MERCHANDIZE,” said Britten. + </p> + <p> + “Too fanciful. What of ARVONIAN? Richard Arvon was our founder, and it + seems almost a duty—” + </p> + <p> + “They call them all -usians or -onians,” said Britten. + </p> + <p> + “I like CITY MERCHANDIZE,” I said. “We could probably find a quotation to + suggest—oh! mixed good things.” + </p> + <p> + Cossington regarded me abstractedly. + </p> + <p> + “Don't want to put the accent on the City, do we?” said Shoesmith, who had + a feeling for county families, and Naylor supported him by a murmur of + approval. + </p> + <p> + “We ought to call it the ARVONIAN,” decided Cossington, “and we might very + well have underneath, 'With which is incorporated the OBSERVER.' That + picks up the old traditions, makes an appeal to old boys and all that, and + it gives us something to print under the title.” + </p> + <p> + I still held out for CITY MERCHANDIZE, which had taken my fancy. “Some of + the chaps' people won't like it,” said Naylor, “certain not to. And it + sounds Rum.” + </p> + <p> + “Sounds Weird,” said a boy who had not hitherto spoken. + </p> + <p> + “We aren't going to do anything Queer,” said Shoesmith, pointedly not + looking at Britten. + </p> + <p> + The question of the title had manifestly gone against us. “Oh! HAVE it + ARVONIAN,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “And next, what size shall we have?” said Cossington. + </p> + <p> + “Something like MACMILLAN'S MAGAZINE—or LONGMANS'; LONGMANS' is + better because it has a whole page, not columns. It makes no end of + difference to one's effects.” + </p> + <p> + “What effects?” asked Shoesmith abruptly. + </p> + <p> + “Oh! a pause or a white line or anything. You've got to write closer for a + double column. It's nuggetty. You can't get a swing on your prose.” I had + discussed this thoroughly with Britten. + </p> + <p> + “If the fellows are going to write—” began Britten. + </p> + <p> + “We ought to keep off fine writing,” said Shoesmith. “It's cheek. I vote + we don't have any.” + </p> + <p> + “We sha'n't get any,” said Cossington, and then as an olive branch to me, + “unless Remington does a bit. Or Britten. But it's no good making too much + space for it.” + </p> + <p> + “We ought to be very careful about the writing,” said Shoesmith. “We don't + want to give ourselves away.” + </p> + <p> + “I vote we ask old Topham to see us through,” said Naylor. + </p> + <p> + Britten groaned aloud and every one regarded him. “Greek epigrams on the + fellows' names,” he said. “Small beer in ancient bottles. Let's get a + stuffed broody hen to SIT on the magazine.” + </p> + <p> + “We might do worse than a Greek epigram,” said Cossington. “One in each + number. It—it impresses parents and keeps up our classical + tradition. And the masters CAN help. We don't want to antagonise them. Of + course—we've got to departmentalise. Writing is only one section of + the thing. The ARVONIAN has to stand for the school. There's questions of + space and questions of expense. We can't turn out a great chunk of printed + prose like—like wet cold toast and call it a magazine.” + </p> + <p> + Britten writhed, appreciating the image. + </p> + <p> + “There's to be a section of sports. YOU must do that.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm not going to do any fine writing,” said Shoesmith. + </p> + <p> + “What you've got to do is just to list all the chaps and put a note to + their play:—'Naylor minor must pass more. Football isn't the place + for extreme individualism.' 'Ammersham shapes well as half-back.' Things + like that.” + </p> + <p> + “I could do that all right,” said Shoesmith, brightening and manifestly + becoming pregnant with judgments. + </p> + <p> + “One great thing about a magazine of this sort,” said Cossington, “is to + mention just as many names as you can in each number. It keeps the + interest alive. Chaps will turn it over looking for their own little bit. + Then it all lights up for them.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you want any reports of matches?” Shoesmith broke from his meditation. + </p> + <p> + “Rather. With comments.” + </p> + <p> + “Naylor surpassed himself and negotiated the lemon safely home,” said + Shoesmith. + </p> + <p> + “Shut it,” said Naylor modestly. + </p> + <p> + “Exactly,” said Cossington. “That gives us three features,” touching them + off on his fingers, “Epigram, Literary Section, Sports. Then we want a + section to shove anything into, a joke, a notice of anything that's going + on. So on. Our Note Book.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Hell!” said Britten, and clashed his boots, to the silent disapproval + of every one. + </p> + <p> + “Then we want an editorial.” + </p> + <p> + “A WHAT?” cried Britten, with a note of real terror in his voice. + </p> + <p> + “Well, don't we? Unless we have our Note Book to begin on the front page. + It gives a scrappy effect to do that. We want something manly and + straightforward and a bit thoughtful, about Patriotism, say, or ESPRIT DE + CORPS, or After-Life.” + </p> + <p> + I looked at Britten. Hitherto we had not considered Cossington mattered + very much in the world. + </p> + <p> + He went over us as a motor-car goes over a dog. There was a sort of energy + about him, a new sort of energy to us; we had never realised that anything + of the sort existed in the world. We were hopelessly at a disadvantage. + Almost instantly we had developed a clear and detailed vision of a + magazine made up of everything that was most acceptable in the magazines + that flourished in the adult world about us, and had determined to make it + a success. He had by a kind of instinct, as it were, synthetically + plagiarised every successful magazine and breathed into this dusty mixture + the breath of life. He was elected at his own suggestion managing + director, with the earnest support of Shoesmith and Naylor, and conducted + the magazine so successfully and brilliantly that he even got a whole back + page of advertisements from the big sports shop in Holborn, and made the + printers pay at the same rate for a notice of certain books of their own + which they said they had inserted by inadvertency to fill up space. The + only literary contribution in the first number was a column by Topham in + faultless stereotyped English in depreciation of some fancied evil called + Utilitarian Studies and ending with that noble old quotation:— + </p> + <p> + “To the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome.” + </p> + <p> + And Flack crowded us out of number two with a bright little paper on the + “Humours of Cricket,” and the Head himself was profusely thoughtful all + over the editorial under the heading of “The School Chapel; and How it + Seems to an Old Boy.” + </p> + <p> + Britten and I found it difficult to express to each other with any grace + or precision what we felt about that magazine. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE FOURTH ~~ ADOLESCENCE + </h2> + <p> + 1 + </p> + <p> + I find it very difficult to trace how form was added to form and + interpretation followed interpretation in my ever-spreading, + ever-deepening, ever-multiplying and enriching vision of this world into + which I had been born. Every day added its impressions, its hints, its + subtle explications to the growing understanding. Day after day the living + interlacing threads of a mind weave together. Every morning now for three + weeks and more (for to-day is Thursday and I started on a Tuesday) I have + been trying to convey some idea of the factors and early influences by + which my particular scrap of subjective tapestry was shaped, to show the + child playing on the nursery floor, the son perplexed by his mother, + gazing aghast at his dead father, exploring interminable suburbs, touched + by first intimations of the sexual mystery, coming in with a sort of + confused avidity towards the centres of the life of London. It is only by + such an effort to write it down that one realises how marvellously + crowded, how marvellously analytical and synthetic those ears must be. One + begins with the little child to whom the sky is a roof of blue, the world + a screen of opaque and disconnected facts, the home a thing eternal, and + “being good” just simple obedience to unquestioned authority; and one + comes at last to the vast world of one's adult perception, pierced deep by + flaring searchlights of partial understanding, here masked by mists, here + refracted and distorted through half translucent veils, here showing broad + prospects and limitless vistas and here impenetrably dark. + </p> + <p> + I recall phases of deep speculation, doubts and even prayers by night, and + strange occasions when by a sort of hypnotic contemplation of nothingness + I sought to pierce the web of appearances about me. It is hard to measure + these things in receding perspective, and now I cannot trace, so closely + has mood succeeded and overlaid and obliterated mood, the phases by which + an utter horror of death was replaced by the growing realisation of its + necessity and dignity. Difficulty of the imagination with infinite space, + infinite time, entangled my mind; and moral distress for the pain and + suffering of bygone ages that made all thought of reformation in the + future seem but the grimmest irony upon now irreparable wrongs. Many an + intricate perplexity of these broadening years did not so much get settled + as cease to matter. Life crowded me away from it. + </p> + <p> + I have confessed myself a temerarious theologian, and in that passage from + boyhood to manhood I ranged widely in my search for some permanently + satisfying Truth. That, too, ceased after a time to be urgently + interesting. I came at last into a phase that endures to this day, of + absolute tranquillity, of absolute confidence in whatever that + Incomprehensible Comprehensive which must needs be the substratum of all + things, may be. Feeling OF IT, feeling BY IT, I cannot feel afraid of it. + I think I had got quite clearly and finally to that adjustment long before + my Cambridge days were done. I am sure that the evil in life is transitory + and finite like an accident or distress in the nursery; that God is my + Father and that I may trust Him, even though life hurts so that one must + needs cry out at it, even though it shows no consequence but failure, no + promise but pain.... + </p> + <p> + But while I was fearless of theology I must confess it was comparatively + late before I faced and dared to probe the secrecies of sex. I was afraid + of sex. I had an instinctive perception that it would be a large and + difficult thing in my life, but my early training was all in the direction + of regarding it as an irrelevant thing, as something disconnected from all + the broad significances of life, as hostile and disgraceful in its + quality. The world was never so emasculated in thought, I suppose, as it + was in the Victorian time.... + </p> + <p> + I was afraid to think either of sex or (what I have always found + inseparable from a kind of sexual emotion) beauty. Even as a boy I knew + the thing as a haunting and alluring mystery that I tried to keep away + from. Its dim presence obsessed me none the less for all the extravagant + decency, the stimulating silences of my upbringing.... + </p> + <p> + The plaster Venuses and Apollos that used to adorn the vast aisle and huge + grey terraces of the Crystal Palace were the first intimations of the + beauty of the body that ever came into my life. As I write of it I feel + again the shameful attraction of those gracious forms. I used to look at + them not simply, but curiously and askance. Once at least in my later days + at Penge, I spent a shilling in admission chiefly for the sake of them.... + </p> + <p> + The strangest thing of all my odd and solitary upbringing seems to me now + that swathing up of all the splendours of the flesh, that strange + combination of fanatical terrorism and shyness that fenced me about with + prohibitions. It caused me to grow up, I will not say blankly ignorant, + but with an ignorance blurred and dishonoured by shame, by enigmatical + warnings, by cultivated aversions, an ignorance in which a fascinated + curiosity and desire struggled like a thing in a net. I knew so little and + I felt so much. There was indeed no Aphrodite at all in my youthful + Pantheon, but instead there was a mysterious and minatory gap. I have told + how at last a new Venus was born in my imagination out of gas lamps and + the twilight, a Venus with a cockney accent and dark eyes shining out of + the dusk, a Venus who was a warm, passion-stirring atmosphere rather than + incarnate in a body. And I have told, too, how I bought a picture. + </p> + <p> + All this was a thing apart from the rest of my life, a locked avoided + chamber.... + </p> + <p> + It was not until my last year at Trinity that I really broke down the + barriers of this unwholesome silence and brought my secret broodings to + the light of day. Then a little set of us plunged suddenly into what we + called at first sociological discussion. I can still recall even the + physical feeling of those first tentative talks. I remember them mostly as + occurring in the rooms of Ted Hatherleigh, who kept at the corner by the + Trinity great gate, but we also used to talk a good deal at a man's in + King's, a man named, if I remember rightly, Redmayne. The atmosphere of + Hatherleigh's rooms was a haze of tobacco smoke against a background brown + and deep. He professed himself a socialist with anarchistic leanings—he + had suffered the martyrdom of ducking for it—and a huge French + May-day poster displaying a splendid proletarian in red and black on a + barricade against a flaring orange sky, dominated his decorations. + Hatherleigh affected a fine untidiness, and all the place, even the floor, + was littered with books, for the most part open and face downward; deeper + darknesses were supplied by a discarded gown and our caps, all + conscientiously battered, Hatherleigh's flopped like an elephant's ear and + inserted quill pens supported the corners of mine; the highlights of the + picture came chiefly as reflections from his chequered blue mugs full of + audit ale. We sat on oak chairs, except the four or five who crowded on a + capacious settle, we drank a lot of beer and were often fuddled, and + occasionally quite drunk, and we all smoked reckless-looking pipes,—there + was a transient fashion among us for corn cobs for which Mark Twain, I + think, was responsible. Our little excesses with liquor were due far more + to conscience than appetite, indicated chiefly a resolve to break away + from restraints that we suspected were keeping us off the instructive + knife-edges of life. Hatherleigh was a good Englishman of the premature + type with a red face, a lot of hair, a deep voice and an explosive + plunging manner, and it was he who said one evening—Heaven knows how + we got to it—“Look here, you know, it's all Rot, this Shutting Up + about Women. We OUGHT to talk about them. What are we going to do about + them? It's got to come. We're all festering inside about it. Let's out + with it. There's too much Decency altogether about this Infernal + University!” + </p> + <p> + We rose to his challenge a little awkwardly and our first talk was clumsy, + there were flushed faces and red ears, and I remember Hatherleigh broke + out into a monologue on decency. “Modesty and Decency,” said Hatherleigh, + “are Oriental vices. The Jews brought them to Europe. They're Semitic, + just like our monasticism here and the seclusion of women and mutilating + the dead on a battlefield. And all that sort of thing.” + </p> + <p> + Hatherleigh's mind progressed by huge leaps, leaps that were usually + wildly inaccurate, and for a time we engaged hotly upon the topic of those + alleged mutilations and the Semitic responsibility for decency. + Hatherleigh tried hard to saddle the Semitic race with the less elegant + war customs of the Soudan and the northwest frontier of India, and quoted + Doughty, at that time a little-known author, and Cunninghame Graham to + show that the Arab was worse than a county-town spinster in his regard for + respectability. But his case was too preposterous, and Esmeer, with his + shrill penetrating voice and his way of pointing with all four long + fingers flat together, carried the point against him. He quoted Cato and + Roman law and the monasteries of Thibet. + </p> + <p> + “Well, anyway,” said Hatherleigh, escaping from our hands like an + intellectual frog, “Semitic or not, I've got no use for decency.” + </p> + <p> + We argued points and Hatherleigh professed an unusually balanced and + tolerating attitude. “I don't mind a certain refinement and dignity,” he + admitted generously. “What I object to is this spreading out of decency + until it darkens the whole sky, until it makes a man's father afraid to + speak of the most important things, until it makes a man afraid to look a + frank book in the face or think—even think! until it leads to our + coming to—to the business at last with nothing but a few + prohibitions, a few hints, a lot of dirty jokes and, and “—he waved + a hand and seemed to seek and catch his image in the air—“oh, a + confounded buttered slide of sentiment, to guide us. I tell you I'm going + to think about it and talk about it until I see a little more daylight + than I do at present. I'm twenty-two. Things might happen to me anywhen. + You men can go out into the world if you like, to sin like fools and marry + like fools, not knowing what you are doing and ashamed to ask. You'll take + the consequences, too, I expect, pretty meekly, sniggering a bit, + sentimentalising a bit, like—like Cambridge humorists.... I mean to + know what I'm doing.” + </p> + <p> + He paused to drink, and I think I cut in with ideas of my own. But one is + apt to forget one's own share in a talk, I find, more than one does the + clear-cut objectivity of other people's, and I do not know how far I + contributed to this discussion that followed. I am, however, pretty + certain that it was then that ideal that we were pleased to call + aristocracy and which soon became the common property of our set was + developed. It was Esmeer, I know, who laid down and maintained the + proposition that so far as minds went there were really only two sorts of + man in the world, the aristocrat and the man who subdues his mind to other + people's. + </p> + <p> + “'I couldn't THINK of it, Sir,'” said Esmeer in his elucidatory tones; + “that's what a servant says. His mind even is broken in to run between + fences, and he admits it. WE'VE got to be able to think of anything. And + 'such things aren't for the Likes of Us!' That's another servant's saying. + Well, everything IS for the Likes of Us. If we see fit, that is.” + </p> + <p> + A small fresh-coloured man in grey objected. + </p> + <p> + “Well,” exploded Hatherleigh, “if that isn't so what the deuce are we up + here for? Instead of working in mines? If some things aren't to be thought + about ever! We've got the privilege of all these extra years for getting + things straight in our heads, and then we won't use 'em. Good God! what do + you think a university's for?”... + </p> + <p> + Esmeer's idea came with an effect of real emancipation to several of us. + We were not going to be afraid of ideas any longer, we were going to throw + down every barrier of prohibition and take them in and see what came of + it. We became for a time even intemperately experimental, and one of us, + at the bare suggestion of an eminent psychic investigator, took hashish + and very nearly died of it within a fortnight of our great elucidation. + </p> + <p> + The chief matter of our interchanges was of course the discussion of sex. + Once the theme had been opened it became a sore place in our intercourse; + none of us seemed able to keep away from it. Our imaginations got astir + with it. We made up for lost time and went round it and through it and + over it exhaustively. I recall prolonged discussion of polygamy on the way + to Royston, muddy November tramps to Madingley, when amidst much profanity + from Hatherleigh at the serious treatment of so obsolete a matter, we + weighed the reasons, if any, for the institution of marriage. The fine dim + night-time spaces of the Great Court are bound up with the inconclusive + finales of mighty hot-eared wrangles; the narrows of Trinity Street and + Petty Cury and Market Hill have their particular associations for me with + that spate of confession and free speech, that almost painful goal + delivery of long pent and crappled and sometimes crippled ideas. + </p> + <p> + And we went on a reading party that Easter to a place called Pulborough in + Sussex, where there is a fishing inn and a river that goes under a bridge. + It was a late Easter and a blazing one, and we boated and bathed and + talked of being Hellenic and the beauty of the body until at moments it + seemed to us that we were destined to restore the Golden Age, by the + simple abolition of tailors and outfitters. + </p> + <p> + Those undergraduate talks! how rich and glorious they seemed, how + splendidly new the ideas that grew and multiplied in our seething minds! + We made long afternoon and evening raids over the Downs towards Arundel, + and would come tramping back through the still keen moonlight singing and + shouting. We formed romantic friendships with one another, and grieved + more or less convincingly that there were no splendid women fit to be our + companions in the world. But Hatherleigh, it seemed, had once known a girl + whose hair was gloriously red. “My God!” said Hatherleigh to convey the + quality of her; just simply and with projectile violence: “My God!” + </p> + <p> + Benton had heard of a woman who lived with a man refusing to be married to + him—we thought that splendid beyond measure,—I cannot now + imagine why. She was “like a tender goddess,” Benton said. A sort of shame + came upon us in the dark in spite of our liberal intentions when Benton + committed himself to that. And after such talk we would fall upon great + pauses of emotional dreaming, and if by chance we passed a girl in a + governess cart, or some farmer's daughter walking to the station, we + became alertly silent or obstreperously indifferent to her. For might she + not be just that one exception to the banal decency, the sickly pointless + conventionality, the sham modesty of the times in which we lived? + </p> + <p> + We felt we stood for a new movement, not realising how perennially this + same emancipation returns to those ancient courts beside the Cam. We were + the anti-decency party, we discovered a catch phrase that we flourished + about in the Union and made our watchword, namely, “stark fact.” We hung + nude pictures in our rooms much as if they had been flags, to the earnest + concern of our bedders, and I disinterred my long-kept engraving and had + it framed in fumed oak, and found for it a completer and less restrained + companion, a companion I never cared for in the slightest degree.... + </p> + <p> + This efflorescence did not prevent, I think indeed it rather helped, our + more formal university work, for most of us took firsts, and three of us + got Fellowships in one year or another. There was Benton who had a + Research Fellowship and went to Tubingen, there was Esmeer and myself who + both became Residential Fellows. I had taken the Mental and Moral Science + Tripos (as it was then), and three years later I got a lectureship in + political science. In those days it was disguised in the cloak of + Political Economy. + </p> + <p> + 2 + </p> + <p> + It was our affectation to be a little detached from the main stream of + undergraduate life. We worked pretty hard, but by virtue of our beer, our + socialism and suchlike heterodoxy, held ourselves to be differentiated + from the swatting reading man. None of us, except Baxter, who was a rowing + blue, a rather abnormal blue with an appetite for ideas, took games + seriously enough to train, and on the other hand we intimated contempt for + the rather mediocre, deliberately humorous, consciously gentlemanly and + consciously wild undergraduate men who made up the mass of Cambridge life. + After the manner of youth we were altogether too hard on our + contemporaries. We battered our caps and tore our gowns lest they should + seem new, and we despised these others extremely for doing exactly the + same things; we had an idea of ourselves and resented beyond measure a + similar weakness in these our brothers. + </p> + <p> + There was a type, or at least there seemed to us to be a type—I'm a + little doubtful at times now whether after all we didn't create it—for + which Hatherleigh invented the nickname the “Pinky Dinkys,” intending + thereby both contempt and abhorrence in almost equal measure. The Pinky + Dinky summarised all that we particularly did not want to be, and also, I + now perceive, much of what we were and all that we secretly dreaded + becoming. + </p> + <p> + But it is hard to convey the Pinky Dinky idea, for all that it meant so + much to us. We spent one evening at least during that reading party upon + the Pinky Dinky; we sat about our one fire after a walk in the rain—it + was our only wet day—smoked our excessively virile pipes, and + elaborated the natural history of the Pinky Dinky. We improvised a sort of + Pinky Dinky litany, and Hatherleigh supplied deep notes for the responses. + </p> + <p> + “The Pinky Dinky extracts a good deal of amusement from life,” said some + one. + </p> + <p> + “Damned prig!” said Hatherleigh. + </p> + <p> + “The Pinky Dinky arises in the Union and treats the question with a light + gay touch. He makes the weird ones mad. But sometimes he cannot go on + because of the amusement he extracts.” + </p> + <p> + “I want to shy books at the giggling swine,” said Hatherleigh. + </p> + <p> + “The Pinky Dinky says suddenly while he is making the tea, 'We're all + being frightfully funny. It's time for you to say something now.'” + </p> + <p> + “The Pinky Dinky shakes his head and says: 'I'm afraid I shall never be a + responsible being.' And he really IS frivolous.” + </p> + <p> + “Frivolous but not vulgar,” said Esmeer. + </p> + <p> + “Pinky Dinkys are chaps who've had their buds nipped,” said Hatherleigh. + “They're Plebs and they know it. They haven't the Guts to get hold of + things. And so they worry up all those silly little jokes of theirs to + carry it off.”... + </p> + <p> + We tried bad ones for a time, viciously flavoured. + </p> + <p> + Pinky Dinkys are due to over-production of the type that ought to keep + outfitters' shops. Pinky Dinkys would like to keep outfitters' shops with + whimsy 'scriptions on the boxes and make your bill out funny, and not be + snobs to customers, no!—not even if they had titles.” + </p> + <p> + “Every Pinky Dinky's people are rather good people, and better than most + Pinky Dinky's people. But he does not put on side.” + </p> + <p> + “Pinky Dinkys become playful at the sight of women.” + </p> + <p> + “'Croquet's my game,' said the Pinky Dinky, and felt a man condescended.” + </p> + <p> + “But what the devil do they think they're up to, anyhow?” roared old + Hatherleigh suddenly, dropping plump into bottomless despair. + </p> + <p> + We felt we had still failed to get at the core of the mystery of the Pinky + Dinky. + </p> + <p> + We tried over things about his religion. “The Pinky Dinky goes to King's + Chapel, and sits and feels in the dusk. Solemn things! Oh HUSH! He + wouldn't tell you—” + </p> + <p> + “He COULDN'T tell you.” + </p> + <p> + “Religion is so sacred to him he never talks about it, never reads about + it, never thinks about it. Just feels!” + </p> + <p> + “But in his heart of hearts, oh! ever so deep, the Pinky Dinky has a doubt—” + </p> + <p> + Some one protested. + </p> + <p> + “Not a vulgar doubt,” Esmeer went on, “but a kind of hesitation whether + the Ancient of Days is really exactly what one would call good form.... + There's a lot of horrid coarseness got into the world somehow. SOMEBODY + put it there.... And anyhow there's no particular reason why a man should + be seen about with Him. He's jolly Awful of course and all that—” + </p> + <p> + “The Pinky Dinky for all his fun and levity has a clean mind.” + </p> + <p> + “A thoroughly clean mind. Not like Esmeer's—the Pig!” + </p> + <p> + “If once he began to think about sex, how could he be comfortable at + croquet?” + </p> + <p> + “It's their Damned Modesty,” said Hatherleigh suddenly, “that's what's the + matter with the Pinky Dinky. It's Mental Cowardice dressed up as a virtue + and taking the poor dears in. Cambridge is soaked with it; it's some + confounded local bacillus. Like the thing that gives a flavour to Havana + cigars. He comes up here to be made into a man and a ruler of the people, + and he thinks it shows a nice disposition not to take on the job! How the + Devil is a great Empire to be run with men like him?” + </p> + <p> + “All his little jokes and things,” said Esmeer regarding his feet on the + fender, “it's just a nervous sniggering—because he's afraid.... + Oxford's no better.” + </p> + <p> + “What's he afraid of?” said I. + </p> + <p> + “God knows!” exploded Hatherleigh and stared at the fire. + </p> + <p> + “LIFE!” said Esmeer. “And so in a way are we,” he added, and made a + thoughtful silence for a time. + </p> + <p> + “I say,” began Carter, who was doing the Natural Science Tripos, “what is + the adult form of the Pinky Dinky?” + </p> + <p> + But there we were checked by our ignorance of the world. + </p> + <p> + “What is the adult form of any of us?” asked Benton, voicing the thought + that had arrested our flow. + </p> + <p> + 3 + </p> + <p> + I do not remember that we ever lifted our criticism to the dons and the + organisation of the University. I think we took them for granted. When I + look back at my youth I am always astonished by the multitude of things + that we took for granted. It seemed to us that Cambridge was in the order + of things, for all the world like having eyebrows or a vermiform appendix. + Now with the larger scepticism of middle age I can entertain very + fundamental doubts about these old universities. Indeed I had a scheme— + </p> + <p> + I do not see what harm I can do now by laying bare the purpose of the + political combinations I was trying to effect. + </p> + <p> + My educational scheme was indeed the starting-point of all the big project + of conscious public reconstruction at which I aimed. I wanted to build up + a new educational machine altogether for the governing class out of a + consolidated system of special public service schools. I meant to get to + work upon this whatever office I was given in the new government. I could + have begun my plan from the Admiralty or the War Office quite as easily as + from the Education Office. I am firmly convinced it is hopeless to think + of reforming the old public schools and universities to meet the needs of + a modern state, they send their roots too deep and far, the cost would + exceed any good that could possibly be effected, and so I have sought a + way round this invincible obstacle. I do think it would be quite + practicable to side-track, as the Americans say, the whole system by + creating hardworking, hard-living, modern and scientific boys' schools, + first for the Royal Navy and then for the public service generally, and as + they grew, opening them to the public without any absolute obligation to + subsequent service. Simultaneously with this it would not be impossible to + develop a new college system with strong faculties in modern philosophy, + modern history, European literature and criticism, physical and biological + science, education and sociology. + </p> + <p> + We could in fact create a new liberal education in this way, and cut the + umbilicus of the classical languages for good and all. I should have set + this going, and trusted it to correct or kill the old public schools and + the Oxford and Cambridge tradition altogether. I had men in my mind to + begin the work, and I should have found others. I should have aimed at + making a hard-trained, capable, intellectually active, proud type of man. + Everything else would have been made subservient to that. I should have + kept my grip on the men through their vacation, and somehow or other I + would have contrived a young woman to match them. I think I could have + seen to it effectually enough that they didn't get at croquet and tennis + with the vicarage daughters and discover sex in the Peeping Tom fashion I + did, and that they realised quite early in life that it isn't really + virile to reek of tobacco. I should have had military manoeuvres, training + ships, aeroplane work, mountaineering and so forth, in the place of the + solemn trivialities of games, and I should have fed and housed my men + clean and very hard—where there wasn't any audit ale, no credit + tradesmen, and plenty of high pressure douches.... + </p> + <p> + I have revisited Cambridge and Oxford time after time since I came down, + and so far as the Empire goes, I want to get clear of those two places.... + </p> + <p> + Always I renew my old feelings, a physical oppression, a sense of lowness + and dampness almost exactly like the feeling of an underground room where + paper moulders and leaves the wall, a feeling of ineradicable contagion in + the Gothic buildings, in the narrow ditch-like rivers, in those roads and + roads of stuffy little villas. Those little villas have destroyed all the + good of the old monastic system and none of its evil.... + </p> + <p> + Some of the most charming people in the world live in them, but their + collective effect is below the quality of any individual among them. + Cambridge is a world of subdued tones, of excessively subtle humours, of + prim conduct and free thinking; it fears the Parent, but it has no fear of + God; it offers amidst surroundings that vary between disguises and + antiquarian charm the inflammation of literature's purple draught; one + hears there a peculiar thin scandal like no other scandal in the world—a + covetous scandal—so that I am always reminded of Ibsen in Cambridge. + In Cambridge and the plays of Ibsen alone does it seem appropriate for the + heroine before the great crisis of life to “enter, take off her overshoes, + and put her wet umbrella upon the writing desk.”... + </p> + <p> + We have to make a new Academic mind for modern needs, and the last thing + to make it out of, I am convinced, is the old Academic mind. One might as + soon try to fake the old VICTORY at Portsmouth into a line of battleship + again. Besides which the old Academic mind, like those old bathless, damp + Gothic colleges, is much too delightful in its peculiar and distinctive + way to damage by futile patching. + </p> + <p> + My heart warms to a sense of affectionate absurdity as I recall dear old + Codger, surely the most “unleaderly” of men. No more than from the old + Schoolmen, his kindred, could one get from him a School for Princes. Yet + apart from his teaching he was as curious and adorable as a good Netsuke. + Until quite recently he was a power in Cambridge, he could make and bar + and destroy, and in a way he has become the quintessence of Cambridge in + my thoughts. + </p> + <p> + I see him on his way to the morning's lecture, with his plump childish + face, his round innocent eyes, his absurdly non-prehensile fat hand + carrying his cap, his grey trousers braced up much too high, his feet a + trifle inturned, and going across the great court with a queer tripping + pace that seemed cultivated even to my naive undergraduate eye. Or I see + him lecturing. He lectured walking up and down between the desks, talking + in a fluting rapid voice, and with the utmost lucidity. If he could not + walk up and down he could not lecture. His mind and voice had precisely + the fluid quality of some clear subtle liquid; one felt it could flow + round anything and overcome nothing. And its nimble eddies were wonderful! + Or again I recall him drinking port with little muscular movements in his + neck and cheek and chin and his brows knit—very judicial, very + concentrated, preparing to say the apt just thing; it was the last thing + he would have told a lie about. + </p> + <p> + When I think of Codger I am reminded of an inscription I saw on some + occasion in Regent's Park above two eyes scarcely more limpidly innocent + than his—“Born in the Menagerie.” Never once since Codger began to + display the early promise of scholarship at the age of eight or more, had + he been outside the bars. His utmost travel had been to lecture here and + lecture there. His student phase had culminated in papers of quite + exceptional brilliance, and he had gone on to lecture with a cheerful + combination of wit and mannerism that had made him a success from the + beginning. He has lectured ever since. He lectures still. Year by year he + has become plumper, more rubicund and more and more of an item for the + intelligent visitor to see. Even in my time he was pointed out to people + as part of our innumerable enrichments, and obviously he knew it. He has + become now almost the leading Character in a little donnish world of much + too intensely appreciated Characters. + </p> + <p> + He boasted he took no exercise, and also of his knowledge of port wine. Of + other wines he confessed quite frankly he had no “special knowledge.” + Beyond these things he had little pride except that he claimed to have + read every novel by a woman writer that had ever entered the Union + Library. This, however, he held to be remarkable rather than ennobling, + and such boasts as he made of it were tinged with playfulness. Certainly + he had a scholar's knowledge of the works of Miss Marie Corelli, Miss + Braddon, Miss Elizabeth Glyn and Madame Sarah Grand that would have + astonished and flattered those ladies enormously, and he loved nothing so + much in his hours of relaxation as to propound and answer difficult + questions upon their books. Tusher of King's was his ineffectual rival in + this field, their bouts were memorable and rarely other than glorious for + Codger; but then Tusher spread himself too much, he also undertook to + rehearse whole pages out of Bradshaw, and tell you with all the changes + how to get from any station to any station in Great Britain by the nearest + and cheapest routes.... + </p> + <p> + Codger lodged with a little deaf innocent old lady, Mrs. Araminta Mergle, + who was understood to be herself a very redoubtable Character in the + Gyp-Bedder class; about her he related quietly absurd anecdotes. He + displayed a marvellous invention in ascribing to her plausible expressions + of opinion entirely identical in import with those of the Oxford and + Harvard Pragmatists, against whom he waged a fierce obscure war.... + </p> + <p> + It was Codger's function to teach me philosophy, philosophy! the intimate + wisdom of things. He dealt in a variety of Hegelian stuff like nothing + else in the world, but marvellously consistent with itself. It was a + wonderful web he spun out of that queer big active childish brain that had + never lusted nor hated nor grieved nor feared nor passionately loved,—a + web of iridescent threads. He had luminous final theories about Love and + Death and Immortality, odd matters they seemed for him to think about! and + all his woven thoughts lay across my perception of the realities of + things, as flimsy and irrelevant and clever and beautiful, oh!—as a + dew-wet spider's web slung in the morning sunshine across the black mouth + of a gun.... + </p> + <p> + 4 + </p> + <p> + All through those years of development I perceive now there must have been + growing in me, slowly, irregularly, assimilating to itself all the phrases + and forms of patriotism, diverting my religious impulses, utilising my + esthetic tendencies, my dominating idea, the statesman's idea, that idea + of social service which is the protagonist of my story, that real though + complex passion for Making, making widely and greatly, cities, national + order, civilisation, whose interplay with all those other factors in life + I have set out to present. It was growing in me—as one's bones grow, + no man intending it. + </p> + <p> + I have tried to show how, quite early in my life, the fact of + disorderliness, the conception of social life as being a multitudinous + confusion out of hand, came to me. One always of course simplifies these + things in the telling, but I do not think I ever saw the world at large in + any other terms. I never at any stage entertained the idea which sustained + my mother, and which sustains so many people in the world,—the idea + that the universe, whatever superficial discords it may present, is as a + matter of fact “all right,” is being steered to definite ends by a serene + and unquestionable God. My mother thought that Order prevailed, and that + disorder was just incidental and foredoomed rebellion; I feel and have + always felt that order rebels against and struggles against disorder, that + order has an up-hill job, in gardens, experiments, suburbs, everything + alike; from the very beginnings of my experience I discovered hostility to + order, a constant escaping from control. + </p> + <p> + The current of living and contemporary ideas in which my mind was + presently swimming made all in the same direction; in place of my mother's + attentive, meticulous but occasionally extremely irascible Providence, the + talk was all of the Struggle for Existence and the survival not of the + Best—that was nonsense, but of the fittest to survive. + </p> + <p> + The attempts to rehabilitate Faith in the form of the Individualist's + LAISSEZ FAIRE never won upon me. I disliked Herbert Spencer all my life + until I read his autobiography, and then I laughed a little and loved him. + I remember as early as the City Merchants' days how Britten and I scoffed + at that pompous question-begging word “Evolution,” having, so to speak, + found it out. Evolution, some illuminating talker had remarked at the + Britten lunch table, had led not only to man, but to the liver-fluke and + skunk, obviously it might lead anywhere; order came into things only + through the struggling mind of man. That lit things wonderfully for us. + When I went up to Cambridge I was perfectly clear that life was a various + and splendid disorder of forces that the spirit of man sets itself to + tame. I have never since fallen away from that persuasion. + </p> + <p> + I do not think I was exceptionally precocious in reaching these + conclusions and a sort of religious finality for myself by eighteen or + nineteen. I know men and women vary very much in these matters, just as + children do in learning to talk. Some will chatter at eighteen months and + some will hardly speak until three, and the thing has very little to do + with their subsequent mental quality. So it is with young people; some + will begin their religious, their social, their sexual interests at + fourteen, some not until far on in the twenties. Britten and I belonged to + one of the precocious types, and Cossington very probably to another. It + wasn't that there was anything priggish about any of us; we should have + been prigs to have concealed our spontaneous interests and ape the + theoretical boy. + </p> + <p> + The world of man centred for my imagination in London, it still centres + there; the real and present world, that is to say, as distinguished from + the wonder-lands of atomic and microscopic science and the stars and + future time. I had travelled scarcely at all, I had never crossed the + Channel, but I had read copiously and I had formed a very good working + idea of this round globe with its mountains and wildernesses and forests + and all the sorts and conditions of human life that were scattered over + its surface. It was all alive, I felt, and changing every day; how it was + changing, and the changes men might bring about, fascinated my mind beyond + measure. + </p> + <p> + I used to find a charm in old maps that showed The World as Known to the + Ancients, and I wish I could now without any suspicion of self-deception + write down compactly the world as it was known to me at nineteen. So far + as extension went it was, I fancy, very like the world I know now at + forty-two; I had practically all the mountains and seas, boundaries and + races, products and possibilities that I have now. But its intension was + very different. All the interval has been increasing and deepening my + social knowledge, replacing crude and second-hand impressions by felt and + realised distinctions. + </p> + <p> + In 1895—that was my last year with Britten, for I went up to + Cambridge in September—my vision of the world had much the same + relation to the vision I have to-day that an ill-drawn daub of a mask has + to the direct vision of a human face. Britten and I looked at our world + and saw—what did we see? Forms and colours side by side that we had + no suspicion were interdependent. We had no conception of the roots of + things nor of the reaction of things. It did not seem to us, for example, + that business had anything to do with government, or that money and means + affected the heroic issues of war. There were no wagons in our war game, + and where there were guns, there it was assumed the ammunition was + gathered together. Finance again was a sealed book to us; we did not so + much connect it with the broad aspects of human affairs as regard it as a + sort of intrusive nuisance to be earnestly ignored by all right-minded + men. We had no conception of the quality of politics, nor how “interests” + came into such affairs; we believed men were swayed by purely intellectual + convictions and were either right or wrong, honest or dishonest (in which + case they deserved to be shot), good or bad. We knew nothing of mental + inertia, and could imagine the opinion of a whole nation changed by one + lucid and convincing exposition. We were capable of the most incongruous + transfers from the scroll of history to our own times, we could suppose + Brixton ravaged and Hampstead burnt in civil wars for the succession to + the throne, or Cheapside a lane of death and the front of the Mansion + House set about with guillotines in the course of an accurately transposed + French Revolution. We rebuilt London by Act of Parliament, and once in a + mood of hygienic enterprise we transferred its population EN MASSE to the + North Downs by an order of the Local Government Board. We thought nothing + of throwing religious organisations out of employment or superseding all + the newspapers by freely distributed bulletins. We could contemplate the + possibility of laws abolishing whole classes; we were equal to such a + dream as the peaceful and orderly proclamation of Communism from the steps + of St. Paul's Cathedral, after the passing of a simply worded bill,—a + close and not unnaturally an exciting division carrying the third reading. + I remember quite distinctly evolving that vision. We were then fully + fifteen and we were perfectly serious about it. We were not fools; it was + simply that as yet we had gathered no experience at all of the limits and + powers of legislation and conscious collective intention.... + </p> + <p> + I think this statement does my boyhood justice, and yet I have my doubts. + It is so hard now to say what one understood and what one did not + understand. It isn't only that every day changed one's general outlook, + but also that a boy fluctuates between phases of quite adult understanding + and phases of tawdrily magnificent puerility. Sometimes I myself was in + those tumbrils that went along Cheapside to the Mansion House, a Sydney + Cartonesque figure, a white defeated Mirabean; sometimes it was I who sat + judging and condemning and ruling (sleeping in my clothes and feeding very + simply) the soul and autocrat of the Provisional Government, which + occupied, of all inconvenient places! the General Post Office at St. + Martin's-le-Grand!... + </p> + <p> + I cannot trace the development of my ideas at Cambridge, but I believe the + mere physical fact of going two hours' journey away from London gave that + place for the first time an effect of unity in my imagination. I got + outside London. It became tangible instead of being a frame almost as + universal as sea and sky. + </p> + <p> + At Cambridge my ideas ceased to live in a duologue; in exchange for + Britten, with whom, however, I corresponded lengthily, stylishly and + self-consciously for some years, I had now a set of congenial friends. I + got talk with some of the younger dons, I learnt to speak in the Union, + and in my little set we were all pretty busily sharpening each other's + wits and correcting each other's interpretations. Cambridge made politics + personal and actual. At City Merchants' we had had no sense of effective + contact; we boasted, it is true, an under secretary and a colonial + governor among our old boys, but they were never real to us; such + distinguished sons as returned to visit the old school were allusive and + pleasant in the best Pinky Dinky style, and pretended to be in earnest + about nothing but our football and cricket, to mourn the abolition of + “water,” and find a shuddering personal interest in the ancient swishing + block. At Cambridge I felt for the first time that I touched the thing + that was going on. Real living statesmen came down to debate in the Union, + the older dons had been their college intimates, their sons and nephews + expounded them to us and made them real to us. They invited us to + entertain ideas; I found myself for the first time in my life expected to + read and think and discuss, my secret vice had become a virtue. + </p> + <p> + That combination-room world is at last larger and more populous and + various than the world of schoolmasters. The Shoesmiths and Naylors who + had been the aristocracy of City Merchants' fell into their place in my + mind; they became an undistinguished mass on the more athletic side of + Pinky Dinkyism, and their hostility to ideas and to the expression of + ideas ceased to limit and trouble me. The brighter men of each generation + stay up; these others go down to propagate their tradition, as the fathers + of families, as mediocre professional men, as assistant masters in + schools. Cambridge which perfects them is by the nature of things least + oppressed by them,—except when it comes to a vote in Convocation. + </p> + <p> + We were still in those days under the shadow of the great Victorians. I + never saw Gladstone (as I never set eyes on the old Queen), but he had + resigned office only a year before I went up to Trinity, and the + Combination Rooms were full of personal gossip about him and Disraeli and + the other big figures of the gladiatorial stage of Parlimentary history, + talk that leaked copiously into such sets as mine. The ceiling of our + guest chamber at Trinity was glorious with the arms of Sir William + Harcourt, whose Death Duties had seemed at first like a socialist dawn. + Mr. Evesham we asked to come to the Union every year, Masters, Chamberlain + and the old Duke of Devonshire; they did not come indeed, but their polite + refusals brought us all, as it were, within personal touch of them. One + heard of cabinet councils and meetings at country houses. Some of us, + pursuing such interests, went so far as to read political memoirs and the + novels of Disraeli and Mrs. Humphry Ward. From gossip, example and the + illustrated newspapers one learnt something of the way in which parties + were split, coalitions formed, how permanent officials worked and + controlled their ministers, how measures were brought forward and projects + modified. + </p> + <p> + And while I was getting the great leading figures on the political stage, + who had been presented to me in my schooldays not so much as men as the + pantomimic monsters of political caricature, while I was getting them + reduced in my imagination to the stature of humanity, and their motives to + the quality of impulses like my own, I was also acquiring in my Tripos + work a constantly developing and enriching conception of the world of men + as a complex of economic, intellectual and moral processes.... + </p> + <p> + 5 + </p> + <p> + Socialism is an intellectual Proteus, but to the men of my generation it + came as the revolt of the workers. Rodbertus we never heard of and the + Fabian Society we did not understand; Marx and Morris, the Chicago + Anarchists, JUSTICE and Social Democratic Federation (as it was then) + presented socialism to our minds. Hatherleigh was the leading exponent of + the new doctrines in Trinity, and the figure upon his wall of a + huge-muscled, black-haired toiler swaggering sledgehammer in hand across a + revolutionary barricade, seemed the quintessence of what he had to + expound. Landlord and capitalist had robbed and enslaved the workers, and + were driving them quite automatically to inevitable insurrection. They + would arise and the capitalist system would flee and vanish like the mists + before the morning, like the dews before the sunrise, giving place in the + most simple and obvious manner to an era of Right and Justice and Virtue + and Well Being, and in short a Perfectly Splendid Time. + </p> + <p> + I had already discussed this sort of socialism under the guidance of + Britten, before I went up to Cambridge. It was all mixed up with ideas + about freedom and natural virtue and a great scorn for kings, titles, + wealth and officials, and it was symbolised by the red ties we wore. Our + simple verdict on existing arrangements was that they were “all wrong.” + The rich were robbers and knew it, kings and princes were usurpers and + knew it, religious teachers were impostors in league with power, the + economic system was an elaborate plot on the part of the few to + expropriate the many. We went about feeling scornful of all the current + forms of life, forms that esteemed themselves solid, that were, we knew, + no more than shapes painted on a curtain that was presently to be torn + aside.... + </p> + <p> + It was Hatherleigh's poster and his capacity for overstating things, I + think, that first qualified my simple revolutionary enthusiasm. Perhaps + also I had met with Fabian publications, but if I did I forget the + circumstances. And no doubt my innate constructiveness with its practical + corollary of an analytical treatment of the material supplied, was bound + to push me on beyond this melodramatic interpretation of human affairs. + </p> + <p> + I compared that Working Man of the poster with any sort of working man I + knew. I perceived that the latter was not going to change, and indeed + could not under any stimulus whatever be expected to change, into the + former. It crept into my mind as slowly and surely as the dawn creeps into + a room that the former was not, as I had at first rather glibly assumed, + an “ideal,” but a complete misrepresentation of the quality and + possibilities of things. + </p> + <p> + I do not know now whether it was during my school-days or at Cambridge + that I first began not merely to see the world as a great contrast of rich + and poor, but to feel the massive effect of that multitudinous majority of + people who toil continually, who are for ever anxious about ways and + means, who are restricted, ill clothed, ill fed and ill housed, who have + limited outlooks and continually suffer misadventures, hardships and + distresses through the want of money. My lot had fallen upon the fringe of + the possessing minority; if I did not know the want of necessities I knew + shabbiness, and the world that let me go on to a university education + intimated very plainly that there was not a thing beyond the primary needs + that my stimulated imagination might demand that it would not be an effort + for me to secure. A certain aggressive radicalism against the ruling and + propertied classes followed almost naturally from my circumstances. It did + not at first connect itself at all with the perception of a planless + disorder in human affairs that had been forced upon me by the atmosphere + of my upbringing, nor did it link me in sympathy with any of the + profounder realities of poverty. It was a personal independent thing. The + dingier people one saw in the back streets and lower quarters of Bromstead + and Penge, the drift of dirty children, ragged old women, street loafers, + grimy workers that made the social background of London, the stories one + heard of privation and sweating, only joined up very slowly with the + general propositions I was making about life. We could become splendidly + eloquent about the social revolution and the triumph of the Proletariat + after the Class war, and it was only by a sort of inspiration that it came + to me that my bedder, a garrulous old thing with a dusty black bonnet over + one eye and an ostentatiously clean apron outside the dark mysteries that + clothed her, or the cheeky little ruffians who yelled papers about the + streets, were really material to such questions. + </p> + <p> + Directly any of us young socialists of Trinity found ourselves in + immediate contact with servants or cadgers or gyps or bedders or plumbers + or navvies or cabmen or railway porters we became unconsciously and + unthinkingly aristocrats. Our voices altered, our gestures altered. We + behaved just as all the other men, rich or poor, swatters or sportsmen or + Pinky Dinkys, behaved, and exactly as we were expected to behave. On the + whole it is a population of poor quality round about Cambridge, rather + stunted and spiritless and very difficult to idealise. That theoretical + Working Man of ours!—if we felt the clash at all we explained it, I + suppose, by assuming that he came from another part of the country; + Esmeer, I remember, who lived somewhere in the Fens, was very eloquent + about the Cornish fishermen, and Hatherleigh, who was a Hampshire man, + assured us we ought to know the Scottish miner. My private fancy was for + the Lancashire operative because of his co-operative societies, and + because what Lancashire thinks to-day England thinks to-morrow.... And + also I had never been in Lancashire. + </p> + <p> + By little increments of realisation it was that the profounder verities of + the problem of socialism came to me. It helped me very much that I had to + go down to the Potteries several times to discuss my future with my uncle + and guardian; I walked about and saw Bursley Wakes and much of the human + aspects of organised industrialism at close quarters for the first time. + The picture of a splendid Working Man cheated out of his innate glorious + possibilities, and presently to arise and dash this scoundrelly and + scandalous system of private ownership to fragments, began to give place + to a limitless spectacle of inefficiency, to a conception of millions of + people not organised as they should be, not educated as they should be, + not simply prevented from but incapable of nearly every sort of beauty, + mostly kindly and well meaning, mostly incompetent, mostly obstinate, and + easily humbugged and easily diverted. Even the tragic and inspiring idea + of Marx, that the poor were nearing a limit of painful experience, and + awakening to a sense of intolerable wrongs, began to develop into the more + appalling conception that the poor were simply in a witless uncomfortable + inconclusive way—“muddling along”; that they wanted nothing very + definitely nor very urgently, that mean fears enslaved them and mean + satisfactions decoyed them, that they took the very gift of life itself + with a spiritless lassitude, hoarding it, being rather anxious not to lose + it than to use it in any way whatever. + </p> + <p> + The complete development of that realisation was the work of many years. I + had only the first intimations at Cambridge. But I did have intimations. + Most acutely do I remember the doubts that followed the visit of Chris + Robinson. Chris Robinson was heralded by such heroic anticipations, and he + was so entirely what we had not anticipated. + </p> + <p> + Hatherleigh got him to come, arranged a sort of meeting for him at + Redmayne's rooms in King's, and was very proud and proprietorial. It + failed to stir Cambridge at all profoundly. Beyond a futile attempt to + screw up Hatherleigh made by some inexpert duffers who used nails instead + of screws and gimlets, there was no attempt to rag. Next day Chris + Robinson went and spoke at Bennett Hall in Newnham College, and left + Cambridge in the evening amidst the cheers of twenty men or so. Socialism + was at such a low ebb politically in those days that it didn't even rouse + men to opposition. + </p> + <p> + And there sat Chris under that flamboyant and heroic Worker of the poster, + a little wrinkled grey-bearded apologetic man in ready-made clothes, with + watchful innocent brown eyes and a persistent and invincible air of being + out of his element. He sat with his stout boots tucked up under his chair, + and clung to a teacup and saucer and looked away from us into the fire, + and we all sat about on tables and chair-arms and windowsills and boxes + and anywhere except upon chairs after the manner of young men. The only + other chair whose seat was occupied was the one containing his knitted + woollen comforter and his picturesque old beach-photographer's hat. We + were all shy and didn't know how to take hold of him now we had got him, + and, which was disconcertingly unanticipated, he was manifestly having the + same difficulty with us. We had expected to be gripped. + </p> + <p> + “I'll not be knowing what to say to these Chaps,” he repeated with a + north-country quality in his speech. + </p> + <p> + We made reassuring noises. + </p> + <p> + The Ambassador of the Workers stirred his tea earnestly through an + uncomfortable pause. + </p> + <p> + “I'd best tell 'em something of how things are in Lancashire, what with + the new machines and all that,” he speculated at last with red reflections + in his thoughtful eyes. + </p> + <p> + We had an inexcusable dread that perhaps he would make a mess of the + meeting. + </p> + <p> + But when he was no longer in the unaccustomed meshes of refined + conversation, but speaking with an audience before him, he became a + different man. He declared he would explain to us just exactly what + socialism was, and went on at once to an impassioned contrast of social + conditions. “You young men,” he said “come from homes of luxury; every + need you feel is supplied—” + </p> + <p> + We sat and stood and sprawled about him, occupying every inch of + Redmayne's floor space except the hearthrug-platform, and we listened to + him and thought him over. He was the voice of wrongs that made us + indignant and eager. We forgot for a time that he had been shy and seemed + not a little incompetent, his provincial accent became a beauty of his + earnest speech, we were carried away by his indignations. We looked with + shining eyes at one another and at the various dons who had dropped in and + were striving to maintain a front of judicious severity. We felt more and + more that social injustice must cease, and cease forthwith. We felt we + could not sleep upon it. At the end we clapped and murmured our applause + and wanted badly to cheer. + </p> + <p> + Then like a lancet stuck into a bladder came the heckling. Denson, that + indolent, liberal-minded sceptic, did most of the questioning. He lay + contorted in a chair, with his ugly head very low, his legs crossed and + his left boot very high, and he pointed his remarks with a long thin hand + and occasionally adjusted the unstable glasses that hid his watery eyes. + “I don't want to carp,” he began. “The present system, I admit, stands + condemned. Every present system always HAS stood condemned in the minds of + intelligent men. But where it seems to me you get thin, is just where + everybody has been thin, and that's when you come to the remedy.” + </p> + <p> + “Socialism,” said Chris Robinson, as if it answered everything, and + Hatherleigh said “Hear! Hear!” very resolutely. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose I OUGHT to take that as an answer,” said Denson, getting his + shoulder-blades well down to the seat of his chair; “but I don't. I don't, + you know. It's rather a shame to cross-examine you after this fine address + of yours”—Chris Robinson on the hearthrug made acquiescent and + inviting noises—“but the real question remains how exactly are you + going to end all these wrongs? There are the administrative questions. If + you abolish the private owner, I admit you abolish a very complex and + clumsy way of getting businesses run, land controlled and things in + general administered, but you don't get rid of the need of administration, + you know.” + </p> + <p> + “Democracy,” said Chris Robinson. + </p> + <p> + “Organised somehow,” said Denson. “And it's just the How perplexes me. I + can quite easily imagine a socialist state administered in a sort of + scrambling tumult that would be worse than anything we have got now. + </p> + <p> + “Nothing could be worse than things are now,” said Chris Robinson. “I have + seen little children—” + </p> + <p> + “I submit life on an ill-provisioned raft, for example, could easily be + worse—or life in a beleagured town.” + </p> + <p> + Murmurs. + </p> + <p> + They wrangled for some time, and it had the effect upon me of coming out + from the glow of a good matinee performance into the cold daylight of late + afternoon. Chris Robinson did not shine in conflict with Denson; he was an + orator and not a dialectician, and he missed Denson's points and displayed + a disposition to plunge into untimely pathos and indignation. And Denson + hit me curiously hard with one of his shafts. “Suppose,” he said, “you + found yourself prime minister—” + </p> + <p> + I looked at Chris Robinson, bright-eyed and his hair a little ruffled and + his whole being rhetorical, and measured him against the huge machine of + government muddled and mysterious. Oh! but I was perplexed! + </p> + <p> + And then we took him back to Hatherleigh's rooms and drank beer and smoked + about him while he nursed his knee with hairy wristed hands that protruded + from his flannel shirt, and drank lemonade under the cartoon of that + emancipated Worker, and we had a great discursive talk with him. + </p> + <p> + “Eh! you should see our big meetings up north?” he said. + </p> + <p> + Denson had ruffled him and worried him a good deal, and ever and again he + came back to that discussion. “It's all very easy for your learned men to + sit and pick holes,” he said, “while the children suffer and die. They + don't pick holes up north. They mean business.” + </p> + <p> + He talked, and that was the most interesting part of it all, of his going + to work in a factory when he was twelve—“when you Chaps were all + with your mammies “—and how he had educated himself of nights until + he would fall asleep at his reading. + </p> + <p> + “It's made many of us keen for all our lives,” he remarked, “all that + clemming for education. Why! I longed all through one winter to read a bit + of Darwin. I must know about this Darwin if I die for it, I said. And I + could no' get the book.” + </p> + <p> + Hatherleigh made an enthusiastic noise and drank beer at him with round + eyes over the mug. + </p> + <p> + “Well, anyhow I wasted no time on Greek and Latin,” said Chris Robinson. + “And one learns to go straight at a thing without splitting straws. One + gets hold of the Elementals.” + </p> + <p> + (Well, did they? That was the gist of my perplexity.) + </p> + <p> + “One doesn't quibble,” he said, returning to his rankling memory of + Denson, “while men decay and starve.” + </p> + <p> + “But suppose,” I said, suddenly dropping into opposition, “the alternative + is to risk a worse disaster—or do something patently futile.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't follow that,” said Chris Robinson. “We don't propose anything + futile, so far as I can see.” + </p> + <p> + 6 + </p> + <p> + The prevailing force in my undergraduate days was not Socialism but + Kiplingism. Our set was quite exceptional in its socialistic professions. + And we were all, you must understand, very distinctly Imperialists also, + and professed a vivid sense of the “White Man's Burden.” + </p> + <p> + It is a little difficult now to get back to the feelings of that period; + Kipling has since been so mercilessly and exhaustively mocked, criticised + and torn to shreds;—never was a man so violently exalted and then, + himself assisting, so relentlessly called down. But in the middle nineties + this spectacled and moustached little figure with its heavy chin and its + general effect of vehement gesticulation, its wild shouts of boyish + enthusiasm for effective force, its lyric delight in the sounds and + colours, in the very odours of empire, its wonderful discovery of + machinery and cotton waste and the under officer and the engineer, and + “shop” as a poetic dialect, became almost a national symbol. He got hold + of us wonderfully, he filled us with tinkling and haunting quotations, he + stirred Britten and myself to futile imitations, he coloured the very + idiom of our conversation. He rose to his climax with his “Recessional,” + while I was still an undergraduate. + </p> + <p> + What did he give me exactly? + </p> + <p> + He helped to broaden my geographical sense immensely, and he provided + phrases for just that desire for discipline and devotion and organised + effort the Socialism of our time failed to express, that the current + socialist movement still fails, I think, to express. The sort of thing + that follows, for example, tore something out of my inmost nature and gave + it a shape, and I took it back from him shaped and let much of the rest of + him, the tumult and the bullying, the hysteria and the impatience, the + incoherence and inconsistency, go uncriticised for the sake of it:— + </p> + <p> + “Keep ye the Law—be swift in all obedience—Clear the land of + evil, drive the road and bridge the ford, Make ye sure to each his own + That he reap where he hath sown; By the peace among Our peoples let men + know we serve the Lord!” + </p> + <p> + And then again, and for all our later criticism, this sticks in my mind, + sticks there now as quintessential wisdom: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “The 'eathen in 'is blindness bows down to wood an' stone; + 'E don't obey no orders unless they is 'is own; + 'E keeps 'is side-arms awful: 'e leaves 'em all about + An' then comes up the regiment an' pokes the 'eathen out. + All along o' dirtiness, all along o' mess, + All along o' doin' things rather-more-or-less, + All along of abby-nay, kul, an' hazar-ho, + Mind you keep your rifle an' yourself jus' so!” + </pre> + <p> + It is after all a secondary matter that Kipling, not having been born and + brought up in Bromstead and Penge, and the war in South Africa being yet + in the womb of time, could quite honestly entertain the now remarkable + delusion that England had her side-arms at that time kept anything but + “awful.” He learnt better, and we all learnt with him in the dark years of + exasperating and humiliating struggle that followed, and I do not see that + we fellow learners are justified in turning resentfully upon him for a + common ignorance and assumption.... + </p> + <p> + South Africa seems always painted on the back cloth of my Cambridge + memories. How immense those disasters seemed at the time, disasters our + facile English world has long since contrived in any edifying or + profitable sense to forget! How we thrilled to the shouting newspaper + sellers as the first false flush of victory gave place to the realisation + of defeat. Far away there our army showed itself human, mortal and human + in the sight of all the world, the pleasant officers we had imagined would + change to wonderful heroes at the first crackling of rifles, remained the + pleasant, rather incompetent men they had always been, failing to imagine, + failing to plan and co-operate, failing to grip. And the common soldiers, + too, they were just what our streets and country-side had made them, no + sudden magic came out of the war bugles for them. Neither splendid nor + disgraceful were they,—just ill-trained and fairly plucky and + wonderfully good-tempered men—paying for it. And how it lowered our + vitality all that first winter to hear of Nicholson's Nek, and then + presently close upon one another, to realise the bloody waste of + Magersfontein, the shattering retreat from Stormberg, Colenso—Colenso, + that blundering battle, with White, as it seemed, in Ladysmith near the + point of surrender! and so through the long unfolding catalogue of bleak + disillusionments, of aching, unconcealed anxiety lest worse should follow. + To advance upon your enemy singing about his lack of cleanliness and + method went out of fashion altogether! The dirty retrogressive Boer + vanished from our scheme of illusion. + </p> + <p> + All through my middle Cambridge period, the guns boomed and the rifles + crackled away there on the veldt, and the horsemen rode and the tale of + accidents and blundering went on. Men, mules, horses, stores and money + poured into South Africa, and the convalescent wounded streamed home. I + see it in my memory as if I had looked at it through a window instead of + through the pages of the illustrated papers; I recall as if I had been + there the wide open spaces, the ragged hillsides, the open order attacks + of helmeted men in khaki, the scarce visible smoke of the guns, the + wrecked trains in great lonely places, the burnt isolated farms, and at + last the blockhouses and the fences of barbed wire uncoiling and spreading + for endless miles across the desert, netting the elusive enemy until at + last, though he broke the meshes again and again, we had him in the toils. + If one's attention strayed in the lecture-room it wandered to those + battle-fields. + </p> + <p> + And that imagined panorama of war unfolds to an accompaniment of yelling + newsboys in the narrow old Cambridge streets, of the flicker of papers + hastily bought and torn open in the twilight, of the doubtful reception of + doubtful victories, and the insensate rejoicings at last that seemed to + some of us more shameful than defeats.... + </p> + <p> + 7 + </p> + <p> + A book that stands out among these memories, that stimulated me immensely + so that I forced it upon my companions, half in the spirit of propaganda + and half to test it by their comments, was Meredith's ONE OF OUR + CONQUERORS. It is one of the books that have made me. In that I got a + supplement and corrective of Kipling. It was the first detached and + adverse criticism of the Englishman I had ever encountered. It must have + been published already nine or ten years when I read it. The country had + paid no heed to it, had gone on to the expensive lessons of the War + because of the dull aversion our people feel for all such intimations, and + so I could read it as a book justified. The war endorsed its every word + for me, underlined each warning indication of the gigantic dangers that + gathered against our system across the narrow seas. It discovered Europe + to me, as watching and critical. + </p> + <p> + But while I could respond to all its criticisms of my country's + intellectual indolence, of my country's want of training and discipline + and moral courage, I remember that the idea that on the continent there + were other peoples going ahead of us, mentally alert while we fumbled, + disciplined while we slouched, aggressive and preparing to bring our + Imperial pride to a reckoning, was extremely novel and distasteful to me. + It set me worrying of nights. It put all my projects for social and + political reconstruction upon a new uncomfortable footing. It made them no + longer merely desirable but urgent. Instead of pride and the love of + making one might own to a baser motive. Under Kipling's sway I had a + little forgotten the continent of Europe, treated it as a mere envious + echo to our own world-wide display. I began now to have a disturbing sense + as it were of busy searchlights over the horizon.... + </p> + <p> + One consequence of the patriotic chagrin Meredith produced in me was an + attempt to belittle his merit. “It isn't a good novel, anyhow,” I said. + </p> + <p> + The charge I brought against it was, I remember, a lack of unity. It + professed to be a study of the English situation in the early nineties, + but it was all deflected, I said, and all the interest was confused by the + story of Victor Radnor's fight with society to vindicate the woman he had + loved and never married. Now in the retrospect and with a mind full of + bitter enlightenment, I can do Meredith justice, and admit the conflict + was not only essential but cardinal in his picture, that the terrible + inflexibility of the rich aunts and the still more terrible claim of Mrs. + Burman Radnor, the “infernal punctilio,” and Dudley Sowerby's limitations, + were the central substance of that inalertness the book set itself to + assail. So many things have been brought together in my mind that were + once remotely separated. A people that will not valiantly face and + understand and admit love and passion can understand nothing whatever. But + in those days what is now just obvious truth to me was altogether outside + my range of comprehension.... + </p> + <p> + 8 + </p> + <p> + As I seek to recapitulate the interlacing growth of my apprehension of the + world, as I flounder among the half-remembered developments that found me + a crude schoolboy and left me a man, there comes out, as if it stood for + all the rest, my first holiday abroad. That did not happen until I was + twenty-two. I was a fellow of Trinity, and the Peace of Vereeniging had + just been signed. + </p> + <p> + I went with a man named Willersley, a man some years senior to myself, who + had just missed a fellowship and the higher division of the Civil Service, + and who had become an enthusiastic member of the London School Board, upon + which the cumulative vote and the support of the “advanced” people had + placed him. He had, like myself, a small independent income that relieved + him of any necessity to earn a living, and he had a kindred craving for + social theorising and some form of social service. He had sought my + acquaintance after reading a paper of mine (begotten by the visit of Chris + Robinson) on the limits of pure democracy. It had marched with some + thoughts of his own. + </p> + <p> + We went by train to Spiez on the Lake of Thun, then up the Gemmi, and + thence with one or two halts and digressions and a little modest climbing + we crossed over by the Antrona pass (on which we were benighted) into + Italy, and by way of Domo D'ossola and the Santa Maria Maggiore valley to + Cannobio, and thence up the lake to Locarno (where, as I shall tell, we + stayed some eventful days) and so up the Val Maggia and over to Airolo and + home. + </p> + <p> + As I write of that long tramp of ours, something of its freshness and + enlargement returns to me. I feel again the faint pleasant excitement of + the boat train, the trampling procession of people with hand baggage and + laden porters along the platform of the Folkestone pier, the scarcely + perceptible swaying of the moored boat beneath our feet. Then, very + obvious and simple, the little emotion of standing out from the homeland + and seeing the long white Kentish cliffs recede. One walked about the boat + doing one's best not to feel absurdly adventurous, and presently a + movement of people directed one's attention to a white lighthouse on a + cliff to the east of us, coming up suddenly; and then one turned to scan + the little different French coast villages, and then, sliding by in a pale + sunshine came a long wooden pier with oddly dressed children upon it, and + the clustering town of Boulogne. + </p> + <p> + One took it all with the outward calm that became a young man of nearly + three and twenty, but one was alive to one's finger-tips with pleasing + little stimulations. The custom house examination excited one, the + strangeness of a babble in a foreign tongue; one found the French of City + Merchants' and Cambridge a shy and viscous flow, and then one was standing + in the train as it went slowly through the rail-laid street to Boulogne + Ville, and one looked out at the world in French, porters in blouses, + workmen in enormous purple trousers, police officers in peaked caps + instead of helmets and romantically cloaked, big carts, all on two wheels + instead of four, green shuttered casements instead of sash windows, and + great numbers of neatly dressed women in economical mourning. + </p> + <p> + “Oh! there's a priest!” one said, and was betrayed into suchlike artless + cries. + </p> + <p> + It was a real other world, with different government and different + methods, and in the night one was roused from uneasy slumbers and sat + blinking and surly, wrapped up in one's couverture and with one's oreiller + all awry, to encounter a new social phenomenon, the German official, so + different in manner from the British; and when one woke again after that + one had come to Bale, and out one tumbled to get coffee in Switzerland.... + </p> + <p> + I have been over that route dozens of times since, but it still revives a + certain lingering youthfulness, a certain sense of cheerful release in me. + </p> + <p> + I remember that I and Willersley became very sociological as we ran on to + Spiez, and made all sorts of generalisations from the steeply sloping + fields on the hillsides, and from the people we saw on platforms and from + little differences in the way things were done. + </p> + <p> + The clean prosperity of Bale and Switzerland, the big clean stations, + filled me with patriotic misgivings, as I thought of the vast dirtiness of + London, the mean dirtiness of Cambridgeshire. It came to me that perhaps + my scheme of international values was all wrong, that quite stupendous + possibilities and challenges for us and our empire might be developing + here—and I recalled Meredith's Skepsey in France with a new + understanding. + </p> + <p> + Willersley had dressed himself in a world-worn Norfolk suit of greenish + grey tweeds that ended unfamiliarly at his rather impending, spectacled, + intellectual visage. I didn't, I remember, like the contrast of him with + the drilled Swiss and Germans about us. Convict coloured stockings and + vast hobnail boots finished him below, and all his luggage was a borrowed + rucksac that he had tied askew. He did not want to shave in the train, but + I made him at one of the Swiss stations—I dislike these Oxford + slovenlinesses—and then confound him! he cut himself and bled.... + </p> + <p> + Next morning we were breathing a thin exhilarating air that seemed to have + washed our very veins to an incredible cleanliness, and eating hard-boiled + eggs in a vast clear space of rime-edged rocks, snow-mottled, above a + blue-gashed glacier. All about us the monstrous rock surfaces rose towards + the shining peaks above, and there were winding moraines from which the + ice had receded, and then dark clustering fir trees far below. + </p> + <p> + I had an extraordinary feeling of having come out of things, of being + outside. + </p> + <p> + “But this is the round world!” I said, with a sense of never having + perceived it before; “this is the round world!” + </p> + <p> + 9 + </p> + <p> + That holiday was full of big comprehensive effects; the first view of the + Rhone valley and the distant Valaisian Alps, for example, which we saw + from the shoulder of the mountain above the Gemmi, and the early summer + dawn breaking over Italy as we moved from our night's crouching and + munched bread and chocolate and stretched our stiff limbs among the + tumbled and precipitous rocks that hung over Lake Cingolo, and surveyed + the winding tiring rocky track going down and down to Antronapiano. + </p> + <p> + And our thoughts were as comprehensive as our impressions. Willersley's + mind abounded in historical matter; he had an inaccurate abundant habit of + topographical reference; he made me see and trace and see again the Roman + Empire sweep up these winding valleys, and the coming of the first great + Peace among the warring tribes of men.... + </p> + <p> + In the retrospect each of us seems to have been talking about our outlook + almost continually. Each of us, you see, was full of the same question, + very near and altogether predominant to us, the question: “What am I going + to do with my life?” He saw it almost as importantly as I, but from a + different angle, because his choice was largely made and mine still hung + in the balance. + </p> + <p> + “I feel we might do so many things,” I said, “and everything that calls + one, calls one away from something else.” + </p> + <p> + Willersley agreed without any modest disavowals. + </p> + <p> + “We have got to think out,” he said, “just what we are and what we are up + to. We've got to do that now. And then—it's one of those questions + it is inadvisable to reopen subsequently.” + </p> + <p> + He beamed at me through his glasses. The sententious use of long words was + a playful habit with him, that and a slight deliberate humour, habits + occasional Extension Lecturing was doing very much to intensify. + </p> + <p> + “You've made your decision?” + </p> + <p> + He nodded with a peculiar forward movement of his head. + </p> + <p> + “How would you put it?” + </p> + <p> + “Social Service—education. Whatever else matters or doesn't matter, + it seems to me there is one thing we MUST have and increase, and that is + the number of people who can think a little—and have”—he + beamed again—“an adequate sense of causation.” + </p> + <p> + “You're sure it's worth while.” + </p> + <p> + “For me—certainly. I don't discuss that any more.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't limit myself too narrowly,” he added. “After all, the work is all + one. We who know, we who feel, are building the great modern state, + joining wall to wall and way to way, the new great England rising out of + the decaying old... we are the real statesmen—I like that use of + 'statesmen.'...” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” I said with many doubts. “Yes, of course....” + </p> + <p> + Willersley is middle-aged now, with silver in his hair and a deepening + benevolence in his always amiable face, and he has very fairly kept his + word. He has lived for social service and to do vast masses of useful, + undistinguished, fertilising work. Think of the days of arid + administrative plodding and of contention still more arid and unrewarded, + that he must have spent! His little affectations of gesture and manner, + imitative affectations for the most part, have increased, and the humorous + beam and the humorous intonations have become a thing he puts on every + morning like an old coat. His devotion is mingled with a considerable + whimsicality, and they say he is easily flattered by subordinates and + easily offended into opposition by colleagues; he has made mistakes at + times and followed wrong courses, still there he is, a flat contradiction + to all the ordinary doctrine of motives, a man who has foregone any + chances of wealth and profit, foregone any easier paths to distinction, + foregone marriage and parentage, in order to serve the community. He does + it without any fee or reward except his personal self-satisfaction in + doing this work, and he does it without any hope of future joys and + punishments, for he is an implacable Rationalist. No doubt he idealises + himself a little, and dreams of recognition. No doubt he gets his pleasure + from a sense of power, from the spending and husbanding of large sums of + public money, and from the inevitable proprietorship he must feel in the + fair, fine, well-ordered schools he has done so much to develop. “But for + me,” he can say, “there would have been a Job about those diagrams, and + that subject or this would have been less ably taught.”... + </p> + <p> + The fact remains that for him the rewards have been adequate, if not to + content at any rate to keep him working. Of course he covets the notice of + the world he has served, as a lover covets the notice of his mistress. Of + course he thinks somewhere, somewhen, he will get credit. Only last year I + heard some men talking of him, and they were noting, with little mean + smiles, how he had shown himself self-conscious while there was talk of + some honorary degree-giving or other; it would, I have no doubt, please + him greatly if his work were to flower into a crimson gown in some + Academic parterre. Why shouldn't it? But that is incidental vanity at the + worst; he goes on anyhow. Most men don't. + </p> + <p> + But we had our walk twenty years and more ago now. He was oldish even then + as a young man, just as he is oldish still in middle age. Long may his + industrious elderliness flourish for the good of the world! He lectured a + little in conversation then; he lectures more now and listens less, + toilsomely disentangling what you already understand, giving you in detail + the data you know; these are things like callosities that come from a + man's work. + </p> + <p> + Our long three weeks' talk comes back to me as a memory of ideas and + determinations slowly growing, all mixed up with a smell of wood smoke and + pine woods and huge precipices and remote gleams of snow-fields and the + sound of cascading torrents rushing through deep gorges far below. It is + mixed, too, with gossips with waitresses and fellow travellers, with my + first essays in colloquial German and Italian, with disputes about the way + to take, and other things that I will tell of in another section. But the + white passion of human service was our dominant theme. Not simply perhaps + nor altogether unselfishly, but quite honestly, and with at least a + frequent self-forgetfulness, did we want to do fine and noble things, to + help in their developing, to lessen misery, to broaden and exalt life. It + is very hard—perhaps it is impossible—to present in a page or + two the substance and quality of nearly a month's conversation, + conversation that is casual and discursive in form, that ranges carelessly + from triviality to immensity, and yet is constantly resuming a + constructive process, as workmen on a wall loiter and jest and go and come + back, and all the while build. + </p> + <p> + We got it more and more definite that the core of our purpose beneath all + its varied aspects must needs be order and discipline. “Muddle,” said I, + “is the enemy.” That remains my belief to this day. Clearness and order, + light and foresight, these things I know for Good. It was muddle had just + given us all the still freshly painful disasters and humiliations of the + war, muddle that gives us the visibly sprawling disorder of our cities and + industrial country-side, muddle that gives us the waste of life, the + limitations, wretchedness and unemployment of the poor. Muddle! I remember + myself quoting Kipling— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “All along o' dirtiness, all along o' mess, + All along o' doin' things rather-more-or-less.” + </pre> + <p> + “We build the state,” we said over and over again. “That is what we are + for—servants of the new reorganisation!” + </p> + <p> + We planned half in earnest and half Utopianising, a League of Social + Service. + </p> + <p> + We talked of the splendid world of men that might grow out of such unpaid + and ill-paid work as we were setting our faces to do. We spoke of the + intricate difficulties, the monstrous passive resistances, the hostilities + to such a development as we conceived our work subserved, and we spoke + with that underlying confidence in the invincibility of the causes we + adopted that is natural to young and scarcely tried men. + </p> + <p> + We talked much of the detailed life of politics so far as it was known to + us, and there Willersley was more experienced and far better informed than + I; we discussed possible combinations and possible developments, and the + chances of some great constructive movement coming from the + heart-searchings the Boer war had occasioned. We would sink to gossip—even + at the Suetonius level. Willersley would decline towards illuminating + anecdotes that I capped more or less loosely from my private reading. We + were particularly wise, I remember, upon the management of newspapers, + because about that we knew nothing whatever. We perceived that great + things were to be done through newspapers. We talked of swaying opinion + and moving great classes to massive action. + </p> + <p> + Men are egotistical even in devotion. All our splendid projects were + thickset with the first personal pronoun. We both could write, and all + that we said in general terms was reflected in the particular in our + minds; it was ourselves we saw, and no others, writing and speaking that + moving word. We had already produced manuscript and passed the initiations + of proof reading; I had been a frequent speaker in the Union, and + Willersley was an active man on the School Board. Our feet were already on + the lower rungs that led up and up. He was six and twenty, and I + twenty-two. We intimated our individual careers in terms of bold + expectation. I had prophetic glimpses of walls and hoardings clamorous + with “Vote for Remington,” and Willersley no doubt saw himself chairman of + this committee and that, saying a few slightly ironical words after the + declaration of the poll, and then sitting friendly beside me on the + government benches. There was nothing impossible in such dreams. Why not + the Board of Education for him? My preference at that time wavered between + the Local Government Board—I had great ideas about town-planning, + about revisions of municipal areas and re-organised internal transit—and + the War Office. I swayed strongly towards the latter as the journey + progressed. My educational bias came later. + </p> + <p> + The swelling ambitions that have tramped over Alpine passes! How many of + them, like mine, have come almost within sight of realisation before they + failed? + </p> + <p> + There were times when we posed like young gods (of unassuming exterior), + and times when we were full of the absurdest little solicitudes about our + prospects. There were times when one surveyed the whole world of men as if + it was a little thing at one's feet, and by way of contrast I remember + once lying in bed—it must have been during this holiday, though I + cannot for the life of me fix where—and speculating whether perhaps + some day I might not be a K. C. B., Sir Richard Remington, K. C. B., M. P. + </p> + <p> + But the big style prevailed.... + </p> + <p> + We could not tell from minute to minute whether we were planning for a + world of solid reality, or telling ourselves fairy tales about this + prospect of life. So much seemed possible, and everything we could think + of so improbable. There were lapses when it seemed to me I could never be + anything but just the entirely unimportant and undistinguished young man I + was for ever and ever. I couldn't even think of myself as five and thirty. + </p> + <p> + Once I remember Willersley going over a list of failures, and why they had + failed—but young men in the twenties do not know much about + failures. + </p> + <p> + 10 + </p> + <p> + Willersley and I professed ourselves Socialists, but by this time I knew + my Rodbertus as well as my Marx, and there was much in our socialism that + would have shocked Chris Robinson as much as anything in life could have + shocked him. Socialism as a simple democratic cry we had done with for + ever. We were socialists because Individualism for us meant muddle, meant + a crowd of separated, undisciplined little people all obstinately and + ignorantly doing things jarringly, each one in his own way. “Each,” I said + quoting words of my father's that rose apt in my memory, “snarling from + his own little bit of property, like a dog tied to a cart's tail.” + </p> + <p> + “Essentially,” said Willersley, “essentially we're for conscription, in + peace and war alike. The man who owns property is a public official and + has to behave as such. That's the gist of socialism as I understand it.” + </p> + <p> + “Or be dismissed from his post,” I said, “and replaced by some better sort + of official. A man's none the less an official because he's irresponsible. + What he does with his property affects people just the same. Private! No + one is really private but an outlaw....” + </p> + <p> + Order and devotion were the very essence of our socialism, and a splendid + collective vigour and happiness its end. We projected an ideal state, an + organised state as confident and powerful as modern science, as balanced + and beautiful as a body, as beneficent as sunshine, the organised state + that should end muddle for ever; it ruled all our ideals and gave form to + all our ambitions. + </p> + <p> + Every man was to be definitely related to that, to have his predominant + duty to that. Such was the England renewed we had in mind, and how to + serve that end, to subdue undisciplined worker and undisciplined wealth to + it, and make the Scientific Commonweal, King, was the continuing substance + of our intercourse. + </p> + <p> + 11 + </p> + <p> + Every day the wine of the mountains was stronger in our blood, and the + flush of our youth deeper. We would go in the morning sunlight along some + narrow Alpine mule-path shouting large suggestions for national + reorganisation, and weighing considerations as lightly as though the world + was wax in our hands. “Great England,” we said in effect, over and over + again, “and we will be among the makers! England renewed! The country has + been warned; it has learnt its lesson. The disasters and anxieties of the + war have sunk in. England has become serious.... Oh! there are big things + before us to do; big enduring things!” + </p> + <p> + One evening we walked up to the loggia of a little pilgrimage church, I + forget its name, that stands out on a conical hill at the head of a + winding stair above the town of Locarno. Down below the houses clustered + amidst a confusion of heat-bitten greenery. I had been sitting silently on + the parapet, looking across to the purple mountain masses where + Switzerland passes into Italy, and the drift of our talk seemed suddenly + to gather to a head. + </p> + <p> + I broke into speech, giving form to the thoughts that had been + accumulating. My words have long since passed out of my memory, the + phrases of familiar expression have altered for me, but the substance + remains as clear as ever. I said how we were in our measure emperors and + kings, men undriven, free to do as we pleased with life; we classed among + the happy ones, our bread and common necessities were given us for + nothing, we had abilities,—it wasn't modesty but cowardice to behave + as if we hadn't—and Fortune watched us to see what we might do with + opportunity and the world. + </p> + <p> + “There are so many things to do, you see,” began Willersley, in his + judicial lecturer's voice. + </p> + <p> + “So many things we may do,” I interrupted, “with all these years before + us.... We're exceptional men. It's our place, our duty, to do things.” + </p> + <p> + “Here anyhow,” I said, answering the faint amusement of his face; “I've + got no modesty. Everything conspires to set me up. Why should I run about + like all those grubby little beasts down there, seeking nothing but mean + little vanities and indulgencies—and then take credit for modesty? I + KNOW I am capable. I KNOW I have imagination. Modesty! I know if I don't + attempt the very biggest things in life I am a damned shirk. The very + biggest! Somebody has to attempt them. I feel like a loaded gun that is + only a little perplexed because it has to find out just where to aim + itself....” + </p> + <p> + The lake and the frontier villages, a white puff of steam on the distant + railway to Luino, the busy boats and steamers trailing triangular wakes of + foam, the long vista eastward towards battlemented Bellinzona, the vast + mountain distances, now tinged with sunset light, behind this nearer + landscape, and the southward waters with remote coast towns shining dimly, + waters that merged at last in a luminous golden haze, made a broad + panoramic spectacle. It was as if one surveyed the world,—and it was + like the games I used to set out upon my nursery floor. I was exalted by + it; I felt larger than men. So kings should feel. + </p> + <p> + That sense of largeness came to me then, and it has come to me since, + again and again, a splendid intimation or a splendid vanity. Once, I + remember, when I looked at Genoa from the mountain crest behind the town + and saw that multitudinous place in all its beauty of width and abundance + and clustering human effort, and once as I was steaming past the brown low + hills of Staten Island towards the towering vigour and clamorous vitality + of New York City, that mood rose to its quintessence. And once it came to + me, as I shall tell, on Dover cliffs. And a hundred times when I have + thought of England as our country might be, with no wretched poor, no + wretched rich, a nation armed and ordered, trained and purposeful amidst + its vales and rivers, that emotion of collective ends and collective + purposes has returned to me. I felt as great as humanity. For a brief + moment I was humanity, looking at the world I had made and had still to + make.... + </p> + <p> + 12 + </p> + <p> + And mingled with these dreams of power and patriotic service there was + another series of a different quality and a different colour, like the + antagonistic colour of a shot silk. The white life and the red life, + contrasted and interchanged, passing swiftly at a turn from one to + another, and refusing ever to mingle peacefully one with the other. I was + asking myself openly and distinctly: what are you going to do for the + world? What are you going to do with yourself? and with an increasing + strength and persistence Nature in spite of my averted attention was + asking me in penetrating undertones: what are you going to do about this + other fundamental matter, the beauty of girls and women and your desire + for them? + </p> + <p> + I have told of my sisterless youth and the narrow circumstances of my + upbringing. It made all women-kind mysterious to me. If it had not been + for my Staffordshire cousins I do not think I should have known any girls + at all until I was twenty. Of Staffordshire I will tell a little later. + But I can remember still how through all those ripening years, the thought + of women's beauty, their magic presence in the world beside me and the + unknown, untried reactions of their intercourse, grew upon me and grew, as + a strange presence grows in a room when one is occupied by other things. I + busied myself and pretended to be wholly occupied, and there the woman + stood, full half of life neglected, and it seemed to my averted mind + sometimes that she was there clad and dignified and divine, and sometimes + Aphrodite shining and commanding, and sometimes that Venus who stoops and + allures. + </p> + <p> + This travel abroad seemed to have released a multitude of things in my + mind; the clear air, the beauty of the sunshine, the very blue of the + glaciers made me feel my body and quickened all those disregarded dreams. + I saw the sheathed beauty of women's forms all about me, in the cheerful + waitresses at the inns, in the pedestrians one encountered in the tracks, + in the chance fellow travellers at the hotel tables. “Confound it!” said + I, and talked all the more zealously of that greater England that was + calling us. + </p> + <p> + I remember that we passed two Germans, an old man and a tall fair girl, + father and daughter, who were walking down from Saas. She came swinging + and shining towards us, easy and strong. I worshipped her as she + approached. + </p> + <p> + “Gut Tag!” said Willersley, removing his hat. + </p> + <p> + “Morgen!” said the old man, saluting. + </p> + <p> + I stared stockishly at the girl, who passed with an indifferent face. + </p> + <p> + That sticks in my mind as a picture remains in a room, it has kept there + bright and fresh as a thing seen yesterday, for twenty years.... + </p> + <p> + I flirted hesitatingly once or twice with comely serving girls, and was a + little ashamed lest Willersley should detect the keen interest I took in + them, and then as we came over the pass from Santa Maria Maggiore to + Cannobio, my secret preoccupation took me by surprise and flooded me and + broke down my pretences. + </p> + <p> + The women in that valley are very beautiful—women vary from valley + to valley in the Alps and are plain and squat here and divinities five + miles away—and as we came down we passed a group of five or six of + them resting by the wayside. Their burthens were beside them, and one like + Ceres held a reaping hook in her brown hand. She watched us approaching + and smiled faintly, her eyes at mine. + </p> + <p> + There was some greeting, and two of them laughed together. + </p> + <p> + We passed. + </p> + <p> + “Glorious girls they were,” said Willersley, and suddenly an immense sense + of boredom enveloped me. I saw myself striding on down that winding road, + talking of politics and parties and bills of parliament and all sorts of + dessicated things. That road seemed to me to wind on for ever down to dust + and infinite dreariness. I knew it for a way of death. Reality was behind + us. + </p> + <p> + Willersley set himself to draw a sociological moral. “I'm not so sure,” he + said in a voice of intense discriminations, “after all, that agricultural + work isn't good for women.” + </p> + <p> + “Damn agricultural work!” I said, and broke out into a vigorous cursing of + all I held dear. “Fettered things we are!” I cried. “I wonder why I stand + it!” + </p> + <p> + “Stand what?” + </p> + <p> + “Why don't I go back and make love to those girls and let the world and + you and everything go hang? Deep breasts and rounded limbs—and we + poor emasculated devils go tramping by with the blood of youth in us!...” + </p> + <p> + “I'm not quite sure, Remington,” said Willersley, looking at me with a + deliberately quaint expression over his glasses, “that picturesque scenery + is altogether good for your morals.” + </p> + <p> + That fever was still in my blood when we came to Locarno. + </p> + <p> + 13 + </p> + <p> + Along the hot and dusty lower road between the Orrido of Traffiume and + Cannobio Willersley had developed his first blister. And partly because of + that and partly because there was a bag at the station that gave us the + refreshment of clean linen and partly because of the lazy lower air into + which we had come, we decided upon three or four days' sojourn in the + Empress Hotel. + </p> + <p> + We dined that night at a table-d'hote, and I found myself next to an + Englishwoman who began a conversation that was resumed presently in the + hotel lounge. She was a woman of perhaps thirty-three or thirty-four, + slenderly built, with a warm reddish skin and very abundant fair golden + hair, the wife of a petulant-looking heavy-faced man of perhaps + fifty-three, who smoked a cigar and dozed over his coffee and presently + went to bed. “He always goes to bed like that,” she confided startlingly. + “He sleeps after all his meals. I never knew such a man to sleep.” + </p> + <p> + Then she returned to our talk, whatever it was. + </p> + <p> + We had begun at the dinner table with itineraries and the usual + topographical talk, and she had envied our pedestrian travel. “My husband + doesn't walk,” she said. “His heart is weak and he cannot manage the + hills.” + </p> + <p> + There was something friendly and adventurous in her manner; she conveyed + she liked me, and when presently Willersley drifted off to write letters + our talk sank at once to easy confidential undertones. I felt + enterprising, and indeed it is easy to be daring with people one has never + seen before and may never see again. I said I loved beautiful scenery and + all beautiful things, and the pointing note in my voice made her laugh. + She told me I had bold eyes, and so far as I can remember I said she made + them bold. “Blue they are,” she remarked, smiling archly. “I like blue + eyes.” Then I think we compared ages, and she said she was the Woman of + Thirty, “George Moore's Woman of Thirty.” + </p> + <p> + I had not read George Moore at the time, but I pretended to understand. + </p> + <p> + That, I think, was our limit that evening. She went to bed, smiling + good-night quite prettily down the big staircase, and I and Willersley + went out to smoke in the garden. My head was full of her, and I found it + necessary to talk about her. So I made her a problem in sociology. “Who + the deuce are these people?” I said, “and how do they get a living? They + seem to have plenty of money. He strikes me as being—Willersley, + what is a drysalter? I think he's a retired drysalter.” + </p> + <p> + Willersley theorised while I thought of the woman and that provocative + quality of dash she had displayed. The next day at lunch she and I met + like old friends. A huge mass of private thinking during the interval had + been added to our effect upon one another. We talked for a time of + insignificant things. + </p> + <p> + “What do you do,” she asked rather quickly, “after lunch? Take a siesta?” + </p> + <p> + “Sometimes,” I said, and hung for a moment eye to eye. + </p> + <p> + We hadn't a doubt of each other, but my heart was beating like a steamer + propeller when it lifts out of the water. + </p> + <p> + “Do you get a view from your room?” she asked after a pause. + </p> + <p> + “It's on the third floor, Number seventeen, near the staircase. My + friend's next door.” + </p> + <p> + She began to talk of books. She was interested in Christian Science, she + said, and spoke of a book. I forget altogether what that book was called, + though I remember to this day with the utmost exactness the purplish + magenta of its cover. She said she would lend it to me and hesitated. + </p> + <p> + Willersley wanted to go for an expedition across the lake that afternoon, + but I refused. He made some other proposals that I rejected abruptly. “I + shall write in my room,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “Why not write down here?” + </p> + <p> + “I shall write in my room,” I snarled like a thwarted animal, and he + looked at me curiously. “Very well,” he said; “then I'll make some notes + and think about that order of ours out under the magnolias.” + </p> + <p> + I hovered about the lounge for a time buying postcards and feverishly + restless, watching the movements of the other people. Finally I went up to + my room and sat down by the windows, staring out. There came a little tap + at the unlocked door and in an instant, like the go of a taut bowstring, I + was up and had it open. + </p> + <p> + “Here is that book,” she said, and we hesitated. + </p> + <p> + “COME IN!” I whispered, trembling from head to foot. + </p> + <p> + “You're just a boy,” she said in a low tone. + </p> + <p> + I did not feel a bit like a lover, I felt like a burglar with the + safe-door nearly opened. “Come in,” I said almost impatiently, for anyone + might be in the passage, and I gripped her wrist and drew her towards me. + </p> + <p> + “What do you mean?” she answered with a faint smile on her lips, and + awkward and yielding. + </p> + <p> + I shut the door behind her, still holding her with one hand, then turned + upon her—she was laughing nervously—and without a word drew + her to me and kissed her. And I remember that as I kissed her she made a + little noise almost like the purring miaow with which a cat will greet one + and her face, close to mine, became solemn and tender. + </p> + <p> + She was suddenly a different being from the discontented wife who had + tapped a moment since on my door, a woman transfigured.... + </p> + <p> + That evening I came down to dinner a monster of pride, for behold! I was a + man. I felt myself the most wonderful and unprecedented of adventurers. It + was hard to believe that any one in the world before had done as much. My + mistress and I met smiling, we carried things off admirably, and it seemed + to me that Willersley was the dullest old dog in the world. I wanted to + give him advice. I wanted to give him derisive pokes. After dinner and + coffee in the lounge I was too excited and hilarious to go to bed, I made + him come with me down to the cafe under the arches by the pier, and there + drank beer and talked extravagant nonsense about everything under the sun, + in order not to talk about the happenings of the afternoon. All the time + something shouted within me: “I am a man! I am a man!”... + </p> + <p> + “What shall we do to-morrow?” said he. + </p> + <p> + “I'm for loafing,” I said. “Let's row in the morning and spend to-morrow + afternoon just as we did to-day.” + </p> + <p> + “They say the church behind the town is worth seeing.” + </p> + <p> + “We'll go up about sunset; that's the best time for it. We can start about + five.” + </p> + <p> + We heard music, and went further along the arcade to discover a place + where girls in operatic Swiss peasant costume were singing and dancing on + a creaking, protesting little stage. I eyed their generous display of pink + neck and arm with the seasoned eye of a man who has lived in the world. + Life was perfectly simple and easy, I felt, if one took it the right way. + </p> + <p> + Next day Willersley wanted to go on, but I delayed. Altogether I kept him + back four days. Then abruptly my mood changed, and we decided to start + early the following morning. I remember, though a little indistinctly, the + feeling of my last talk with that woman whose surname, odd as it may seem, + either I never learnt or I have forgotten. (Her christian name was Milly.) + She was tired and rather low-spirited, and disposed to be sentimental, and + for the first time in our intercourse I found myself liking her for the + sake of her own personality. There was something kindly and generous + appearing behind the veil of naive and uncontrolled sensuality she had + worn. There was a curious quality of motherliness in her attitude to me + that something in my nature answered and approved. She didn't pretend to + keep it up that she had yielded to my initiative. “I've done you no harm,” + she said a little doubtfully, an odd note for a man's victim! And, “we've + had a good time. You have liked me, haven't you?” + </p> + <p> + She interested me in her lonely dissatisfied life; she was childless and + had no hope of children, and her husband was the only son of a rich meat + salesman, very mean, a mighty smoker—“he reeks of it,” she said, + “always”—and interested in nothing but golf, billiards (which he + played very badly), pigeon shooting, convivial Free Masonry and Stock + Exchange punting. Mostly they drifted about the Riviera. Her mother had + contrived her marriage when she was eighteen. They were the first samples + I ever encountered of the great multitude of functionless property owners + which encumbers modern civilisation—but at the time I didn't think + much of that aspect of them.... + </p> + <p> + I tell all this business as it happened without comment, because I have no + comment to make. It was all strange to me, strange rather than wonderful, + and, it may be, some dream of beauty died for ever in those furtive + meetings; it happened to me, and I could scarcely have been more + irresponsible in the matter or controlled events less if I had been + suddenly pushed over a cliff into water. I swam, of course—finding + myself in it. Things tested me, and I reacted, as I have told. The bloom + of my innocence, if ever there had been such a thing, was gone. And here + is the remarkable thing about it; at the time and for some days I was + over-weeningly proud; I have never been so proud before or since; I felt I + had been promoted to virility; I was unable to conceal my exultation from + Willersley. It was a mood of shining shameless ungracious self-approval. + As he and I went along in the cool morning sunshine by the rice fields in + the throat of the Val Maggia a silence fell between us. + </p> + <p> + “You know?” I said abruptly,—“about that woman?” + </p> + <p> + Willersley did not answer for a moment. He looked at me over the corner of + his spectacles. + </p> + <p> + “Things went pretty far?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “Oh! all the way!” and I had a twinge of fatuous pride in my + unpremeditated achievement. + </p> + <p> + “She came to your room?” + </p> + <p> + I nodded. + </p> + <p> + “I heard her. I heard her whispering.... The whispering and rustling and + so on. I was in my room yesterday.... Any one might have heard you.” + </p> + <p> + I went on with my head in the air. + </p> + <p> + “You might have been caught, and that would have meant endless trouble. + You might have incurred all sorts of consequences. What did you know about + her?... We have wasted four days in that hot close place. When we found + that League of Social Service we were talking about,” he said with a + determined eye upon me, “chastity will be first among the virtues + prescribed.” + </p> + <p> + “I shall form a rival league,” I said a little damped. “I'm hanged if I + give up a single desire in me until I know why.” + </p> + <p> + He lifted his chin and stared before him through his glasses at nothing. + “There are some things,” he said, “that a man who means to work—to + do great public services—MUST turn his back upon. I'm not discussing + the rights or wrongs of this sort of thing. It happens to be the + conditions we work under. It will probably always be so. If you want to + experiment in that way, if you want even to discuss it,—out you go + from political life. You must know that's so.... You're a strange man, + Remington, with a kind of kink in you. You've a sort of force. You might + happen to do immense things.... Only—” + </p> + <p> + He stopped. He had said all that he had forced himself to say. + </p> + <p> + “I mean to take myself as I am,” I said. “I'm going to get experience for + humanity out of all my talents—and bury nothing.” + </p> + <p> + Willersley twisted his face to its humorous expression. “I doubt if sexual + proclivities,” he said drily, “come within the scope of the parable.” + </p> + <p> + I let that go for a little while. Then I broke out. “Sex!” said I, “is a + fundamental thing in life. We went through all this at Trinity. I'm going + to look at it, experience it, think about it—and get it square with + the rest of life. Career and Politics must take their chances of that. + It's part of the general English slackness that they won't look this in + the face. Gods! what a muffled time we're coming out of! Sex means + breeding, and breeding is a necessary function in a nation. The Romans + broke up upon that. The Americans fade out amidst their successes. + Eugenics—” + </p> + <p> + “THAT wasn't Eugenics,” said Willersley. + </p> + <p> + “It was a woman,” I said after a little interval, feeling oddly that I had + failed altogether to answer him, and yet had a strong dumb case against + him. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + BOOK THE SECOND: MARGARET + </h2> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE FIRST ~~ MARGARET IN STAFFORDSHIRE + </h2> + <p> + 1 + </p> + <p> + I must go back a little way with my story. In the previous book I have + described the kind of education that happens to a man of my class + nowadays, and it has been convenient to leap a phase in my experience that + I must now set out at length. I want to tell in this second hook how I + came to marry, and to do that I must give something of the atmosphere in + which I first met my wife and some intimations of the forces that went to + her making. I met her in Staffordshire while I was staying with that uncle + of whom I have already spoken, the uncle who sold my father's houses and + settled my mother in Penge. Margaret was twenty then and I was twenty-two. + </p> + <p> + It was just before the walking tour in Switzerland that opened up so much + of the world to me. I saw her once, for an afternoon, and circumstances so + threw her up in relief that I formed a very vivid memory of her. She was + in the sharpest contrast with the industrial world about her; she + impressed me as a dainty blue flower might do, come upon suddenly on a + clinker heap. She remained in my mind at once a perplexing interrogation + and a symbol.... + </p> + <p> + But first I must tell of my Staffordshire cousins and the world that + served as a foil for her. + </p> + <p> + 2 + </p> + <p> + I first went to stay with my cousins when I was an awkward youth of + sixteen, wearing deep mourning for my mother. My uncle wanted to talk + things over with me, he said, and if he could, to persuade me to go into + business instead of going up to Cambridge. + </p> + <p> + I remember that visit on account of all sorts of novel things, but + chiefly, I think, because it was the first time I encountered anything + that deserves to be spoken of as wealth. For the first time in my life I + had to do with people who seemed to have endless supplies of money, + unlimited good clothes, numerous servants; whose daily life was made up of + things that I had hitherto considered to be treats or exceptional + extravagances. My cousins of eighteen and nineteen took cabs, for + instance, with the utmost freedom, and travelled first-class in the local + trains that run up and down the district of the Five Towns with an entire + unconsciousness of the magnificence, as it seemed to me, of such a + proceeding. + </p> + <p> + The family occupied a large villa in Newcastle, with big lawns before it + and behind, a shrubbery with quite a lot of shrubs, a coach house and + stable, and subordinate dwelling-places for the gardener and the coachman. + Every bedroom contained a gas heater and a canopied brass bedstead, and + had a little bathroom attached equipped with the porcelain baths and + fittings my uncle manufactured, bright and sanitary and stamped with his + name, and the house was furnished throughout with chairs and tables in + bright shining wood, soft and prevalently red Turkish carpets, cosy + corners, curtained archways, gold-framed landscapes, overmantels, a + dining-room sideboard like a palace with a large Tantalus, and electric + light fittings of a gay and expensive quality. There was a fine + billiard-room on the ground floor with three comfortable sofas and a + rotating bookcase containing an excellent collection of the English and + American humorists from THREE MEN IN A BOAT to the penultimate Mark Twain. + There was also a conservatory opening out of the dining-room, to which the + gardener brought potted flowers in their season.... + </p> + <p> + My aunt was a little woman with a scared look and a cap that would get + over one eye, not very like my mother, and nearly eight years her junior; + she was very much concerned with keeping everything nice, and unmercifully + bullied by my two cousins, who took after their father and followed the + imaginations of their own hearts. They were tall, dark, warmly flushed + girls handsome rather than pretty. Gertrude, the eldest and tallest, had + eyes that were almost black; Sibyl was of a stouter build, and her eyes, + of which she was shamelessly proud, were dark blue. Sibyl's hair waved, + and Gertrude's was severely straight. They treated me on my first visit + with all the contempt of the adolescent girl for a boy a little younger + and infinitely less expert in the business of life than herself. They were + very busy with the writings of notes and certain mysterious goings and + comings of their own, and left me very much to my own devices. Their + speech in my presence was full of unfathomable allusions. They were the + sort of girls who will talk over and through an uninitiated stranger with + the pleasantest sense of superiority. + </p> + <p> + I met them at breakfast and at lunch and at the half-past six o'clock high + tea that formed the third chief meal of the day. I heard them rattling off + the compositions of Chaminade and Moskowski, with great decision and + effect, and hovered on the edge of tennis foursomes where it was manifest + to the dullest intelligence that my presence was unnecessary. Then I went + off to find some readable book in the place, but apart from miscellaneous + popular novels, some veterinary works, a number of comic books, old bound + volumes of THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS and a large, popular illustrated + History of England, there was very little to be found. My aunt talked to + me in a casual feeble way, chiefly about my mother's last illness. The two + had seen very little of each other for many years; she made no secret of + it that the ineligible qualities of my father were the cause of the + estrangement. The only other society in the house during the day was an + old and rather decayed Skye terrier in constant conflict with what were no + doubt imaginary fleas. I took myself off for a series of walks, and + acquired a considerable knowledge of the scenery and topography of the + Potteries. + </p> + <p> + It puzzled my aunt that I did not go westward, where it was country-side + and often quite pretty, with hedgerows and fields and copses and flowers. + But always I went eastward, where in a long valley industrialism smokes + and sprawls. That was the stuff to which I turned by nature, to the human + effort, and the accumulation and jar of men's activities. And in such a + country as that valley social and economic relations were simple and + manifest. Instead of the limitless confusion of London's population, in + which no man can trace any but the most slender correlation between rich + and poor, in which everyone seems disconnected and adrift from everyone, + you can see here the works, the potbank or the ironworks or what not, and + here close at hand the congested, meanly-housed workers, and at a little + distance a small middle-class quarter, and again remoter, the big house of + the employer. It was like a very simplified diagram—after the + untraceable confusion of London. + </p> + <p> + I prowled alone, curious and interested, through shabby back streets of + mean little homes; I followed canals, sometimes canals of mysteriously + heated waters with ghostly wisps of steam rising against blackened walls + or a distant prospect of dustbin-fed vegetable gardens, I saw the women + pouring out from the potbanks, heard the hooters summoning the toilers to + work, lost my way upon slag heaps as big as the hills of the south + country, dodged trains at manifestly dangerous level crossings, and + surveyed across dark intervening spaces, the flaming uproar, the + gnome-like activities of iron foundries. I heard talk of strikes and + rumours of strikes, and learnt from the columns of some obscure labour + paper I bought one day, of the horrors of the lead poisoning that was in + those days one of the normal risks of certain sorts of pottery workers. + Then back I came, by the ugly groaning and clanging steam train of that + period, to my uncle's house and lavish abundance of money and more or less + furtive flirtations and the tinkle of Moskowski and Chaminade. It was, I + say, diagrammatic. One saw the expropriator and the expropriated—as + if Marx had arranged the picture. It was as jumbled and far more dingy and + disastrous than any of the confusions of building and development that had + surrounded my youth at Bromstead and Penge, but it had a novel quality of + being explicable. I found great virtue in the word “exploitation.” + </p> + <p> + There stuck in my mind as if it was symbolical of the whole thing the + twisted figure of a man, whose face had been horribly scalded—I + can't describe how, except that one eye was just expressionless white—and + he ground at an organ bearing a card which told in weak and bitterly + satirical phrasing that he had been scalded by the hot water from the + tuyeres of the blast furnace of Lord Pandram's works. He had been scalded + and quite inadequately compensated and dismissed. And Lord Pandram was + worth half a million. + </p> + <p> + That upturned sightless white eye of his took possession of my + imagination. I don't think that even then I was swayed by any crude + melodramatic conception of injustice. I was quite prepared to believe the + card wasn't a punctiliously accurate statement of fact, and that a case + could be made out for Lord Pandram. Still there in the muddy gutter, + painfully and dreadfully, was the man, and he was smashed and scalded and + wretched, and he ground his dismal hurdygurdy with a weary arm, calling + upon Heaven and the passer-by for help, for help and some sort of righting—one + could not imagine quite what. There he was as a fact, as a by-product of + the system that heaped my cousins with trinkets and provided the comic + novels and the abundant cigars and spacious billiard-room of my uncle's + house. I couldn't disconnect him and them. + </p> + <p> + My uncle on his part did nothing to conceal the state of war that existed + between himself and his workers, and the mingled contempt and animosity he + felt from them. + </p> + <p> + 3 + </p> + <p> + Prosperity had overtaken my uncle. So quite naturally he believed that + every man who was not as prosperous as he was had only himself to blame. + He was rich and he had left school and gone into his father's business at + fifteen, and that seemed to him the proper age at which everyone's + education should terminate. He was very anxious to dissuade me from going + up to Cambridge, and we argued intermittently through all my visit. + </p> + <p> + I had remembered him as a big and buoyant man, striding destructively + about the nursery floor of my childhood, and saluting my existence by + slaps, loud laughter, and questions about half herrings and half eggs + subtly framed to puzzle and confuse my mind. I didn't see him for some + years until my father's death, and then he seemed rather smaller, though + still a fair size, yellow instead of red and much less radiantly + aggressive. This altered effect was due not so much to my own changed + perspectives, I fancy, as to the facts that he was suffering for + continuous cigar smoking, and being taken in hand by his adolescent + daughters who had just returned from school. + </p> + <p> + During my first visit there was a perpetual series of—the only word + is rows, between them and him. Up to the age of fifteen or thereabouts, he + had maintained his ascendancy over them by simple old-fashioned physical + chastisement. Then after an interlude of a year it had dawned upon them + that power had mysteriously departed from him. He had tried stopping their + pocket money, but they found their mother financially amenable; besides + which it was fundamental to my uncle's attitude that he should give them + money freely. Not to do so would seem like admitting a difficulty in + making it. So that after he had stopped their allowances for the fourth + time Sybil and Gertrude were prepared to face beggary without a qualm. It + had been his pride to give them the largest allowance of any girls at the + school, not even excepting the granddaughter of Fladden the Borax King, + and his soul recoiled from this discipline as it had never recoiled from + the ruder method of the earlier phase. Both girls had developed to a high + pitch in their mutual recriminations a gift for damaging retort, and he + found it an altogether deadlier thing than the power of the raised voice + that had always cowed my aunt. Whenever he became heated with them, they + frowned as if involuntarily, drew in their breath sharply, said: “Daddy, + you really must not say—” and corrected his pronunciation. Then, at + a great advantage, they resumed the discussion.... + </p> + <p> + My uncle's views about Cambridge, however, were perfectly clear and + definite. It was waste of time and money. It was all damned foolery. Did + they make a man a better business man? Not a bit of it. He gave instances. + It spoilt a man for business by giving him “false ideas.” Some men said + that at college a man formed useful friendships. What use were friendships + to a business man? He might get to know lords, but, as my uncle pointed + out, a lord's requirements in his line of faience were little greater than + a common man's. If college introduced him to hotel proprietors there might + be something in it. Perhaps it helped a man into Parliament, Parliament + still being a confused retrogressive corner in the world where lawyers and + suchlike sheltered themselves from the onslaughts of common-sense behind a + fog of Latin and Greek and twaddle and tosh; but I wasn't the sort to go + into Parliament, unless I meant to be a lawyer. Did I mean to be a lawyer? + It cost no end of money, and was full of uncertainties, and there were no + judges nor great solicitors among my relations. “Young chaps think they + get on by themselves,” said my uncle. “It isn't so. Not unless they take + their coats off. I took mine off before I was your age by nigh a year.” + </p> + <p> + We were at cross purposes from the outset, because I did not think men + lived to make money; and I was obtuse to the hints he was throwing out at + the possibilities of his own potbank, not willfully obtuse, but just + failing to penetrate his meaning. Whatever City Merchants had or had not + done for me, Flack, Topham and old Gates had certainly barred my mistaking + the profitable production and sale of lavatory basins and bathroom + fittings for the highest good. It was only upon reflection that it dawned + upon me that the splendid chance for a young fellow with my uncle, “me, + having no son of my own,” was anything but an illustration for comparison + with my own chosen career. + </p> + <p> + I still remember very distinctly my uncle's talk,—he loved to speak + “reet Staffordshire”—his rather flabby face with the mottled + complexion that told of crude ill-regulated appetites, his clumsy gestures—he + kept emphasising his points by prodding at me with his finger—the + ill-worn, costly, grey tweed clothes, the watch chain of plain solid gold, + and soft felt hat thrust back from his head. He tackled me first in the + garden after lunch, and then tried to raise me to enthusiasm by taking me + to his potbank and showing me its organisation, from the dusty grinding + mills in which whitened men worked and coughed, through the highly + ventilated glazing room in which strangely masked girls looked ashamed of + themselves,—“They'll risk death, the fools, to show their faces to a + man,” said my uncle, quite audibly—to the firing kilns and the + glazing kilns, and so round the whole place to the railway siding and the + gratifying spectacle of three trucks laden with executed orders. + </p> + <p> + Then we went up a creaking outside staircase to his little office, and he + showed off before me for a while, with one or two subordinates and the + telephone. + </p> + <p> + “None of your Gas,” he said, “all this. It's Real every bit of it. Hard + cash and hard glaze.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” I said, with memories of a carelessly read pamphlet in my mind, and + without any satirical intention, “I suppose you MUST use lead in your + glazes?” + </p> + <p> + Whereupon I found I had tapped the ruling grievance of my uncle's life. He + hated leadless glazes more than he hated anything, except the benevolent + people who had organised the agitation for their use. “Leadless glazes + ain't only fit for buns,” he said. “Let me tell you, my boy—” + </p> + <p> + He began in a voice of bland persuasiveness that presently warmed to + anger, to explain the whole matter. I hadn't the rights of the matter at + all. Firstly, there was practically no such thing as lead poisoning. + Secondly, not everyone was liable to lead poisoning, and it would be quite + easy to pick out the susceptible types—as soon as they had it—and + put them to other work. Thirdly, the evil effects of lead poisoning were + much exaggerated. Fourthly, and this was in a particularly confidential + undertone, many of the people liked to get lead poisoning, especially the + women, because it caused abortion. I might not believe it, but he knew it + for a fact. Fifthly, the work-people simply would not learn the gravity of + the danger, and would eat with unwashed hands, and incur all sorts of + risks, so that as my uncle put it: “the fools deserve what they get.” + Sixthly, he and several associated firms had organised a simple and + generous insurance scheme against lead-poisoning risks. Seventhly, he + never wearied in rational (as distinguished from excessive, futile and + expensive) precautions against the disease. Eighthly, in the ill-equipped + shops of his minor competitors lead poisoning was a frequent and virulent + evil, and people had generalised from these exceptional cases. The small + shops, he hazarded, looking out of the cracked and dirty window at distant + chimneys, might be advantageously closed.... + </p> + <p> + “But what's the good of talking?” said my uncle, getting off the table on + which he had been sitting. “Seems to me there'll come a time when a master + will get fined if he don't run round the works blowing his girls noses for + them. That's about what it'll come to.” + </p> + <p> + He walked to the black mantelpiece and stood on the threadbare rug, and + urged me not to be misled by the stories of prejudiced and interested + enemies of our national industries. + </p> + <p> + “They'll get a strike one of these days, of employers, and then we'll see + a bit,” he said. “They'll drive Capital abroad and then they'll whistle to + get it back again.”... + </p> + <p> + He led the way down the shaky wooden steps and cheered up to tell me of + his way of checking his coal consumption. He exchanged a ferocious + greeting with one or two workpeople, and so we came out of the factory + gates into the ugly narrow streets, paved with a peculiarly hard diapered + brick of an unpleasing inky-blue colour, and bordered with the mean and + squalid homes of his workers. Doors stood open and showed grimy interiors, + and dirty ill-clad children played in the kennel. + </p> + <p> + We passed a sickly-looking girl with a sallow face, who dragged her limbs + and peered at us dimly with painful eyes. She stood back, as partly + blinded people will do, to allow us to pass, although there was plenty of + room for us. + </p> + <p> + I glanced back at her. + </p> + <p> + “THAT'S ploombism,” said my uncle casually. + </p> + <p> + “What?” said I. + </p> + <p> + “Ploombism. And the other day I saw a fool of a girl, and what d'you + think? She'd got a basin that hadn't been fired, a cracked piece of + biscuit it was, up on the shelf over her head, just all over glaze, + killing glaze, man, and she was putting up her hand if you please, and + eating her dinner out of it. Got her dinner in it! + </p> + <p> + “Eating her dinner out of it,” he repeated in loud and bitter tones, and + punched me hard in the ribs. + </p> + <p> + “And then they comes to THAT—and grumbles. And the fools up in + Westminster want you to put in fans here and fans there—the Longton + fools have.... And then eating their dinners out of it all the time!”... + </p> + <p> + At high tea that night—my uncle was still holding out against + evening dinner—Sibyl and Gertrude made what was evidently a + concerted demand for a motor-car. + </p> + <p> + “You've got your mother's brougham,” he said, “that's good enough for + you.” But he seemed shaken by the fact that some Burslem rival was + launching out with the new invention. “He spoils his girls,” he remarked. + “He's a fool,” and became thoughtful. + </p> + <p> + Afterwards he asked me to come to him into his study; it was a room with a + writing-desk and full of pieces of earthenware and suchlike litter, and we + had our great row about Cambridge. + </p> + <p> + “Have you thought things over, Dick?” he said. + </p> + <p> + “I think I'll go to Trinity, Uncle,” I said firmly. “I want to go to + Trinity. It is a great college.” + </p> + <p> + He was manifestly chagrined. “You're a fool,” he said. + </p> + <p> + I made no answer. + </p> + <p> + “You're a damned fool,” he said. “But I suppose you've got to do it. You + could have come here—That don't matter, though, now... You'll have + your time and spend your money, and be a poor half-starved clergyman, + mucking about with the women all the day and afraid to have one of your + own ever, or you'll be a schoolmaster or some such fool for the rest of + your life. Or some newspaper chap. That's what you'll get from Cambridge. + I'm half a mind not to let you. Eh? More than half a mind....” + </p> + <p> + “You've got to do the thing you can,” he said, after a pause, “and likely + it's what you're fitted for.” + </p> + <p> + 4 + </p> + <p> + I paid several short visits to Staffordshire during my Cambridge days, and + always these relations of mine produced the same effect of hardness. My + uncle's thoughts had neither atmosphere nor mystery. He lived in a + different universe from the dreams of scientific construction that filled + my mind. He could as easily have understood Chinese poetry. His motives + were made up of intense rivalries with other men of his class and kind, a + few vindictive hates springing from real and fancied slights, a habit of + acquisition that had become a second nature, a keen love both of + efficiency and display in his own affairs. He seemed to me to have no + sense of the state, no sense and much less any love of beauty, no charity + and no sort of religious feeling whatever. He had strong bodily appetites, + he ate and drank freely, smoked a great deal, and occasionally was carried + off by his passions for a “bit of a spree” to Birmingham or Liverpool or + Manchester. The indulgences of these occasions were usually followed by a + period of reaction, when he was urgent for the suppression of nudity in + the local Art Gallery and a harsh and forcible elevation of the + superficial morals of the valley. And he spoke of the ladies who + ministered to the delights of his jolly-dog period, when he spoke of them + at all, by the unprintable feminine equivalent. My aunt he treated with a + kindly contempt and considerable financial generosity, but his daughters + tore his heart; he was so proud of them, so glad to find them money to + spend, so resolved to own them, so instinctively jealous of every man who + came near them. + </p> + <p> + My uncle has been the clue to a great number of men for me. He was an + illuminating extreme. I have learnt what not to expect from them through + him, and to comprehend resentments and dangerous sudden antagonisms I + should have found incomprehensible in their more complex forms, if I had + not first seen them in him in their feral state. + </p> + <p> + With his soft felt hat at the back of his head, his rather heavy, rather + mottled face, his rationally thick boots and slouching tweed-clad form, a + little round-shouldered and very obstinate looking, he strolls through all + my speculations sucking his teeth audibly, and occasionally throwing out a + shrewd aphorism, the intractable unavoidable ore of the new civilisation. + </p> + <p> + Essentially he was simple. Generally speaking, he hated and despised in + equal measure whatever seemed to suggest that he personally was not the + most perfect human being conceivable. He hated all education after fifteen + because he had had no education after fifteen, he hated all people who did + not have high tea until he himself under duress gave up high tea, he hated + every game except football, which he had played and could judge, he hated + all people who spoke foreign languages because he knew no language but + Staffordshire, he hated all foreigners because he was English, and all + foreign ways because they were not his ways. Also he hated particularly, + and in this order, Londoner's, Yorkshiremen, Scotch, Welch and Irish, + because they were not “reet Staffordshire,” and he hated all other + Staffordshire men as insufficiently “reet.” He wanted to have all his own + women inviolate, and to fancy he had a call upon every other woman in the + world. He wanted to have the best cigars and the best brandy in the world + to consume or give away magnificently, and every one else to have inferior + ones. (His billiard table was an extra large size, specially made and very + inconvenient.) And he hated Trade Unions because they interfered with his + autocratic direction of his works, and his workpeople because they were + not obedient and untiring mechanisms to do his bidding. He was, in fact, a + very naive, vigorous human being. He was about as much civilised, about as + much tamed to the ideas of collective action and mutual consideration as a + Central African negro. + </p> + <p> + There are hordes of such men as he throughout all the modern industrial + world. You will find the same type with the slightest modifications in the + Pas de Calais or Rhenish Prussia or New Jersey or North Italy. No doubt + you would find it in New Japan. These men have raised themselves up from + the general mass of untrained, uncultured, poorish people in a hard + industrious selfish struggle. To drive others they have had first to drive + themselves. They have never yet had occasion nor leisure to think of the + state or social life as a whole, and as for dreams or beauty, it was a + condition of survival that they should ignore such cravings. All the + distinctive qualities of my uncle can be thought of as dictated by his + conditions; his success and harshness, the extravagances that expressed + his pride in making money, the uncongenial luxury that sprang from + rivalry, and his self-reliance, his contempt for broad views, his contempt + for everything that he could not understand. + </p> + <p> + His daughters were the inevitable children of his life. Queer girls they + were! Curiously “spirited” as people phrase it, and curiously limited. + During my Cambridge days I went down to Staffordshire several times. My + uncle, though he still resented my refusal to go into his business, was + also in his odd way proud of me. I was his nephew and poor relation, and + yet there I was, a young gentleman learning all sorts of unremunerative + things in the grandest manner, “Latin and mook,” while the sons of his + neighhours, not nephews merely, but sons, stayed unpolished in their + native town. Every time I went down I found extensive changes and altered + relations, and before I had settled down to them off I went again. I don't + think I was one person to them; I was a series of visitors. There is a + gulf of ages between a gaunt schoolboy of sixteen in unbecoming mourning + and two vividly self-conscious girls of eighteen and nineteen, but a + Cambridge “man” of two and twenty with a first and good tennis and a + growing social experience, is a fair contemporary for two girls of + twenty-three and twenty-four. + </p> + <p> + A motor-car appeared, I think in my second visit, a bottle-green affair + that opened behind, had dark purple cushions, and was controlled + mysteriously by a man in shiny black costume and a flat cap. The high tea + had been shifted to seven and rechristened dinner, but my uncle would not + dress nor consent to have wine; and after one painful experiment, I + gathered, and a scene, he put his foot down and prohibited any but + high-necked dresses. + </p> + <p> + “Daddy's perfectly impossible,” Sybil told me. + </p> + <p> + The foot had descended vehemently! “My own daughters!” he had said, + “dressed up like—“—and had arrested himself and fumbled and + decided to say—“actresses, and showin' their fat arms for every fool + to stare at!” Nor would he have any people invited to dinner. He didn't, + he had explained, want strangers poking about in his house when he came + home tired. So such calling as occurred went on during his absence in the + afternoon. + </p> + <p> + One of the peculiarities of the life of these ascendant families of the + industrial class to which wealth has come, is its tremendous insulations. + There were no customs of intercourse in the Five Towns. All the isolated + prosperities of the district sprang from economising, hard driven homes, + in which there was neither time nor means for hospitality. Social + intercourse centred very largely upon the church or chapel, and the + chapels were better at bringing people together than the Establishment to + which my cousins belonged. Their chief outlet to the wider world lay + therefore through the acquaintances they had formed at school, and through + two much less prosperous families of relations who lived at Longton and + Hanley. A number of gossiping friendships with old school mates were “kept + up,” and my cousins would “spend the afternoon” or even spend the day with + these; such occasions led to other encounters and interlaced with the + furtive correspondences and snatched meetings that formed the emotional + thread of their lives. When the billiard table had been new, my uncle had + taken to asking in a few approved friends for an occasional game, but + mostly the billiard-room was for glory and the girls. Both of them played + very well. They never, so far as I know, dined out, and when at last after + bitter domestic conflicts they began to go to dances, they went with the + quavering connivance of my aunt, and changed into ball frocks at friends' + houses on the way. There was a tennis club that formed a convenient + afternoon rendezvous, and I recall that in the period of my earlier visits + the young bloods of the district found much satisfaction in taking girls + for drives in dog-carts and suchlike high-wheeled vehicles, a disposition + that died in tangled tandems at the apparition of motor-car's. + </p> + <p> + My aunt and uncle had conceived no plans in life for their daughters at + all. In the undifferentiated industrial community from which they had + sprung, girls got married somehow, and it did not occur to them that the + concentration of property that had made them wealthy, had cut their + children off from the general social sea in which their own awkward + meeting had occurred, without necessarily opening any other world in + exchange. My uncle was too much occupied with the works and his business + affairs and his private vices to philosophise about his girls; he wanted + them just to keep girls, preferably about sixteen, and to be a sort of + animated flowers and make home bright and be given things. He was + irritated that they would not remain at this, and still more irritated + that they failed to suppress altogether their natural interest in young + men. The tandems would be steered by weird and devious routes to evade the + bare chance of his bloodshot eye. My aunt seemed to have no ideas whatever + about what was likely to happen to her children. She had indeed no ideas + about anything; she took her husband and the days as they came. + </p> + <p> + I can see now the pathetic difficulty of my cousins' position in life; the + absence of any guidance or instruction or provision for their development. + They supplemented the silences of home by the conversation of + schoolfellows and the suggestions of popular fiction. They had to make + what they could out of life with such hints as these. The church was far + too modest to offer them any advice. It was obtruded upon my mind upon my + first visit that they were both carrying on correspondences and having + little furtive passings and seeings and meetings with the mysterious + owners of certain initials, S. and L. K., and, if I remember rightly, “the + R. N.” brothers and cousins, I suppose, of their friends. The same thing + was going on, with a certain intensification, at my next visit, excepting + only that the initials were different. But when I came again their methods + were maturer or I was no longer a negligible quantity, and the notes and + the initials were no longer flaunted quite so openly in my face. + </p> + <p> + My cousins had worked it out from the indications of their universe that + the end of life is to have a “good time.” They used the phrase. That and + the drives in dog-carts were only the first of endless points of + resemblance between them and the commoner sort of American girl. When some + years ago I paid my first and only visit to America I seemed to recover my + cousins' atmosphere as soon as I entered the train at Euston. There were + three girls in my compartment supplied with huge decorated cases of + sweets, and being seen off by a company of friends, noisily arch and eager + about the “steamer letters” they would get at Liverpool; they were the + very soul-sisters of my cousins. The chief elements of a good time, as my + cousins judged it, as these countless thousands of rich young women judge + it, are a petty eventfulness, laughter, and to feel that you are looking + well and attracting attention. Shopping is one of its leading joys. You + buy things, clothes and trinkets for yourself and presents for your + friends. Presents always seemed to be flying about in that circle; flowers + and boxes of sweets were common currency. My cousins were always getting + and giving, my uncle caressed them with parcels and cheques. They kissed + him and he exuded sovereigns as a stroked APHIS exudes honey. It was like + the new language of the Academy of Lagado to me, and I never learnt how to + express myself in it, for nature and training make me feel encumbered to + receive presents and embarrassed in giving them. But then, like my father, + I hate and distrust possessions. + </p> + <p> + Of the quality of their private imagination I never learnt anything; I + suppose it followed the lines of the fiction they read and was romantic + and sentimental. So far as marriage went, the married state seemed at once + very attractive and dreadfully serious to them, composed in equal measure + of becoming important and becoming old. I don't know what they thought + about children. I doubt if they thought about them at all. It was very + secret if they did. + </p> + <p> + As for the poor and dingy people all about them, my cousins were always + ready to take part in a Charitable Bazaar. They were unaware of any + economic correlation of their own prosperity and that circumambient + poverty, and they knew of Trade Unions simply as disagreeable external + things that upset my uncle's temper. They knew of nothing wrong in social + life at all except that there were “Agitators.” It surprised them a + little, I think, that Agitators were not more drastically put down. But + they had a sort of instinctive dread of social discussion as of something + that might breach the happiness of their ignorance.... + </p> + <p> + 5 + </p> + <p> + My cousins did more than illustrate Marx for me; they also undertook a + stage of my emotional education. Their method in that as in everything + else was extremely simple, but it took my inexperience by surprise. + </p> + <p> + It must have been on my third visit that Sybil took me in hand. Hitherto I + seemed to have seen her only in profile, but now she became almost + completely full face, manifestly regarded me with those violet eyes of + hers. She passed me things I needed at breakfast—it was the first + morning of my visit—before I asked for them. + </p> + <p> + When young men are looked at by pretty cousins, they become intensely + aware of those cousins. It seemed to me that I had always admired Sybil's + eyes very greatly, and that there was something in her temperament + congenial to mine. It was odd I had not noted it on my previous visits. + </p> + <p> + We walked round the garden somewhen that morning, and talked about + Cambridge. She asked quite a lot of questions about my work and my + ambitions. She said she had always felt sure I was clever. + </p> + <p> + The conversation languished a little, and we picked some flowers for the + house. Then she asked if I could run. I conceded her various starts and we + raced up and down the middle garden path. Then, a little breathless, we + went into the new twenty-five guinea summer-house at the end of the + herbaceous border. + </p> + <p> + We sat side by side, pleasantly hidden from the house, and she became + anxious about her hair, which was slightly and prettily disarranged, and + asked me to help her with the adjustment of a hairpin. I had never in my + life been so near the soft curly hair and the dainty eyebrow and eyelid + and warm soft cheek of a girl, and I was stirred— + </p> + <p> + It stirs me now to recall it. + </p> + <p> + I became a battleground of impulses and inhibitions. + </p> + <p> + “Thank you,” said my cousin, and moved a little away from me. + </p> + <p> + She began to talk about friendship, and lost her thread and forgot the + little electric stress between us in a rather meandering analysis of her + principal girl friends. + </p> + <p> + But afterwards she resumed her purpose. + </p> + <p> + I went to bed that night with one proposition overshadowing everything + else in my mind, namely, that kissing my cousin Sybil was a difficult, but + not impossible, achievement. I do not recall any shadow of a doubt whether + on the whole it was worth doing. The thing had come into my existence, + disturbing and interrupting its flow exactly as a fever does. Sybil had + infected me with herself. + </p> + <p> + The next day matters came to a crisis in the little upstairs sitting-room + which had been assigned me as a study during my visit. I was working up + there, or rather trying to work in spite of the outrageous capering of + some very primitive elements in my brain, when she came up to me, under a + transparent pretext of looking for a book. + </p> + <p> + I turned round and then got up at the sight of her. I quite forget what + our conversation was about, but I know she led me to believe I might kiss + her. Then when I attempted to do so she averted her face. + </p> + <p> + “How COULD you?” she said; “I didn't mean that!” + </p> + <p> + That remained the state of our relations for two days. I developed a + growing irritation with and resentment against cousin Sybil, combined with + an intense desire to get that kiss for which I hungered and thirsted. + Cousin Sybil went about in the happy persuasion that I was madly in love + with her, and her game, so far as she was concerned, was played and won. + It wasn't until I had fretted for two days that I realised that I was + being used for the commonest form of excitement possible to a commonplace + girl; that dozens perhaps of young men had played the part of Tantalus at + cousin Sybil's lips. I walked about my room at nights, damning her and + calling her by terms which on the whole she rather deserved, while Sybil + went to sleep pitying “poor old Dick!” + </p> + <p> + “Damn it!” I said, “I WILL be equal with you.” + </p> + <p> + But I never did equalise the disadvantage, and perhaps it's as well, for I + fancy that sort of revenge cuts both people too much for a rational man to + seek it.... + </p> + <p> + “Why are men so silly?” said cousin Sybil next morning, wriggling back + with down-bent head to release herself from what should have been a + compelling embrace. + </p> + <p> + “Confound it!” I said with a flash of clear vision. “You STARTED this + game.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” + </p> + <p> + She stood back against a hedge of roses, a little flushed and excited and + interested, and ready for the delightful defensive if I should renew my + attack. + </p> + <p> + “Beastly hot for scuffling,” I said, white with anger. “I don't know + whether I'm so keen on kissing you, Sybil, after all. I just thought you + wanted me to.” + </p> + <p> + I could have whipped her, and my voice stung more than my words. + </p> + <p> + Our eyes met; a real hatred in hers leaping up to meet mine. + </p> + <p> + “Let's play tennis,” I said, after a moment's pause. + </p> + <p> + “No,” she answered shortly, “I'm going indoors.” + </p> + <p> + “Very well.” + </p> + <p> + And that ended the affair with Sybil. + </p> + <p> + I was still in the full glare of this disillusionment when Gertrude awoke + from some preoccupation to an interest in my existence. She developed a + disposition to touch my hand by accident, and let her fingers rest in + contact with it for a moment,—she had pleasant soft hands;—she + began to drift into summer houses with me, to let her arm rest trustfully + against mine, to ask questions about Cambridge. They were much the same + questions that Sybil had asked. But I controlled myself and maintained a + profile of intelligent and entirely civil indifference to her + blandishments. + </p> + <p> + What Gertrude made of it came out one evening in some talk—I forget + about what—with Sybil. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Dick!” said Gertrude a little impatiently, “Dick's Pi.” + </p> + <p> + And I never disillusioned her by any subsequent levity from this theory of + my innate and virginal piety. + </p> + <p> + 6 + </p> + <p> + It was against this harsh and crude Staffordshire background that I think + I must have seen Margaret for the first time. I say I think because it is + quite possible that we had passed each other in the streets of Cambridge, + no doubt with that affectation of mutual disregard which was once + customary between undergraduates and Newnham girls. But if that was so I + had noted nothing of the slender graciousness that shone out so pleasingly + against the bleaker midland surroundings. + </p> + <p> + She was a younger schoolfellow of my cousins', and the step-daughter of + Seddon, a prominent solicitor of Burslem. She was not only not in my + cousins' generation but not in their set, she was one of a small + hardworking group who kept immaculate note-books, and did as much as is + humanly possible of that insensate pile of written work that the Girls' + Public School movement has inflicted upon school-girls. She really learnt + French and German admirably and thoroughly, she got as far in mathematics + as an unflinching industry can carry any one with no great natural + aptitude, and she went up to Bennett Hall, Newnham, after the usual + conflict with her family, to work for the History Tripos. + </p> + <p> + There in her third year she made herself thoroughly ill through overwork, + so ill that she had to give up Newnham altogether and go abroad with her + stepmother. She made herself ill, as so many girls do in those university + colleges, through the badness of her home and school training. She thought + study must needs be a hard straining of the mind. She worried her work, + she gave herself no leisure to see it as a whole, she felt herself not + making headway and she cut her games and exercise in order to increase her + hours of toil, and worked into the night. She carried a knack of laborious + thoroughness into the blind alleys and inessentials of her subject. It + didn't need the badness of the food for which Bennett Hall is celebrated + and the remarkable dietary of nocturnal cocoa, cakes and soft biscuits + with which the girls have supplemented it, to ensure her collapse. Her + mother brought her home, fretting and distressed, and then finding her + hopelessly unhappy at home, took her and her half-brother, a rather ailing + youngster of ten who died three years later, for a journey to Italy. + </p> + <p> + Italy did much to assuage Margaret's chagrin. I think all three of them + had a very good time there. At home Mr. Seddon, her step-father, played + the part of a well-meaning blight by reason of the moods that arose from + nervous dyspepsia. They went to Florence, equipped with various + introductions and much sound advice from sympathetic Cambridge friends, + and having acquired an ease in Italy there, went on to Siena, Orvieto, and + at last Rome. They returned, if I remember rightly, by Pisa, Genoa, Milan + and Paris. Six months or more they had had abroad, and now Margaret was + back in Burslem, in health again and consciously a very civilised person. + </p> + <p> + New ideas were abroad, it was Maytime and a spring of abundant flowers—daffodils + were particularly good that year—and Mrs. Seddon celebrated her + return by giving an afternoon reception at short notice, with the clear + intention of letting every one out into the garden if the weather held. + </p> + <p> + The Seddons had a big old farmhouse modified to modern ideas of comfort on + the road out towards Misterton, with an orchard that had been rather + pleasantly subdued from use to ornament. It had rich blossoming cherry and + apple trees. Large patches of grass full of nodding yellow trumpets had + been left amidst the not too precisely mown grass, which was as it were + grass path with an occasional lapse into lawn or glade. And Margaret, + hatless, with the fair hair above her thin, delicately pink face very + simply done, came to meet our rather too consciously dressed party,—we + had come in the motor four strong, with my aunt in grey silk. Margaret + wore a soft flowing flowered blue dress of diaphanous material, all + unconnected with the fashion and tied with pretty ribbons, like a + slenderer, unbountiful Primavera. + </p> + <p> + It was one of those May days that ape the light and heat of summer, and I + remember disconnectedly quite a number of brightly lit figures and groups + walking about, and a white gate between orchard and garden and a large + lawn with an oak tree and a red Georgian house with a verandah and open + French windows, through which the tea drinking had come out upon the + moss-edged flagstones even as Mrs. Seddon had planned. + </p> + <p> + The party was almost entirely feminine except for a little curate with a + large head, a good voice and a radiant manner, who was obviously attracted + by Margaret, and two or three young husbands still sufficiently addicted + to their wives to accompany them. One of them I recall as a quite romantic + figure with abundant blond curly hair on which was poised a grey felt hat + encircled by a refined black band. He wore, moreover, a loose rich shot + silk tie of red and purple, a long frock coat, grey trousers and brown + shoes, and presently he removed his hat and carried it in one hand. There + were two tennis-playing youths besides myself. There was also one father + with three daughters in anxious control, a father of the old school + scarcely half broken in, reluctant, rebellious and consciously and + conscientiously “reet Staffordshire.” The daughters were all alert to + suppress the possible plungings, the undesirable humorous impulses of this + almost feral guest. They nipped his very gestures in the bud. The rest of + the people were mainly mothers with daughters—daughters of all ages, + and a scattering of aunts, and there was a tendency to clotting, parties + kept together and regarded parties suspiciously. Mr. Seddon was in hiding, + I think, all the time, though not formally absent. + </p> + <p> + Matters centred upon the tea in the long room of the French windows, where + four trim maids went to and fro busily between the house and the clumps of + people seated or standing before it; and tennis and croquet were + intermittently visible and audible beyond a bank of rockwork rich with the + spikes and cups and bells of high spring. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Seddon presided at the tea urn, and Margaret partly assisted and + partly talked to me and my cousin Sibyl—Gertrude had found a disused + and faded initial and was partnering him at tennis in a state of gentle + revival—while their mother exercised a divided chaperonage from a + seat near Mrs. Seddon. The little curate, stirring a partially empty cup + of tea, mingled with our party, and preluded, I remember, every + observation he made by a vigorous resumption of stirring. + </p> + <p> + We talked of Cambridge, and Margaret kept us to it. The curate was a + Selwyn man and had taken a pass degree in theology, but Margaret had come + to Gaylord's lecturers in Trinity for a term before her breakdown, and + understood these differences. She had the eagerness of an exile to hear + the old familiar names of places and personalities. We capped familiar + anecdotes and were enthusiastic about Kings' Chapel and the Backs, and the + curate, addressing himself more particularly to Sibyl, told a long + confused story illustrative of his disposition to reckless devilry (of a + pure-minded kindly sort) about upsetting two canoes quite needlessly on + the way to Grantchester. + </p> + <p> + I can still see Margaret as I saw her that afternoon, see her fresh fair + face, with the little obliquity of the upper lip, and her brow always + slightly knitted, and her manner as of one breathlessly shy but + determined. She had rather open blue eyes, and she spoke in an even + musical voice with the gentlest of stresses and the ghost of a lisp. And + it was true, she gathered, that Cambridge still existed. “I went to + Grantchester,” she said, “last year, and had tea under the apple-blossom. + I didn't think then I should have to come down.” (It was that started the + curate upon his anecdote.) + </p> + <p> + “I've seen a lot of pictures, and learnt a lot about them—at the + Pitti and the Brera,—the Brera is wonderful—wonderful places,—but + it isn't like real study,” she was saying presently.... “We bought bales + of photographs,” she said. + </p> + <p> + I thought the bales a little out of keeping. + </p> + <p> + But fair-haired and quite simply and yet graciously and fancifully + dressed, talking of art and beautiful things and a beautiful land, and + with so much manifest regret for learning denied, she seemed a different + kind of being altogether from my smart, hard, high-coloured, black-haired + and resolutely hatted cousin; she seemed translucent beside Gertrude. Even + the little twist and droop of her slender body was a grace to me. + </p> + <p> + I liked her from the moment I saw her, and set myself to interest and + please her as well as I knew how. + </p> + <p> + We recalled a case of ragging that had rustled the shrubs of Newnham, and + then Chris Robinson's visit—he had given a talk to Bennett Hall also—and + our impression of him. + </p> + <p> + “He disappointed me, too,” said Margaret. + </p> + <p> + I was moved to tell Margaret something of my own views in the matter of + social progress, and she listened—oh! with a kind of urged + attention, and her brow a little more knitted, very earnestly. The little + curate desisted from the appendices and refuse heaps and general debris of + his story, and made himself look very alert and intelligent. + </p> + <p> + “We did a lot of that when I was up in the eighties,” he said. “I'm glad + Imperialism hasn't swamped you fellows altogether.” + </p> + <p> + Gertrude, looking bright and confident, came to join our talk from the + shrubbery; the initial, a little flushed and evidently in a state of + refreshed relationship, came with her, and a cheerful lady in pink and + more particularly distinguished by a pink bonnet joined our little group. + Gertrude had been sipping admiration and was not disposed to play a + passive part in the talk. + </p> + <p> + “Socialism!” she cried, catching the word. “It's well Pa isn't here. He + has Fits when people talk of socialism. Fits!” + </p> + <p> + The initial laughed in a general kind of way. + </p> + <p> + The curate said there was socialism AND socialism, and looked at Margaret + to gauge whether he had been too bold in this utterance. But she was all, + he perceived, for broad-mindness, and he stirred himself (and incidentally + his tea) to still more liberality of expression. He said the state of the + poor was appalling, simply appalling; that there were times when he wanted + to shatter the whole system, “only,” he said, turning to me appealingly, + “What have we got to put in its place?” + </p> + <p> + “The thing that exists is always the more evident alternative,” I said. + </p> + <p> + The little curate looked at it for a moment. “Precisely,” he said + explosively, and turned stirring and with his head a little on one side, + to hear what Margaret was saying. + </p> + <p> + Margaret was saying, with a swift blush and an effect of daring, that she + had no doubt she was a socialist. + </p> + <p> + “And wearing a gold chain!” said Gertrude, “And drinking out of eggshell! + I like that!” + </p> + <p> + I came to Margaret's rescue. “It doesn't follow that because one's a + socialist one ought to dress in sackcloth and ashes.” + </p> + <p> + The initial coloured deeply, and having secured my attention by prodding + me slightly with the wrist of the hand that held his teacup, cleared his + throat and suggested that “one ought to be consistent.” + </p> + <p> + I perceived we were embarked upon a discussion of the elements. We began + an interesting little wrangle one of those crude discussions of general + ideas that are dear to the heart of youth. I and Margaret supported one + another as socialists, Gertrude and Sybil and the initial maintained an + anti-socialist position, the curate attempted a cross-bench position with + an air of intending to come down upon us presently with a casting vote. He + reminded us of a number of useful principles too often overlooked in + argument, that in a big question like this there was much to be said on + both sides, that if every one did his or her duty to every one about them + there would be no difficulty with social problems at all, that over and + above all enactments we needed moral changes in people themselves. My + cousin Gertrude was a difficult controversialist to manage, being + unconscious of inconsistency in statement and absolutely impervious to + reply. Her standpoint was essentially materialistic; she didn't see why + she shouldn't have a good time because other people didn't; they would + have a good time, she was sure, if she didn't. She said that if we did + give up everything we had to other people, they wouldn't very likely know + what to do with it. She asked if we were so fond of work-people, why we + didn't go and live among them, and expressed the inflexible persuasion + that if we HAD socialism, everything would be just the same again in ten + years' time. She also threw upon us the imputation of ingratitude for a + beautiful world by saying that so far as she was concerned she didn't want + to upset everything. She was contented with things as they were, thank + you. + </p> + <p> + The discussion led in some way that I don't in the least recall now, and + possibly by abrupt transitions, to a croquet foursome in which Margaret + involved the curate without involving herself, and then stood beside me on + the edge of the lawn while the others played. We watched silently for a + moment. + </p> + <p> + “I HATE that sort of view,” she said suddenly in a confidential undertone, + with her delicate pink flush returning. + </p> + <p> + “It's want of imagination,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “To think we are just to enjoy ourselves,” she went on; “just to go on + dressing and playing and having meals and spending money!” She seemed to + be referring not simply to my cousins, but to the whole world of industry + and property about us. “But what is one to do?” she asked. “I do wish I + had not had to come down. It's all so pointless here. There seems to be + nothing going forward, no ideas, no dreams. No one here seems to feel + quite what I feel, the sort of need there is for MEANING in things. I hate + things without meaning.” + </p> + <p> + “Don't you do—local work?” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose I shall. I suppose I must find something. Do you think—if + one were to attempt some sort of propaganda?” + </p> + <p> + “Could you—?” I began a little doubtfully. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose I couldn't,” she answered, after a thoughtful moment. “I + suppose it would come to nothing. And yet I feel there is so much to be + done for the world, so much one ought to be doing.... I want to do + something for the world.” + </p> + <p> + I can see her now as she stood there with her brows nearly frowning, her + blue eyes looking before her, her mouth almost petulant. “One feels that + there are so many things going on—out of one's reach,” she said. + </p> + <p> + I went back in the motor-car with my mind full of her, the quality of + delicate discontent, the suggestion of exile. Even a kind of weakness in + her was sympathetic. She told tremendously against her background. She + was, I say, like a protesting blue flower upon a cinder heap. It is + curious, too, how she connects and mingles with the furious quarrel I had + with my uncle that very evening. That came absurdly. Indirectly Margaret + was responsible. My mind was running on ideas she had revived and + questions she had set clamouring, and quite inadvertently in my attempt to + find solutions I talked so as to outrage his profoundest feelings.... + </p> + <p> + 7 + </p> + <p> + What a preposterous shindy that was! + </p> + <p> + I sat with him in the smoking-room, propounding what I considered to be + the most indisputable and non-contentious propositions conceivable—until, + to my infinite amazement, he exploded and called me a “damned young + puppy.” + </p> + <p> + It was seismic. + </p> + <p> + “Tremendously interesting time,” I said, “just in the beginning of making + a civilisation.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah!” he said, with an averted face, and nodded, leaning forward over his + cigar. + </p> + <p> + I had not the remotest thought of annoying him. + </p> + <p> + “Monstrous muddle of things we have got,” I said, “jumbled streets, ugly + population, ugly factories—” + </p> + <p> + “You'd do a sight better if you had to do with it,” said my uncle, + regarding me askance. + </p> + <p> + “Not me. But a world that had a collective plan and knew where it meant to + be going would do a sight better, anyhow. We're all swimming in a flood of + ill-calculated chances—” + </p> + <p> + “You'll be making out I organised that business down there—by chance—next,” + said my uncle, his voice thick with challenge. + </p> + <p> + I went on as though I was back in Trinity. + </p> + <p> + “There's a lot of chance in the making of all great businesses,” I said. + </p> + <p> + My uncle remarked that that showed how much I knew about businesses. If + chance made businesses, why was it that he always succeeded and grew while + those fools Ackroyd and Sons always took second place? He showed a + disposition to tell the glorious history of how once Ackroyd's + overshadowed him, and how now he could buy up Ackroyd's three times over. + But I wanted to get out what was in my mind. + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” I said, “as between man and man and business and business, some of + course get the pull by this quality or that—but it's forces quite + outside the individual case that make the big part of any success under + modern conditions. YOU never invented pottery, nor any process in pottery + that matters a rap in your works; it wasn't YOUR foresight that joined all + England up with railways and made it possible to organise production on an + altogether different scale. You really at the utmost can't take credit for + much more than being the sort of man who happened to fit what happened to + be the requirements of the time, and who happened to be in a position to + take advantage of them—” + </p> + <p> + It was then my uncle cried out and called me a damned young puppy, and + became involved in some unexpected trouble of his own. + </p> + <p> + I woke up as it were from my analysis of the situation to discover him + bent over a splendid spittoon, cursing incoherently, retching a little, + and spitting out the end of his cigar which he had bitten off in his last + attempt at self-control, and withal fully prepared as soon as he had + cleared for action to give me just all that he considered to be the + contents of his mind upon the condition of mine. + </p> + <p> + Well, why shouldn't I talk my mind to him? He'd never had an outside view + of himself for years, and I resolved to stand up to him. We went at it + hammer and tongs! It became clear that he supposed me to be a Socialist, a + zealous, embittered hater of all ownership—and also an educated man + of the vilest, most pretentiously superior description. His principal + grievance was that I thought I knew everything; to that he recurred again + and again.... + </p> + <p> + We had been maintaining an armed truce with each other since my resolve to + go up to Cambridge, and now we had out all that had accumulated between + us. There had been stupendous accumulations.... + </p> + <p> + The particular things we said and did in that bawling encounter matter + nothing at all in this story. I can't now estimate how near we came to + fisticuffs. It ended with my saying, after a pungent reminder of benefits + conferred and remembered, that I didn't want to stay another hour in his + house. I went upstairs, in a state of puerile fury, to pack and go off to + the Railway Hotel, while he, with ironical civility, telephoned for a cab. + </p> + <p> + “Good riddance!” shouted my uncle, seeing me off into the night. + </p> + <p> + On the face of it our row was preposterous, but the underlying reality of + our quarrel was the essential antagonism, it seemed to me, in all human + affairs, the antagonism between ideas and the established method, that is + to say, between ideas and the rule of thumb. The world I hate is the + rule-of-thumb world, the thing I and my kind of people exist for primarily + is to battle with that, to annoy it, disarrange it, reconstruct it. We + question everything, disturb anything that cannot give a clear + justification to our questioning, because we believe inherently that our + sense of disorder implies the possibility of a better order. Of course we + are detestable. My uncle was of that other vaster mass who accept + everything for the thing it seems to be, hate enquiry and analysis as a + tramp hates washing, dread and resist change, oppose experiment, despise + science. The world is our battleground; and all history, all literature + that matters, all science, deals with this conflict of the thing that is + and the speculative “if” that will destroy it. + </p> + <p> + But that is why I did not see Margaret Seddon again for five years. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE SECOND ~~ MARGARET IN LONDON + </h2> + <p> + 1 + </p> + <p> + I was twenty-seven when I met Margaret again, and the intervening five + years had been years of vigorous activity for me, if not of very + remarkable growth. When I saw her again, I could count myself a grown man. + I think, indeed, I counted myself more completely grown than I was. At any + rate, by all ordinary standards, I had “got on” very well, and my ideas, + if they had not changed very greatly, had become much more definite and my + ambitions clearer and bolder. + </p> + <p> + I had long since abandoned my fellowship and come to London. I had + published two books that had been talked about, written several articles, + and established a regular relationship with the WEEKLY REVIEW and the + EVENING GAZETTE. I was a member of the Eighty Club and learning to adapt + the style of the Cambridge Union to larger uses. The London world had + opened out to me very readily. I had developed a pleasant variety of + social connections. I had made the acquaintance of Mr. Evesham, who had + been attracted by my NEW RULER, and who talked about it and me, and so did + a very great deal to make a way for me into the company of prominent and + amusing people. I dined out quite frequently. The glitter and interest of + good London dinner parties became a common experience. I liked the sort of + conversation one got at them extremely, the little glow of duologues + burning up into more general discussions, the closing-in of the men after + the going of the women, the sage, substantial masculine gossiping, the + later resumption of effective talk with some pleasant woman, graciously at + her best. I had a wide range of houses; Cambridge had linked me to one or + two correlated sets of artistic and literary people, and my books and Mr. + Evesham and opened to me the big vague world of “society.” I wasn't + aggressive nor particularly snobbish nor troublesome, sometimes I talked + well, and if I had nothing interesting to say I said as little as + possible, and I had a youthful gravity of manner that was liked by + hostesses. And the other side of my nature that first flared through the + cover of restraints at Locarno, that too had had opportunity to develop + along the line London renders practicable. I had had my experiences and + secrets and adventures among that fringe of ill-mated or erratic or + discredited women the London world possesses. The thing had long ago + ceased to be a matter of magic or mystery, and had become a question of + appetites and excitement, and among other things the excitement of not + being found out. + </p> + <p> + I write rather doubtfully of my growing during this period. Indeed I find + it hard to judge whether I can say that I grew at all in any real sense of + the word, between three and twenty and twenty-seven. It seems to me now to + have been rather a phase of realisation and clarification. All the broad + lines of my thought were laid down, I am sure, by the date of my Locarno + adventure, but in those five years I discussed things over and over again + with myself and others, filled out with concrete fact forms I had at first + apprehended sketchily and conversationally, measured my powers against my + ideals and the forces in the world about me. It was evident that many men + no better than myself and with no greater advantages than mine had raised + themselves to influential and even decisive positions in the worlds of + politics and thought. I was gathering the confidence and knowledge + necessary to attack the world in the large manner; I found I could write, + and that people would let me write if I chose, as one having authority and + not as the scribes. Socially and politically and intellectually I knew + myself for an honest man, and that quite without any deliberation on my + part this showed and made things easy for me. People trusted my good faith + from the beginning—for all that I came from nowhere and had no + better position than any adventurer. + </p> + <p> + But the growth process was arrested, I was nothing bigger at twenty-seven + than at twenty-two, however much saner and stronger, and any one looking + closely into my mind during that period might well have imagined growth + finished altogether. It is particularly evident to me now that I came no + nearer to any understanding of women during that time. That Locarno affair + was infinitely more to me than I had supposed. It ended something—nipped + something in the bud perhaps—took me at a stride from a vague, fine, + ignorant, closed world of emotion to intrigue and a perfectly definite and + limited sensuality. It ended my youth, and for a time it prevented my + manhood. I had never yet even peeped at the sweetest, profoundest thing in + the world, the heart and meaning of a girl, or dreamt with any quality of + reality of a wife or any such thing as a friend among womanhood. My vague + anticipation of such things in life had vanished altogether. I turned away + from their possibility. It seemed to me I knew what had to be known about + womankind. I wanted to work hard, to get on to a position in which I could + develop and forward my constructive projects. Women, I thought, had + nothing to do with that. It seemed clear I could not marry for some years; + I was attractive to certain types of women, I had vanity enough to give me + an agreeable confidence in love-making, and I went about seeking a + convenient mistress quite deliberately, some one who should serve my + purpose and say in the end, like that kindly first mistress of mine, “I've + done you no harm,” and so release me. It seemed the only wise way of + disposing of urgencies that might otherwise entangle and wreck the career + I was intent upon. + </p> + <p> + I don't apologise for, or defend my mental and moral phases. So it was I + appraised life and prepared to take it, and so it is a thousand ambitious + men see it to-day.... + </p> + <p> + For the rest these five years were a period of definition. My political + conceptions were perfectly plain and honest. I had one constant desire + ruling my thoughts. I meant to leave England and the empire better ordered + than I found it, to organise and discipline, to build up a constructive + and controlling State out of my world's confusions. We had, I saw, to + suffuse education with public intention, to develop a new better-living + generation with a collectivist habit of thought, to link now chaotic + activities in every human affair, and particularly to catch that escaped, + world-making, world-ruining, dangerous thing, industrial and financial + enterprise, and bring it back to the service of the general good. I had + then the precise image that still serves me as a symbol for all I wish to + bring about, the image of an engineer building a lock in a swelling + torrent—with water pressure as his only source of power. My thoughts + and acts were habitually turned to that enterprise; it gave shape and + direction to all my life. The problem that most engaged my mind during + those years was the practical and personal problem of just where to apply + myself to serve this almost innate purpose. How was I, a child of this + confusion, struggling upward through the confusion, to take hold of + things? Somewhere between politics and literature my grip must needs be + found, but where? Always I seem to have been looking for that in those + opening years, and disregarding everything else to discover it. + </p> + <p> + 2 + </p> + <p> + The Baileys, under whose auspices I met Margaret again, were in the + sharpest contrast with the narrow industrialism of the Staffordshire + world. They were indeed at the other extreme of the scale, two active + self-centred people, excessively devoted to the public service. It was + natural I should gravitate to them, for they seemed to stand for the + maturer, more disciplined, better informed expression of all I was then + urgent to attempt to do. The bulk of their friends were politicians or + public officials, they described themselves as publicists—a vague + yet sufficiently significant term. They lived and worked in a hard little + house in Chambers Street, Westminster, and made a centre for quite an + astonishing amount of political and social activity. + </p> + <p> + Willersley took me there one evening. The place was almost pretentiously + matter-of-fact and unassuming. The narrow passage-hall, papered with some + ancient yellowish paper, grained to imitate wood, was choked with hats and + cloaks and an occasional feminine wrap. Motioned rather than announced by + a tall Scotch servant woman, the only domestic I ever remember seeing + there, we made our way up a narrow staircase past the open door of a small + study packed with blue-books, to discover Altiora Bailey receiving before + the fireplace in her drawing-room. She was a tall commanding figure, + splendid but a little untidy in black silk and red beads, with dark eyes + that had no depths, with a clear hard voice that had an almost visible + prominence, aquiline features and straight black hair that was apt to get + astray, that was now astray like the head feathers of an eagle in a gale. + She stood with her hands behind her back, and talked in a high tenor of a + projected Town Planning Bill with Blupp, who was practically in those days + the secretary of the local Government Board. A very short broad man with + thick ears and fat white hands writhing intertwined behind him, stood with + his back to us, eager to bark interruptions into Altiora's discourse. A + slender girl in pale blue, manifestly a young political wife, stood with + one foot on the fender listening with an expression of entirely puzzled + propitiation. A tall sandy-bearded bishop with the expression of a man in + a trance completed this central group. + </p> + <p> + The room was one of those long apartments once divided by folding doors, + and reaching from back to front, that are common upon the first floors of + London houses. Its walls were hung with two or three indifferent water + colours, there was scarcely any furniture but a sofa or so and a chair, + and the floor, severely carpeted with matting, was crowded with a curious + medley of people, men predominating. Several were in evening dress, but + most had the morning garb of the politician; the women were either + severely rational or radiantly magnificent. Willersley pointed out to me + the wife of the Secretary of State for War, and I recognised the Duchess + of Clynes, who at that time cultivated intellectuality. I looked round, + identifying a face here or there, and stepping back trod on some one's + toe, and turned to find it belonged to the Right Hon. G. B. Mottisham, + dear to the PUNCH caricaturists. He received my apology with that + intentional charm that is one of his most delightful traits, and resumed + his discussion. Beside him was Esmeer of Trinity, whom I had not seen + since my Cambridge days.... + </p> + <p> + Willersley found an ex-member of the School Board for whom he had + affinities, and left me to exchange experiences and comments upon the + company with Esmeer. Esmeer was still a don; but he was nibbling, he said, + at certain negotiations with the TIMES that might bring him down to + London. He wanted to come to London. “We peep at things from Cambridge,” + he said. + </p> + <p> + “This sort of thing,” I said, “makes London necessary. It's the oddest + gathering.” + </p> + <p> + “Every one comes here,” said Esmeer. “Mostly we hate them like poison—jealousy—and + little irritations—Altiora can be a horror at times—but we + HAVE to come.” + </p> + <p> + “Things are being done?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh!—no doubt of it. It's one of the parts of the British machinery—that + doesn't show.... But nobody else could do it. + </p> + <p> + “Two people,” said Esmeer, “who've planned to be a power—in an + original way. And by Jove! they've done it!” + </p> + <p> + I did not for some time pick out Oscar Bailey, and then Esmeer showed him + to me in elaborately confidential talk in a corner with a + distinguished-looking stranger wearing a ribbon. Oscar had none of the + fine appearance of his wife; he was a short sturdy figure with a rounded + protruding abdomen and a curious broad, flattened, clean-shaven face that + seemed nearly all forehead. He was of Anglo-Hungarian extraction, and I + have always fancied something Mongolian in his type. He peered up with + reddish swollen-looking eyes over gilt-edged glasses that were divided + horizontally into portions of different refractive power, and he talking + in an ingratiating undertone, with busy thin lips, an eager lisp and + nervous movements of the hand. + </p> + <p> + People say that thirty years before at Oxford he was almost exactly the + same eager, clever little man he was when I first met him. He had come up + to Balliol bristling with extraordinary degrees and prizes captured in + provincial and Irish and Scotch universities—and had made a name for + himself as the most formidable dealer in exact fact the rhetoricians of + the Union had ever had to encounter. From Oxford he had gone on to a + position in the Higher Division of the Civil Service, I think in the War + Office, and had speedily made a place for himself as a political + journalist. He was a particularly neat controversialist, and very full of + political and sociological ideas. He had a quite astounding memory for + facts and a mastery of detailed analysis, and the time afforded scope for + these gifts. The later eighties were full of politico-social discussion, + and he became a prominent name upon the contents list of the NINETEENTH + CENTURY, the FORTNIGHTLY and CONTEMPORARY chiefly as a half sympathetic + but frequently very damaging critic of the socialism of that period. He + won the immense respect of every one specially interested in social and + political questions, he soon achieved the limited distinction that is + awarded such capacity, and at that I think he would have remained for the + rest of his life if he had not encountered Altiora. + </p> + <p> + But Altiora Macvitie was an altogether exceptional woman, an extraordinary + mixture of qualities, the one woman in the world who could make something + more out of Bailey than that. She had much of the vigour and handsomeness + of a slender impudent young man, and an unscrupulousness altogether + feminine. She was one of those women who are waiting in—what is the + word?—muliebrity. She had courage and initiative and a philosophical + way of handling questions, and she could be bored by regular work like a + man. She was entirely unfitted for her sex's sphere. She was neither + uncertain, coy nor hard to please, and altogether too stimulating and + aggressive for any gentleman's hours of ease. Her cookery would have been + about as sketchy as her handwriting, which was generally quite illegible, + and she would have made, I feel sure, a shocking bad nurse. Yet you + mustn't imagine she was an inelegant or unbeautiful woman, and she is + inconceivable to me in high collars or any sort of masculine garment. But + her soul was bony, and at the base of her was a vanity gaunt and greedy! + When she wasn't in a state of personal untidiness that was partly a + protest against the waste of hours exacted by the toilet and partly a + natural disinclination, she had a gypsy splendour of black and red and + silver all her own. And somewhen in the early nineties she met and married + Bailey. + </p> + <p> + I know very little about her early years. She was the only daughter of Sir + Deighton Macvitie, who applied the iodoform process to cotton, and only + his subsequent unfortunate attempts to become a Cotton King prevented her + being a very rich woman. As it was she had a tolerable independence. She + came into prominence as one of the more able of the little shoal of young + women who were led into politico-philanthropic activities by the influence + of the earlier novels of Mrs. Humphry Ward—the Marcella crop. She + went “slumming” with distinguished vigour, which was quite usual in those + days—and returned from her experiences as an amateur flower girl + with clear and original views about the problem—which is and always + had been unusual. She had not married, I suppose because her standards + were high, and men are cowards and with an instinctive appetite for + muliebrity. She had kept house for her father by speaking occasionally to + the housekeeper, butler and cook her mother had left her, and gathering + the most interesting dinner parties she could, and had married off four + orphan nieces in a harsh and successful manner. After her father's smash + and death she came out as a writer upon social questions and a scathing + critic of the Charity Organisation Society, and she was three and thirty + and a little at loose ends when she met Oscar Bailey, so to speak, in the + CONTEMPORARY REVIEW. The lurking woman in her nature was fascinated by the + ease and precision with which the little man rolled over all sorts of + important and authoritative people, she was the first to discover a sort + of imaginative bigness in his still growing mind, the forehead perhaps + carried him off physically, and she took occasion to meet and subjugate + him, and, so soon as he had sufficiently recovered from his abject + humility and a certain panic at her attentions, marry him. + </p> + <p> + This had opened a new phase in the lives of Bailey and herself. The two + supplemented each other to an extraordinary extent. Their subsequent + career was, I think, almost entirely her invention. She was aggressive, + imaginative, and had a great capacity for ideas, while he was almost + destitute of initiative, and could do nothing with ideas except remember + and discuss them. She was, if not exact, at least indolent, with a strong + disposition to save energy by sketching—even her handwriting showed + that—while he was inexhaustibly industrious with a relentless + invariable calligraphy that grew larger and clearer as the years passed + by. She had a considerable power of charming; she could be just as nice to + people—and incidentally just as nasty—as she wanted to be. He + was always just the same, a little confidential and SOTTO VOCE, artlessly + rude and egoistic in an undignified way. She had considerable social + experience, good social connections, and considerable social ambition, + while he had none of these things. She saw in a flash her opportunity to + redeem his defects, use his powers, and do large, novel, rather startling + things. She ran him. Her marriage, which shocked her friends and relations + beyond measure—for a time they would only speak of Bailey as “that + gnome”—was a stroke of genius, and forthwith they proceeded to make + themselves the most formidable and distinguished couple conceivable. P. B. + P., she boasted, was engraved inside their wedding rings, Pro Bono + Publico, and she meant it to be no idle threat. She had discovered very + early that the last thing influential people will do is to work. + Everything in their lives tends to make them dependent upon a supply of + confidently administered detail. Their business is with the window and not + the stock behind, and in the end they are dependent upon the stock behind + for what goes into the window. She linked with that the fact that Bailey + had a mind as orderly as a museum, and an invincible power over detail. + She saw that if two people took the necessary pains to know the facts of + government and administration with precision, to gather together knowledge + that was dispersed and confused, to be able to say precisely what had to + be done and what avoided in this eventuality or that, they would + necessarily become a centre of reference for all sorts of legislative + proposals and political expedients, and she went unhesitatingly upon that. + </p> + <p> + Bailey, under her vigorous direction, threw up his post in the Civil + Service and abandoned sporadic controversies, and they devoted themselves + to the elaboration and realisation of this centre of public information + she had conceived as their role. They set out to study the methods and + organisation and realities of government in the most elaborate manner. + They did the work as no one had ever hitherto dreamt of doing it. They + planned the research on a thoroughly satisfying scale, and arranged their + lives almost entirely for it. They took that house in Chambers Street and + furnished it with severe economy, they discovered that Scotch domestic who + is destined to be the guardian and tyrant of their declining years, and + they set to work. Their first book, “The Permanent Official,” fills three + plump volumes, and took them and their two secretaries upwards of four + years to do. It is an amazingly good book, an enduring achievement. In a + hundred directions the history and the administrative treatment of the + public service was clarified for all time.... + </p> + <p> + They worked regularly every morning from nine to twelve, they lunched + lightly but severely, in the afternoon they “took exercise” or Bailey + attended meetings of the London School Board, on which he served, he said, + for the purposes of study—he also became a railway director for the + same end. In the late afternoon Altiora was at home to various callers, + and in the evening came dinner or a reception or both. + </p> + <p> + Her dinners and gatherings were a very important feature in their scheme. + She got together all sorts of interesting people in or about the public + service, she mixed the obscurely efficient with the ill-instructed famous + and the rudderless rich, got together in one room more of the factors in + our strange jumble of a public life than had ever met easily before. She + fed them with a shameless austerity that kept the conversation brilliant, + on a soup, a plain fish, and mutton or boiled fowl and milk pudding, with + nothing to drink but whisky and soda, and hot and cold water, and milk and + lemonade. Everybody was soon very glad indeed to come to that. She boasted + how little her housekeeping cost her, and sought constantly for fresh + economies that would enable her, she said, to sustain an additional + private secretary. Secretaries were the Baileys' one extravagance, they + loved to think of searches going on in the British Museum, and letters + being cleared up and precis made overhead, while they sat in the little + study and worked together, Bailey with a clockwork industry, and Altiora + in splendid flashes between intervals of cigarettes and meditation. “All + efficient public careers,” said Altiora, “consist in the proper direction + of secretaries.” + </p> + <p> + “If everything goes well I shall have another secretary next year,” + Altiora told me. “I wish I could refuse people dinner napkins. Imagine + what it means in washing! I dare most things.... But as it is, they stand + a lot of hardship here.” + </p> + <p> + “There's something of the miser in both these people,” said Esmeer, and + the thing was perfectly true. For, after all, the miser is nothing more + than a man who either through want of imagination or want of suggestion + misapplies to a base use a natural power of concentration upon one end. + The concentration itself is neither good nor evil, but a power that can be + used in either way. And the Baileys gathered and reinvested usuriously not + money, but knowledge of the utmost value in human affairs. They produced + an effect of having found themselves—completely. One envied them at + times extraordinarily. I was attracted, I was dazzled—and at the + same time there was something about Bailey's big wrinkled forehead, his + lisping broad mouth, the gestures of his hands and an uncivil + preoccupation I could not endure.... + </p> + <p> + 3 + </p> + <p> + Their effect upon me was from the outset very considerable. + </p> + <p> + Both of them found occasion on that first visit of mine to talk to me + about my published writings and particularly about my then just published + book THE NEW RULER, which had interested them very much. It fell in indeed + so closely with their own way of thinking that I doubt if they ever + understood how independently I had arrived at my conclusions. It was their + weakness to claim excessively. That irritation, however, came later. We + discovered each other immensely; for a time it produced a tremendous sense + of kindred and co-operation. + </p> + <p> + Altiora, I remember, maintained that there existed a great army of such + constructive-minded people as ourselves—as yet undiscovered by one + another. + </p> + <p> + “It's like boring a tunnel through a mountain,” said Oscar, “and presently + hearing the tapping of the workers from the other end.” + </p> + <p> + “If you didn't know of them beforehand,” I said, “it might be a rather + badly joined tunnel.” + </p> + <p> + “Exactly,” said Altiora with a high note, “and that's why we all want to + find out each other....” + </p> + <p> + They didn't talk like that on our first encounter, but they urged me to + lunch with them next day, and then it was we went into things. A woman + Factory Inspector and the Educational Minister for New Banksland and his + wife were also there, but I don't remember they made any contribution to + the conversation. The Baileys saw to that. They kept on at me in an urgent + litigious way. + </p> + <p> + “We have read your book,” each began—as though it had been a joint + function. “And we consider—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” I protested, “I think—” + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + That was a secondary matter. +</pre> + <p> + “They did not consider,” said Altiora, raising her voice and going right + over me, “that I had allowed sufficiently for the inevitable development + of an official administrative class in the modern state.” + </p> + <p> + “Nor of its importance,” echoed Oscar. + </p> + <p> + That, they explained in a sort of chorus, was the cardinal idea of their + lives, what they were up to, what they stood for. “We want to suggest to + you,” they said—and I found this was a stock opening of theirs—“that + from the mere necessities of convenience elected bodies MUST avail + themselves more and more of the services of expert officials. We have that + very much in mind. The more complicated and technical affairs become, the + less confidence will the elected official have in himself. We want to + suggest that these expert officials must necessarily develop into a new + class and a very powerful class in the community. We want to organise + that. It may be THE power of the future. They will necessarily have to + have very much of a common training. We consider ourselves as amateur + unpaid precursors of such a class.”... + </p> + <p> + The vision they displayed for my consideration as the aim of + public-spirited endeavour, seemed like a harder, narrower, more + specialised version of the idea of a trained and disciplined state that + Willersley and I had worked out in the Alps. They wanted things more + organised, more correlated with government and a collective purpose, just + as we did, but they saw it not in terms of a growing collective + understanding, but in terms of functionaries, legislative change, and + methods of administration.... + </p> + <p> + It wasn't clear at first how we differed. The Baileys were very anxious to + win me to co-operation, and I was quite prepared at first to identify + their distinctive expressions with phrases of my own, and so we came very + readily into an alliance that was to last some years, and break at last + very painfully. Altiora manifestly liked me, I was soon discussing with + her the perplexity I found in placing myself efficiently in the world, the + problem of how to take hold of things that occupied my thoughts, and she + was sketching out careers for my consideration, very much as an architect + on his first visit sketches houses, considers requirements, and puts + before you this example and that of the more or less similar thing already + done.... + </p> + <p> + 4 + </p> + <p> + It is easy to see how much in common there was between the Baileys and me, + and how natural it was that I should become a constant visitor at their + house and an ally of theirs in many enterprises. It is not nearly so easy + to define the profound antagonism of spirit that also held between us. + There was a difference in texture, a difference in quality. How can I + express it? The shapes of our thoughts were the same, but the substance + quite different. It was as if they had made in china or cast iron what I + had made in transparent living matter. (The comparison is manifestly from + my point of view.) Certain things never seemed to show through their ideas + that were visible, refracted perhaps and distorted, but visible always + through mine. + </p> + <p> + I thought for a time the essential difference lay in our relation to + beauty. With me beauty is quite primary in life; I like truth, order and + goodness, wholly because they are beautiful or lead straight to beautiful + consequences. The Baileys either hadn't got that or they didn't see it. + They seemed at times to prefer things harsh and ugly. That puzzled me + extremely. The esthetic quality of many of their proposals, the “manners” + of their work, so to speak, were at times as dreadful as—well, War + Office barrack architecture. A caricature by its exaggerated statements + will sometimes serve to point a truth by antagonising falsity and falsity. + I remember talking to a prominent museum official in need of more public + funds for the work he had in hand. I mentioned the possibility of + enlisting Bailey's influence. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, we don't want Philistines like that infernal Bottle-Imp running us,” + he said hastily, and would hear of no concerted action for the end he had + in view. “I'd rather not have the extension. + </p> + <p> + “You see,” he went on to explain, “Bailey's wanting in the essentials.” + </p> + <p> + “What essentials?” said I. + </p> + <p> + “Oh! he'd be like a nasty oily efficient little machine for some merely + subordinate necessity among all my delicate stuff. He'd do all we wanted + no doubt in the way of money and powers—and he'd do it wrong and + mess the place for ever. Hands all black, you know. He's just a means. + Just a very aggressive and unmanageable means. This isn't a plumber's + job....” + </p> + <p> + I stuck to my argument. + </p> + <p> + “I don't LIKE him,” said the official conclusively, and it seemed to me at + the time he was just blind prejudice speaking.... + </p> + <p> + I came nearer the truth of the matter as I came to realise that our + philosophies differed profoundly. That isn't a very curable difference,—once + people have grown up. Theirs was a philosophy devoid of FINESSE. + Temperamentally the Baileys were specialised, concentrated, accurate, + while I am urged either by some Inner force or some entirely assimilated + influence in my training, always to round off and shadow my outlines. I + hate them hard. I would sacrifice detail to modelling always, and the + Baileys, it seemed to me, loved a world as flat and metallic as Sidney + Cooper's cows. If they had the universe in hand I know they would take + down all the trees and put up stamped tin green shades and sunlight + accumulators. Altiora thought trees hopelessly irregular and sea cliffs a + great mistake.... I got things clearer as time went on. Though it was an + Hegelian mess of which I had partaken at Codger's table by way of a + philosophical training, my sympathies have always been Pragmatist. I + belong almost by nature to that school of Pragmatism that, following the + medieval Nominalists, bases itself upon a denial of the reality of + classes, and of the validity of general laws. The Baileys classified + everything. They were, in the scholastic sense—which so oddly + contradicts the modern use of the word “Realists.” They believed classes + were REAL and independent of their individuals. This is the common habit + of all so-called educated people who have no metaphysical aptitude and no + metaphysical training. It leads them to a progressive misunderstanding of + the world. It was a favourite trick of Altiora's to speak of everybody as + a “type”; she saw men as samples moving; her dining-room became a chamber + of representatives. It gave a tremendously scientific air to many of their + generalisations, using “scientific” in its nineteenth-century uncritical + Herbert Spencer sense, an air that only began to disappear when you + thought them over again in terms of actuality and the people one knew.... + </p> + <p> + At the Baileys' one always seemed to be getting one's hands on the very + strings that guided the world. You heard legislation projected to affect + this “type” and that; statistics marched by you with sin and shame and + injustice and misery reduced to quite manageable percentages, you found + men who were to frame or amend bills in grave and intimate exchange with + Bailey's omniscience, you heard Altiora canvassing approaching + resignations and possible appointments that might make or mar a revolution + in administrative methods, and doing it with a vigorous directness that + manifestly swayed the decision; and you felt you were in a sort of signal + box with levers all about you, and the world outside there, albeit a + little dark and mysterious beyond the window, running on its lines in + ready obedience to these unhesitating lights, true and steady to trim + termini. + </p> + <p> + And then with all this administrative fizzle, this pseudo-scientific + administrative chatter, dying away in your head, out you went into the + limitless grimy chaos of London streets and squares, roads and avenues + lined with teeming houses, each larger than the Chambers Street house and + at least equally alive, you saw the chaotic clamour of hoardings, the + jumble of traffic, the coming and going of mysterious myriads, you heard + the rumble of traffic like the noise of a torrent; a vague incessant + murmur of cries and voices, wanton crimes and accidents bawled at you from + the placards; imperative unaccountable fashions swaggered triumphant in + dazzling windows of the shops; and you found yourself swaying back to the + opposite conviction that the huge formless spirit of the world it was that + held the strings and danced the puppets on the Bailey stage.... + </p> + <p> + Under the lamps you were jostled by people like my Staffordshire uncle out + for a spree, you saw shy youths conversing with prostitutes, you passed + young lovers pairing with an entire disregard of the social suitability of + the “types” they might blend or create, you saw men leaning drunken + against lamp-posts whom you knew for the “type” that will charge with + fixed bayonets into the face of death, and you found yourself unable to + imagine little Bailey achieving either drunkenness or the careless + defiance of annihilation. You realised that quite a lot of types were + underrepresented in Chambers Street, that feral and obscure and altogether + monstrous forces must be at work, as yet altogether unassimilated by those + neat administrative reorganisations. + </p> + <p> + 5 + </p> + <p> + Altiora, I remember, preluded Margaret's reappearance by announcing her as + a “new type.” + </p> + <p> + I was accustomed to go early to the Baileys' dinners in those days, for a + preliminary gossip with Altiora in front of her drawing-room fire. One got + her alone, and that early arrival was a little sign of appreciation she + valued. She had every woman's need of followers and servants. + </p> + <p> + “I'm going to send you down to-night,” she said, “with a very interesting + type indeed—one of the new generation of serious gals. Middle-class + origin—and quite well off. Rich in fact. Her step-father was a + solicitor and something of an ENTREPRENEUR towards the end, I fancy—in + the Black Country. There was a little brother died, and she's lost her + mother quite recently. Quite on her own, so to speak. She's never been out + into society very much, and doesn't seem really very anxious to go.... Not + exactly an intellectual person, you know, but quiet, and great force of + character. Came up to London on her own and came to us—someone had + told her we were the sort of people to advise her—to ask what to do. + I'm sure she'll interest you.” + </p> + <p> + “What CAN people of that sort do?” I asked. “Is she capable of + investigation?” + </p> + <p> + Altiora compressed her lips and shook her head. She always did shake her + head when you asked that of anyone. + </p> + <p> + “Of course what she ought to do,” said Altiora, with her silk dress pulled + back from her knee before the fire, and with a lift of her voice towards a + chuckle at her daring way of putting things, “is to marry a member of + Parliament and see he does his work.... Perhaps she will. It's a very + exceptional gal who can do anything by herself—quite exceptional. + The more serious they are—without being exceptional—the more + we want them to marry.” + </p> + <p> + Her exposition was truncated by the entry of the type in question. + </p> + <p> + “Well!” cried Altiora turning, and with a high note of welcome, “HERE you + are!” + </p> + <p> + Margaret had gained in dignity and prettiness by the lapse of five years, + and she was now very beautifully and richly and simply dressed. Her fair + hair had been done in some way that made it seem softer and more abundant + than it was in my memory, and a gleam of purple velvet-set diamonds showed + amidst its mist of little golden and brown lines. Her dress was of white + and violet, the last trace of mourning for her mother, and confessed the + gracious droop of her tall and slender body. She did not suggest + Staffordshire at all, and I was puzzled for a moment to think where I had + met her. Her sweetly shaped mouth with the slight obliquity of the lip and + the little kink in her brow were extraordinarily familiar to me. But she + had either been prepared by Altiora or she remembered my name. “We met,” + she said, “while my step-father was alive—at Misterton. You came to + see us”; and instantly I recalled the sunshine between the apple blossom + and a slender pale blue girlish shape among the daffodils, like something + that had sprung from a bulb itself. I recalled at once that I had found + her very interesting, though I did not clearly remember how it was she had + interested me. + </p> + <p> + Other guests arrived—it was one of Altiora's boldly blended mixtures + of people with ideas and people with influence or money who might perhaps + be expected to resonate to them. Bailey came down late with an air of + hurry, and was introduced to Margaret and said absolutely nothing to her—there + being no information either to receive or impart and nothing to do—but + stood snatching his left cheek until I rescued him and her, and left him + free to congratulate the new Lady Snape on her husband's K. C. B. + </p> + <p> + I took Margaret down. We achieved no feats of mutual expression, except + that it was abundantly clear we were both very pleased and interested to + meet again, and that we had both kept memories of each other. We made that + Misterton tea-party and the subsequent marriages of my cousins and the + world of Burslem generally, matter for quite an agreeable conversation + until at last Altiora, following her invariable custom, called me by name + imperatively out of our duologue. “Mr. Remington,” she said, “we want your + opinion—” in her entirely characteristic effort to get all the + threads of conversation into her own hands for the climax that always + wound up her dinners. How the other women used to hate those concluding + raids of hers! I forget most of the other people at that dinner, nor can I + recall what the crowning rally was about. It didn't in any way join on to + my impression of Margaret. + </p> + <p> + In the drawing-room of the matting floor I rejoined her, with Altiora's + manifest connivance, and in the interval I had been thinking of our former + meeting. + </p> + <p> + “Do you find London,” I asked, “give you more opportunity for doing things + and learning things than Burslem?” + </p> + <p> + She showed at once she appreciated my allusion to her former confidences. + “I was very discontented then,” she said and paused. “I've really only + been in London for a few months. It's so different. In Burslem, life seems + all business and getting—without any reason. One went on and it + didn't seem to mean anything. At least anything that mattered.... London + seems to be so full of meanings—all mixed up together.” + </p> + <p> + She knitted her brows over her words and smiled appealingly at the end as + if for consideration for her inadequate expression, appealingly and almost + humorously. + </p> + <p> + I looked understandingly at her. “We have all,” I agreed, “to come to + London.” + </p> + <p> + “One sees so much distress,” she added, as if she felt she had completely + omitted something, and needed a codicil. + </p> + <p> + “What are you doing in London?” + </p> + <p> + “I'm thinking of studying. Some social question. I thought perhaps I might + go and study social conditions as Mrs. Bailey did, go perhaps as a + work-girl or see the reality of living in, but Mrs. Bailey thought perhaps + it wasn't quite my work.” + </p> + <p> + “Are you studying?” + </p> + <p> + “I'm going to a good many lectures, and perhaps I shall take up a regular + course at the Westminster School of Politics and Sociology. But Mrs. + Bailey doesn't seem to believe very much in that either.” + </p> + <p> + Her faintly whimsical smile returned. “I seem rather indefinite,” she + apologised, “but one does not want to get entangled in things one can't + do. One—one has so many advantages, one's life seems to be such a + trust and such a responsibility—” + </p> + <p> + She stopped. + </p> + <p> + “A man gets driven into work,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “It must be splendid to be Mrs. Bailey,” she replied with a glance of + envious admiration across the room. + </p> + <p> + “SHE has no doubts, anyhow,” I remarked. + </p> + <p> + “She HAD,” said Margaret with the pride of one who has received great + confidences. + </p> + <p> + 6 + </p> + <p> + “You've met before?” said Altiora, a day or so later. + </p> + <p> + I explained when. + </p> + <p> + “You find her interesting?” + </p> + <p> + I saw in a flash that Altiora meant to marry me to Margaret. + </p> + <p> + Her intention became much clearer as the year developed. Altiora was + systematic even in matters that evade system. I was to marry Margaret, and + freed from the need of making an income I was to come into politics—as + an exponent of Baileyism. She put it down with the other excellent and + advantageous things that should occupy her summer holiday. It was her + pride and glory to put things down and plan them out in detail beforehand, + and I'm not quite sure that she did not even mark off the day upon which + the engagement was to be declared. If she did, I disappointed her. We + didn't come to an engagement, in spite of the broadest hints and the + glaring obviousness of everything, that summer. + </p> + <p> + Every summer the Baileys went out of London to some house they hired or + borrowed, leaving their secretaries toiling behind, and they went on + working hard in the mornings and evenings and taking exercise in the open + air in the afternoon. They cycled assiduously and went for long walks at a + trot, and raided and studied (and incidentally explained themselves to) + any social “types” that lived in the neighbourhood. One invaded type, + resentful under research, described them with a dreadful aptness as Donna + Quixote and Sancho Panza—and himself as a harmless windmill, hurting + no one and signifying nothing. She did rather tilt at things. This + particular summer they were at a pleasant farmhouse in level country near + Pangbourne, belonging to the Hon. Wilfrid Winchester, and they asked me to + come down to rooms in the neighbourhood—Altiora took them for a + month for me in August—and board with them upon extremely reasonable + terms; and when I got there I found Margaret sitting in a hammock at + Altiora's feet. Lots of people, I gathered, were coming and going in the + neighbourhood, the Ponts were in a villa on the river, and the Rickhams' + houseboat was to moor for some days; but these irruptions did not impede a + great deal of duologue between Margaret and myself. + </p> + <p> + Altiora was efficient rather than artistic in her match-making. She sent + us off for long walks together—Margaret was a fairly good walker—she + exhumed some defective croquet things and incited us to croquet, not + understanding that detestable game is the worst stimulant for lovers in + the world. And Margaret and I were always getting left about, and finding + ourselves for odd half-hours in the kitchen-garden with nothing to do + except talk, or we were told with a wave of the hand to run away and amuse + each other. + </p> + <p> + Altiora even tried a picnic in canoes, knowing from fiction rather than + imagination or experience the conclusive nature of such excursions. But + there she fumbled at the last moment, and elected at the river's brink to + share a canoe with me. Bailey showed so much zeal and so little skill—his + hat fell off and he became miraculously nothing but paddle-clutching hands + and a vast wrinkled brow—that at last he had to be paddled + ignominiously by Margaret, while Altiora, after a phase of rigid + discretion, as nearly as possible drowned herself—and me no doubt + into the bargain—with a sudden lateral gesture of the arm to + emphasise the high note with which she dismissed the efficiency of the + Charity Organisation Society. We shipped about an inch of water and sat in + it for the rest of the time, an inconvenience she disregarded heroically. + We had difficulties in landing Oscar from his frail craft upon the ait of + our feasting,—he didn't balance sideways and was much alarmed, and + afterwards, as Margaret had a pain in her back, I took him in my canoe, + let him hide his shame with an ineffectual but not positively harmful + paddle, and towed the other by means of the joined painters. Still it was + the fault of the inadequate information supplied in the books and not of + Altiora that that was not the date of my betrothal. + </p> + <p> + I find it not a little difficult to state what kept me back from proposing + marriage to Margaret that summer, and what urged me forward at last to + marry her. It is so much easier to remember one's resolutions than to + remember the moods and suggestions that produced them. + </p> + <p> + Marrying and getting married was, I think, a pretty simple affair to + Altiora; it was something that happened to the adolescent and unmarried + when you threw them together under the circumstances of health, warmth and + leisure. It happened with the kindly and approving smiles of the more + experienced elders who had organised these proximities. The young people + married, settled down, children ensued, and father and mother turned their + minds, now decently and properly disillusioned, to other things. That to + Altiora was the normal sexual life, and she believed it to be the quality + of the great bulk of the life about her. + </p> + <p> + One of the great barriers to human understanding is the wide temperamental + difference one finds in the values of things relating to sex. It is the + issue upon which people most need training in charity and imaginative + sympathy. Here are no universal standards at all, and indeed for no single + man nor woman does there seem to be any fixed standard, so much do the + accidents of circumstances and one's physical phases affect one's + interpretations. There is nothing in the whole range of sexual fact that + may not seem supremely beautiful or humanly jolly or magnificently wicked + or disgusting or trivial or utterly insignificant, according to the eye + that sees or the mood that colours. Here is something that may fill the + skies and every waking hour or be almost completely banished from a life. + It may be everything on Monday and less than nothing on Saturday. And we + make our laws and rules as though in these matters all men and women were + commensurable one with another, with an equal steadfast passion and an + equal constant duty.... + </p> + <p> + I don't know what dreams Altiora may have had in her schoolroom days, I + always suspected her of suppressed and forgotten phases, but certainly her + general effect now was of an entirely passionless worldliness in these + matters. Indeed so far as I could get at her, she regarded sexual passion + as being hardly more legitimate in a civilised person than—let us + say—homicidal mania. She must have forgotten—and Bailey too. I + suspect she forgot before she married him. I don't suppose either of them + had the slightest intimation of the dimensions sexual love can take in the + thoughts of the great majority of people with whom they come in contact. + They loved in their way—an intellectual way it was and a fond way—but + it had no relation to beauty and physical sensation—except that + there seemed a decree of exile against these things. They got their glow + in high moments of altruistic ambition—and in moments of vivid + worldly success. They sat at opposite ends of their dinner table with so + and so “captured,” and so and so, flushed with a mutual approval. They saw + people in love forgetful and distraught about them, and just put it down + to forgetfulness and distraction. At any rate Altiora manifestly viewed my + situation and Margaret's with an abnormal and entirely misleading + simplicity. There was the girl, rich, with an acceptable claim to be + beautiful, shiningly virtuous, quite capable of political interests, and + there was I, talented, ambitious and full of political and social passion, + in need of just the money, devotion and regularisation Margaret could + provide. We were both unmarried—white sheets of uninscribed paper. + Was there ever a simpler situation? What more could we possibly want? + </p> + <p> + She was even a little offended at the inconclusiveness that did not settle + things at Pangbourne. I seemed to her, I suspect, to reflect upon her + judgment and good intentions. + </p> + <p> + 7 + </p> + <p> + I didn't see things with Altiora's simplicity. + </p> + <p> + I admired Margaret very much, I was fully aware of all that she and I + might give each other; indeed so far as Altiora went we were quite in + agreement. But what seemed solid ground to Altiora and the ultimate + footing of her emasculated world, was to me just the superficial covering + of a gulf—oh! abysses of vague and dim, and yet stupendously + significant things. + </p> + <p> + I couldn't dismiss the interests and the passion of sex as Altiora did. + Work, I agreed, was important; career and success; but deep unanalysable + instincts told me this preoccupation was a thing quite as important; + dangerous, interfering, destructive indeed, but none the less a dominating + interest in life. I have told how flittingly and uninvited it came like a + moth from the outer twilight into my life, how it grew in me with my + manhood, how it found its way to speech and grew daring, and led me at + last to experience. After that adventure at Locarno sex and the interests + and desires of sex never left me for long at peace. I went on with my work + and my career, and all the time it was like—like someone talking + ever and again in a room while one tries to write. + </p> + <p> + There were times when I could have wished the world a world all of men, so + greatly did this unassimilated series of motives and curiosities hamper + me; and times when I could have wished the world all of women. I seemed + always to be seeking something in women, in girls, and I was never clear + what it was I was seeking. But never—even at my coarsest—was I + moved by physical desire alone. Was I seeking help and fellowship? Was I + seeking some intimacy with beauty? It was a thing too formless to state, + that I seemed always desiring to attain and never attaining. Waves of + gross sensuousness arose out of this preoccupation, carried me to a crisis + of gratification or disappointment that was clearly not the needed thing; + they passed and left my mind free again for a time to get on with the + permanent pursuits of my life. And then presently this solicitude would + have me again, an irrelevance as it seemed, and yet a constantly recurring + demand. + </p> + <p> + I don't want particularly to dwell upon things that are disagreeable for + others to read, but I cannot leave them out of my story and get the right + proportions of the forces I am balancing. I was no abnormal man, and that + world of order we desire to make must be built of such stuff as I was and + am and can beget. You cannot have a world of Baileys; it would end in one + orderly generation. Humanity is begotten in Desire, lives by Desire. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Love which is lust, is the Lamp in the Tomb; + Love which is lust, is the Call from the Gloom.” + </pre> + <p> + I echo Henley. + </p> + <p> + I suppose the life of celibacy which the active, well-fed, well-exercised + and imaginatively stirred young man of the educated classes is supposed to + lead from the age of nineteen or twenty, when Nature certainly meant him + to marry, to thirty or more, when civilisation permits him to do so, is + the most impossible thing in the world. We deal here with facts that are + kept secret and obscure, but I doubt for my own part if more than one man + out of five in our class satisfies that ideal demand. The rest are even as + I was, and Hatherleigh and Esmeer and all the men I knew. I draw no + lessons and offer no panacea; I have to tell the quality of life, and this + is how it is. This is how it will remain until men and women have the + courage to face the facts of life. + </p> + <p> + I was no systematic libertine, you must understand; things happened to me + and desire drove me. Any young man would have served for that Locarno + adventure, and after that what had been a mystic and wonderful thing + passed rapidly into a gross, manifestly misdirected and complicating one. + I can count a meagre tale of five illicit loves in the days of my youth, + to include that first experience, and of them all only two were sustained + relationships. Besides these five “affairs,” on one or two occasions I + dipped so low as the inky dismal sensuality of the streets, and made one + of those pairs of correlated figures, the woman in her squalid finery + sailing homeward, the man modestly aloof and behind, that every night in + the London year flit by the score of thousands across the sight of the + observant.... + </p> + <p> + How ugly it is to recall; ugly and shameful now without qualification! Yet + at the time there was surely something not altogether ugly in it—something + that has vanished, some fine thing mortally ailing. + </p> + <p> + One such occasion I recall as if it were a vision deep down in a pit, as + if it had happened in another state of existence to someone else. And yet + it is the sort of thing that has happened, once or twice at least, to half + the men in London who have been in a position to make it possible. Let me + try and give you its peculiar effect. Man or woman, you ought to know of + it. + </p> + <p> + Figure to yourself a dingy room, somewhere in that network of streets that + lies about Tottenham Court Road, a dingy bedroom lit by a solitary candle + and carpeted with scraps and patches, with curtains of cretonne closing + the window, and a tawdry ornament of paper in the grate. I sit on a bed + beside a weary-eyed, fair-haired, sturdy young woman, half undressed, who + is telling me in broken German something that my knowledge of German is at + first inadequate to understand.... + </p> + <p> + I thought she was boasting about her family, and then slowly the meaning + came to me. She was a Lett from near Libau in Courland, and she was + telling me—just as one tells something too strange for comment or + emotion—how her father had been shot and her sister outraged and + murdered before her eyes. + </p> + <p> + It was as if one had dipped into something primordial and stupendous + beneath the smooth and trivial surfaces of life. There was I, you know, + the promising young don from Cambridge, who wrote quite brilliantly about + politics and might presently get into Parliament, with my collar and tie + in my hand, and a certain sense of shameful adventure fading out of my + mind. + </p> + <p> + “Ach Gott!” she sighed by way of comment, and mused deeply for a moment + before she turned her face to me, as to something forgotten and + remembered, and assumed the half-hearted meretricious smile. + </p> + <p> + “Bin ich eine hubsche?” she asked like one who repeats a lesson. + </p> + <p> + I was moved to crave her pardon and come away. + </p> + <p> + “Bin ich eine hubsche?” she asked a little anxiously, laying a detaining + hand upon me, and evidently not understanding a word of what I was + striving to say. + </p> + <p> + 8 + </p> + <p> + I find it extraordinarily difficult to recall the phases by which I passed + from my first admiration of Margaret's earnestness and unconscious + daintiness to an intimate acquaintance. The earlier encounters stand out + clear and hard, but then the impressions become crowded and mingle not + only with each other but with all the subsequent developments of + relationship, the enormous evolutions of interpretation and comprehension + between husband and wife. Dipping into my memories is like dipping into a + ragbag, one brings out this memory or that, with no intimation of how they + came in time or what led to them and joined them together. And they are + all mixed up with subsequent associations, with sympathies and discords, + habits of intercourse, surprises and disappointments and discovered + misunderstandings. I know only that always my feelings for Margaret were + complicated feelings, woven of many and various strands. + </p> + <p> + It is one of the curious neglected aspects of life how at the same time + and in relation to the same reality we can have in our minds streams of + thought at quite different levels. We can be at the same time idealising a + person and seeing and criticising that person quite coldly and clearly, + and we slip unconsciously from level to level and produce all sorts of + inconsistent acts. In a sense I had no illusions about Margaret; in a + sense my conception of Margaret was entirely poetic illusion. I don't + think I was ever blind to certain defects of hers, and quite as certainly + they didn't seem to matter in the slightest degree. Her mind had a curious + want of vigour, “flatness” is the only word; she never seemed to escape + from her phrase; her way of thinking, her way of doing was indecisive; she + remained in her attitude, it did not flow out to easy, confirmatory + action. + </p> + <p> + I saw this quite clearly, and when we walked and talked together I seemed + always trying for animation in her and never finding it. I would state my + ideas. “I know,” she would say, “I know.” + </p> + <p> + I talked about myself and she listened wonderfully, but she made no + answering revelations. I talked politics, and she remarked with her blue + eyes wide and earnest: “Every WORD you say seems so just.” + </p> + <p> + I admired her appearance tremendously but—I can only express it by + saying I didn't want to touch her. Her fair hair was always delectably + done. It flowed beautifully over her pretty small ears, and she would tie + its fair coilings with fillets of black or blue velvet that carried pretty + buckles of silver and paste. The light, the faint down on her brow and + cheek was delightful. And it was clear to me that I made her happy. + </p> + <p> + My sense of her deficiencies didn't stand in the way of my falling at last + very deeply in love with her. Her very shortcomings seemed to offer me + something.... + </p> + <p> + She stood in my mind for goodness—and for things from which it + seemed to me my hold was slipping. + </p> + <p> + She seemed to promise a way of escape from the deepening opposition in me + between physical passions and the constructive career, the career of wide + aims and human service, upon which I had embarked. All the time that I was + seeing her as a beautiful, fragile, rather ineffective girl, I was also + seeing her just as consciously as a shining slender figure, a radiant + reconciliation, coming into my darkling disorders of lust and impulse. I + could understand clearly that she was incapable of the most necessary + subtleties of political thought, and yet I could contemplate praying to + her and putting all the intricate troubles of my life at her feet. + </p> + <p> + Before the reappearance of Margaret in my world at all an unwonted disgust + with the consequences and quality of my passions had arisen in my mind. + Among other things that moment with the Lettish girl haunted me + persistently. I would see myself again and again sitting amidst those + sluttish surroundings, collar and tie in hand, while her heavy German + words grouped themselves to a slowly apprehended meaning. I would feel + again with a fresh stab of remorse, that this was not a flash of + adventure, this was not seeing life in any permissible sense, but a dip + into tragedy, dishonour, hideous degradation, and the pitiless cruelty of + a world as yet uncontrolled by any ordered will. + </p> + <p> + “Good God!” I put it to myself, “that I should finish the work those + Cossacks had begun! I who want order and justice before everything! + There's no way out of it, no decent excuse! If I didn't think, I ought to + have thought!”... + </p> + <p> + “How did I get to it?”... I would ransack the phases of my development + from the first shy unveiling of a hidden wonder to the last extremity as a + man will go through muddled account books to find some disorganising + error.... + </p> + <p> + I was also involved at that time—I find it hard to place these + things in the exact order of their dates because they were so disconnected + with the regular progress of my work and life—in an intrigue, a + clumsy, sensuous, pretentious, artificially stimulated intrigue, with a + Mrs. Larrimer, a woman living separated from her husband. I will not go + into particulars of that episode, nor how we quarrelled and chafed one + another. She was at once unfaithful and jealous and full of whims about + our meetings; she was careless of our secret, and vulgarised our + relationship by intolerable interpretations; except for some glowing + moments of gratification, except for the recurrent and essentially vicious + desire that drew us back to each other again, we both fretted at a + vexatious and unexpectedly binding intimacy. The interim was full of the + quality of work delayed, of time and energy wasted, of insecure + precautions against scandal and exposure. Disappointment is almost + inherent in illicit love. I had, and perhaps it was part of her recurrent + irritation also, a feeling as though one had followed something fine and + beautiful into a net—into bird lime! These furtive scuffles, this + sneaking into shabby houses of assignation, was what we had made out of + the suggestion of pagan beauty; this was the reality of our vision of + nymphs and satyrs dancing for the joy of life amidst incessant sunshine. + We had laid hands upon the wonder and glory of bodily love and wasted + them.... + </p> + <p> + It was the sense of waste, of finely beautiful possibilities getting + entangled and marred for ever that oppressed me. I had missed, I had lost. + I did not turn from these things after the fashion of the Baileys, as one + turns from something low and embarrassing. I felt that these great organic + forces were still to be wrought into a harmony with my constructive + passion. I felt too that I was not doing it. I had not understood the + forces in this struggle nor its nature, and as I learnt I failed. I had + been started wrong, I had gone on wrong, in a world that was muddled and + confused, full of false counsel and erratic shames and twisted + temptations. I learnt to see it so by failures that were perhaps + destroying any chance of profit in my lessons. Moods of clear keen + industry alternated with moods of relapse and indulgence and moods of + dubiety and remorse. I was not going on as the Baileys thought I was going + on. There were times when the blindness of the Baileys irritated me + intensely. Beneath the ostensible success of those years, between + twenty-three and twenty-eight, this rottenness, known to scarcely any one + but myself, grew and spread. My sense of the probability of a collapse + intensified. I knew indeed now, even as Willersley had prophesied five + years before, that I was entangling myself in something that might smother + all my uses in the world. Down there among those incommunicable + difficulties, I was puzzled and blundering. I was losing my hold upon + things; the chaotic and adventurous element in life was spreading upward + and getting the better of me, over-mastering me and all my will to rule + and make.... And the strength, the drugging urgency of the passion! + </p> + <p> + Margaret shone at times in my imagination like a radiant angel in a world + of mire and disorder, in a world of cravings, hot and dull red like scars + inflamed.... + </p> + <p> + I suppose it was because I had so great a need of such help as her + whiteness proffered, that I could ascribe impossible perfections to her, a + power of intellect, a moral power and patience to which she, poor fellow + mortal, had indeed no claim. If only a few of us WERE angels and freed + from the tangle of effort, how easy life might be! I wanted her so badly, + so very badly, to be what I needed. I wanted a woman to save me. I forced + myself to see her as I wished to see her. Her tepidities became infinite + delicacies, her mental vagueness an atmospheric realism. The harsh + precisions of the Baileys and Altiora's blunt directness threw up her + fineness into relief and made a grace of every weakness. + </p> + <p> + Mixed up with the memory of times when I talked with Margaret as one talks + politely to those who are hopelessly inferior in mental quality, + explaining with a false lucidity, welcoming and encouraging the feeblest + response, when possible moulding and directing, are times when I did + indeed, as the old phrase goes, worship the ground she trod on. I was + equally honest and unconscious of inconsistency at each extreme. But in + neither phase could I find it easy to make love to Margaret. For in the + first I did not want to, though I talked abundantly to her of marriage and + so forth, and was a little puzzled at myself for not going on to some + personal application, and in the second she seemed inaccessible, I felt I + must make confessions and put things before her that would be the grossest + outrage upon the noble purity I attributed to her. + </p> + <p> + 9 + </p> + <p> + I went to Margaret at last to ask her to marry me, wrought up to the mood + of one who stakes his life on a cast. Separated from her, and with the + resonance of an evening of angry recriminations with Mrs. Larrimer echoing + in my mind, I discovered myself to be quite passionately in love with + Margaret. Last shreds of doubt vanished. It has always been a feature of + our relationship that Margaret absent means more to me than Margaret + present; her memory distils from its dross and purifies in me. All my + criticisms and qualifications of her vanished into some dark corner of my + mind. She was the lady of my salvation; I must win my way to her or + perish. + </p> + <p> + I went to her at last, for all that I knew she loved me, in passionate + self-abasement, white and a-tremble. She was staying with the Rockleys at + Woking, for Shena Rockley had been at Bennett Hall with her and they had + resumed a close intimacy; and I went down to her on an impulse, + unheralded. I was kept waiting for some minutes, I remember, in a little + room upon which a conservatory opened, a conservatory full of pots of + large mauve-edged, white cyclamens in flower. And there was a big lacquer + cabinet, a Chinese thing, I suppose, of black and gold against the + red-toned wall. To this day the thought of Margaret is inseparably bound + up with the sight of a cyclamen's back-turned petals. + </p> + <p> + She came in, looking pale and drooping rather more than usual. I suddenly + realised that Altiora's hint of a disappointment leading to positive + illness was something more than a vindictive comment. She closed the door + and came across to me and took and dropped my hand and stood still. “What + is it you want with me?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + The speech I had been turning over and over in my mind on the way vanished + at the sight of her. + </p> + <p> + “I want to talk to you,” I answered lamely. + </p> + <p> + For some seconds neither of us said a word. + </p> + <p> + “I want to tell you things about my life,” I began. + </p> + <p> + She answered with a scarcely audible “yes.” + </p> + <p> + “I almost asked you to marry me at Pangbourne,” I plunged. “I didn't. I + didn't because—because you had too much to give me.” + </p> + <p> + “Too much!” she echoed, “to give you!” She had lifted her eyes to my face + and the colour was coming into her cheeks. + </p> + <p> + “Don't misunderstand me,” I said hastily. “I want to tell you things, + things you don't know. Don't answer me. I want to tell you.” + </p> + <p> + She stood before the fireplace with her ultimate answer shining through + the quiet of her face. “Go on,” she said, very softly. It was so + pitilessly manifest she was resolved to idealise the situation whatever I + might say. I began walking up and down the room between those cyclamens + and the cabinet. There were little gold fishermen on the cabinet fishing + from little islands that each had a pagoda and a tree, and there were also + men in boats or something, I couldn't determine what, and some obscure + sub-office in my mind concerned itself with that quite intently. Yet I + seem to have been striving with all my being to get words for the truth of + things. “You see,” I emerged, “you make everything possible to me. You can + give me help and sympathy, support, understanding. You know my political + ambitions. You know all that I might do in the world. I do so intensely + want to do constructive things, big things perhaps, in this wild + jumble.... Only you don't know a bit what I am. I want to tell you what I + am. I'm complex.... I'm streaked.” + </p> + <p> + I glanced at her, and she was regarding me with an expression of blissful + disregard for any meaning I was seeking to convey. + </p> + <p> + “You see,” I said, “I'm a bad man.” + </p> + <p> + She sounded a note of valiant incredulity. + </p> + <p> + Everything seemed to be slipping away from me. I pushed on to the ugly + facts that remained over from the wreck of my interpretation. “What has + held me back,” I said, “is the thought that you could not possibly + understand certain things in my life. Men are not pure as women are. I + have had love affairs. I mean I have had affairs. Passion—desire. + You see, I have had a mistress, I have been entangled—” + </p> + <p> + She seemed about to speak, but I interrupted. “I'm not telling you,” I + said, “what I meant to tell you. I want you to know clearly that there is + another side to my life, a dirty side. Deliberately I say, dirty. It + didn't seem so at first—” + </p> + <p> + I stopped blankly. “Dirty,” I thought, was the most idiotic choice of + words to have made. + </p> + <p> + I had never in any tolerable sense of the word been dirty. + </p> + <p> + “I drifted into this—as men do,” I said after a little pause and + stopped again. + </p> + <p> + She was looking at me with her wide blue eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Did you imagine,” she began, “that I thought you—that I expected—” + </p> + <p> + “But how can you know?” + </p> + <p> + “I know. I do know.” + </p> + <p> + “But—” I began. + </p> + <p> + “I know,” she persisted, dropping her eyelids. “Of course I know,” and + nothing could have convinced me more completely that she did not know. + </p> + <p> + “All men—” she generalised. “A woman does not understand these + temptations.” + </p> + <p> + I was astonished beyond measure at her way of taking my confession. ... + </p> + <p> + “Of course,” she said, hesitating a little over a transparent difficulty, + “it is all over and past.” + </p> + <p> + “It's all over and past,” I answered. + </p> + <p> + There was a little pause. + </p> + <p> + “I don't want to know,” she said. “None of that seems to matter now in the + slightest degree.” + </p> + <p> + She looked up and smiled as though we had exchanged some acceptable + commonplaces. “Poor dear!” she said, dismissing everything, and put out + her arms, and it seemed to me that I could hear the Lettish girl in the + background—doomed safety valve of purity in this intolerable world—telling + something in indistinguishable German—I know not what nor why.... + </p> + <p> + I took Margaret in my arms and kissed her. Her eyes were wet with tears. + She clung to me and was near, I felt, to sobbing. + </p> + <p> + “I have loved you,” she whispered presently, “Oh! ever since we met in + Misterton—six years and more ago.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE THIRD ~~ MARGARET IN VENICE + </h2> + <p> + 1 + </p> + <p> + There comes into my mind a confused memory of conversations with Margaret; + we must have had dozens altogether, and they mix in now for the most part + inextricably not only with one another, but with later talks and with + things we discussed at Pangbourne. We had the immensest anticipations of + the years and opportunities that lay before us. I was now very deeply in + love with her indeed. I felt not that I had cleaned up my life but that + she had. We called each other “confederate” I remember, and made during + our brief engagement a series of visits to the various legislative bodies + in London, the County Council, the House of Commons, where we dined with + Villiers, and the St. Pancras Vestry, where we heard Shaw speaking. I was + full of plans and so was she of the way in which we were to live and work. + We were to pay back in public service whatever excess of wealth beyond his + merits old Seddon's economic advantage had won for him from the toiling + people in the potteries. The end of the Boer War was so recent that that + blessed word “efficiency” echoed still in people's minds and thoughts. + Lord Roseberry in a memorable oration had put it into the heads of the big + outer public, but the Baileys with a certain show of justice claimed to + have set it going in the channels that took it to him—if as a matter + of fact it was taken to him. But then it was their habit to make claims of + that sort. They certainly did their share to keep “efficient” going. + Altiora's highest praise was “thoroughly efficient.” We were to be a + “thoroughly efficient” political couple of the “new type.” She explained + us to herself and Oscar, she explained us to ourselves, she explained us + to the people who came to her dinners and afternoons until the world was + highly charged with explanation and expectation, and the proposal that I + should be the Liberal candidate for the Kinghamstead Division seemed the + most natural development in the world. + </p> + <p> + I was full of the ideal of hard restrained living and relentless activity, + and throughout a beautiful November at Venice, where chiefly we spent our + honeymoon, we turned over and over again and discussed in every aspect our + conception of a life tremendously focussed upon the ideal of social + service. + </p> + <p> + Most clearly there stands out a picture of ourselves talking in a gondola + on our way to Torcella. Far away behind us the smoke of Murano forms a + black stain upon an immense shining prospect of smooth water, water as + unruffled and luminous as the sky above, a mirror on which rows of posts + and distant black high-stemmed, swan-necked boats with their minutely + clear swinging gondoliers, float aerially. Remote and low before us rises + the little tower of our destination. Our men swing together and their oars + swirl leisurely through the water, hump back in the rowlocks, splash + sharply and go swishing back again. Margaret lies back on cushions, with + her face shaded by a holland parasol, and I sit up beside her. + </p> + <p> + “You see,” I say, and in spite of Margaret's note of perfect acquiescence + I feel myself reasoning against an indefinable antagonism, “it is so easy + to fall into a slack way with life. There may seem to be something + priggish in a meticulous discipline, but otherwise it is so easy to slip + into indolent habits—and to be distracted from one's purpose. The + country, the world, wants men to serve its constructive needs, to work out + and carry out plans. For a man who has to make a living the enemy is + immediate necessity; for people like ourselves it's—it's the + constant small opportunity of agreeable things.” + </p> + <p> + “Frittering away,” she says, “time and strength.” + </p> + <p> + “That is what I feel. It's so pleasant to pretend one is simply modest, it + looks so foolish at times to take one's self too seriously. We've GOT to + take ourselves seriously.” + </p> + <p> + She endorses my words with her eyes. + </p> + <p> + “I feel I can do great things with life.” + </p> + <p> + “I KNOW you can.” + </p> + <p> + “But that's only to be done by concentrating one's life upon one main end. + We have to plan our days, to make everything subserve our scheme.” + </p> + <p> + “I feel,” she answers softly, “we ought to give—every hour.” + </p> + <p> + Her face becomes dreamy. “I WANT to give every hour,” she adds. + </p> + <p> + 2 + </p> + <p> + That holiday in Venice is set in my memory like a little artificial lake + in uneven confused country, as something very bright and skylike, and + discontinuous with all about it. The faded quality of the very sunshine of + that season, the mellow discoloured palaces and places, the huge, + time-ripened paintings of departed splendours, the whispering, nearly + noiseless passage of hearse-black gondolas, for the horrible steam launch + had not yet ruined Venice, the stilled magnificences of the depopulated + lagoons, the universal autumn, made me feel altogether in recess from the + teeming uproars of reality. There was not a dozen people all told, no + Americans and scarcely any English, to dine in the big cavern of a + dining-room, with its vistas of separate tables, its distempered walls and + its swathed chandeliers. We went about seeing beautiful things, accepting + beauty on every hand, and taking it for granted that all was well with + ourselves and the world. It was ten days or a fortnight before I became + fretful and anxious for action; a long tranquillity for such a temperament + as mine. + </p> + <p> + Our pleasures were curiously impersonal, a succession of shared aesthetic + appreciation threads all that time. Our honeymoon was no exultant coming + together, no mutual shout of “YOU!” We were almost shy with one another, + and felt the relief of even a picture to help us out. It was entirely in + my conception of things that I should be very watchful not to shock or + distress Margaret or press the sensuous note. Our love-making had much of + the tepid smoothness of the lagoons. We talked in delicate innuendo of + what should be glorious freedoms. Margaret had missed Verona and Venice in + her previous Italian journey—fear of the mosquito had driven her + mother across Italy to the westward route—and now she could fill up + her gaps and see the Titians and Paul Veroneses she already knew in + colourless photographs, the Carpaccios, (the St. George series delighted + her beyond measure,) the Basaitis and that great statue of Bartolomeo + Colleoni that Ruskin praised. + </p> + <p> + But since I am not a man to look at pictures and architectural effects day + after day, I did watch Margaret very closely and store a thousand memories + of her. I can see her now, her long body drooping a little forward, her + sweet face upraised to some discovered familiar masterpiece and shining + with a delicate enthusiasm. I can hear again the soft cadences of her + voice murmuring commonplace comments, for she had no gift of expressing + the shapeless satisfaction these things gave her. + </p> + <p> + Margaret, I perceived, was a cultivated person, the first cultivated + person with whom I had ever come into close contact. She was cultivated + and moral, and I, I now realise, was never either of these things. She was + passive, and I am active. She did not simply and naturally look for beauty + but she had been incited to look for it at school, and took perhaps a + keener interest in books and lectures and all the organisation of + beautiful things than she did in beauty itself; she found much of her + delight in being guided to it. Now a thing ceases to be beautiful to me + when some finger points me out its merits. Beauty is the salt of life, but + I take my beauty as a wild beast gets its salt, as a constituent of the + meal.... + </p> + <p> + And besides, there was that between us that should have seemed more + beautiful than any picture.... + </p> + <p> + So we went about Venice tracking down pictures and spiral staircases and + such-like things, and my brains were busy all the time with such things as + a comparison of Venice and its nearest modern equivalent, New York, with + the elaboration of schemes of action when we returned to London, with the + development of a theory of Margaret. + </p> + <p> + Our marriage had done this much at least, that it had fused and destroyed + those two independent ways of thinking about her that had gone on in my + mind hitherto. Suddenly she had become very near to me, and a very big + thing, a sort of comprehensive generalisation behind a thousand questions, + like the sky or England. The judgments and understandings that had worked + when she was, so to speak, miles away from my life, had now to be + altogether revised. Trifling things began to matter enormously, that she + had a weak and easily fatigued back, for example, or that when she knitted + her brows and stammered a little in talking, it didn't really mean that an + exquisite significance struggled for utterance. + </p> + <p> + We visited pictures in the mornings chiefly. In the afternoon, unless we + were making a day-long excursion in a gondola, Margaret would rest for an + hour while I prowled about in search of English newspapers, and then we + would go to tea in the Piazza San Marco and watch the drift of people + feeding the pigeons and going into the little doors beneath the sunlit + arches and domes of Saint Mark's. Then perhaps we would stroll on the + Piazzetta, or go out into the sunset in a gondola. Margaret became very + interested in the shops that abound under the colonnades and decided at + last to make an extensive purchase of table glass. “These things,” she + said, “are quite beautiful, and far cheaper than anything but the most + ordinary looking English ware.” I was interested in her idea, and a good + deal charmed by the delightful qualities of tinted shape, slender handle + and twisted stem. I suggested we should get not simply tumblers and + wineglasses but bedroom waterbottles, fruit- and sweet-dishes, water-jugs, + and in the end we made quite a business-like afternoon of it. + </p> + <p> + I was beginning now to long quite definitely for events. Energy was + accumulating in me, and worrying me for an outlet. I found the TIMES and + the DAILY TELEGRAPH and the other papers I managed to get hold of, more + and more stimulating. I nearly wrote to the former paper one day in answer + to a letter by Lord Grimthorpe—I forget now upon what point. I + chafed secretly against this life of tranquil appreciations more and more. + I found my attitudes of restrained and delicate affection for Margaret + increasingly difficult to sustain. I surprised myself and her by little + gusts of irritability, gusts like the catspaws before a gale. I was + alarmed at these symptoms. + </p> + <p> + One night when Margaret had gone up to her room, I put on a light + overcoat, went out into the night and prowled for a long time through the + narrow streets, smoking and thinking. I returned and went and sat on the + edge of her bed to talk to her. + </p> + <p> + “Look here, Margaret,” I said; “this is all very well, but I'm restless.” + </p> + <p> + “Restless!” she said with a faint surprise in her voice. + </p> + <p> + “Yes. I think I want exercise. I've got a sort of feeling—I've never + had it before—as though I was getting fat.” + </p> + <p> + “My dear!” she cried. + </p> + <p> + “I want to do things;—ride horses, climb mountains, take the devil + out of myself.” + </p> + <p> + She watched me thoughtfully. + </p> + <p> + “Couldn't we DO something?” she said. + </p> + <p> + Do what? + </p> + <p> + “I don't know. Couldn't we perhaps go away from here soon—and walk + in the mountains—on our way home.” + </p> + <p> + I thought. “There seems to be no exercise at all in this place.” + </p> + <p> + “Isn't there some walk?” + </p> + <p> + “I wonder,” I answered. “We might walk to Chioggia perhaps, along the + Lido.” And we tried that, but the long stretch of beach fatigued + Margaret's back, and gave her blisters, and we never got beyond + Malamocco.... + </p> + <p> + A day or so after we went out to those pleasant black-robed, bearded + Armenians in their monastery at Saint Lazzaro, and returned towards + sundown. We fell into silence. “PIU LENTO,” said Margaret to the + gondolier, and released my accumulated resolution. + </p> + <p> + “Let us go back to London,” I said abruptly. + </p> + <p> + Margaret looked at me with surprised blue eyes. + </p> + <p> + “This is beautiful beyond measure, you know,” I said, sticking to my + point, “but I have work to do.” + </p> + <p> + She was silent for some seconds. “I had forgotten,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “So had I,” I sympathised, and took her hand. “Suddenly I have + remembered.” + </p> + <p> + She remained quite still. “There is so much to be done,” I said, almost + apologetically. + </p> + <p> + She looked long away from me across the lagoon and at last sighed, like + one who has drunk deeply, and turned to me. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose one ought not to be so happy,” she said. “Everything has been + so beautiful and so simple and splendid. And clean. It has been just With + You—the time of my life. It's a pity such things must end. But the + world is calling you, dear.... I ought not to have forgotten it. I thought + you were resting—and thinking. But if you are rested.—Would + you like us to start to-morrow?” + </p> + <p> + She looked at once so fragile and so devoted that on the spur of the + moment I relented, and we stayed in Venice four more days. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE FOURTH ~~ THE HOUSE IN WESTMINSTER + </h2> + <p> + 1 + </p> + <p> + Margaret had already taken a little house in Radnor Square, Westminster, + before our marriage, a house that seemed particularly adaptable to our + needs as public-spirited efficients; it had been very pleasantly painted + and papered under Margaret's instructions, white paint and clean open + purples and green predominating, and now we set to work at once upon the + interesting business of arranging and—with our Venetian glass as a + beginning—furnishing it. We had been fairly fortunate with our + wedding presents, and for the most part it was open to us to choose just + exactly what we would have and just precisely where we would put it. + </p> + <p> + Margaret had a sense of form and colour altogether superior to mine, and + so quite apart from the fact that it was her money equipped us, I stood + aside from all these matters and obeyed her summons to a consultation only + to endorse her judgment very readily. Until everything was settled I went + every day to my old rooms in Vincent Square and worked at a series of + papers that were originally intended for the FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW, the + papers that afterwards became my fourth book, “New Aspects of Liberalism.” + </p> + <p> + I still remember as delightful most of the circumstances of getting into + 79, Radnor Square. The thin flavour of indecision about Margaret + disappeared altogether in a shop; she had the precisest ideas of what she + wanted, and the devices of the salesman did not sway her. It was very + pleasant to find her taking things out of my hands with a certain + masterfulness, and showing the distinctest determination to make a house + in which I should be able to work in that great project of “doing + something for the world.” + </p> + <p> + “And I do want to make things pretty about us,” she said. “You don't think + it wrong to have things pretty?” + </p> + <p> + “I want them so.” + </p> + <p> + “Altiora has things hard.” + </p> + <p> + “Altiora,” I answered, “takes a pride in standing ugly and uncomfortable + things. But I don't see that they help her. Anyhow they won't help me.” + </p> + <p> + So Margaret went to the best shops and got everything very simple and very + good. She bought some pictures very well indeed; there was a little Sussex + landscape, full of wind and sunshine, by Nicholson, for my study, that hit + my taste far better than if I had gone out to get some such expression for + myself. + </p> + <p> + “We will buy a picture just now and then,” she said, “sometimes—when + we see one.” + </p> + <p> + I would come back through the January mire or fog from Vincent Square to + the door of 79, and reach it at last with a quite childish appreciation of + the fact that its solid Georgian proportions and its fine brass + furnishings belonged to MY home; I would use my latchkey and discover + Margaret in the warm-lit, spacious hall with a partially opened + packing-case, fatigued but happy, or go up to have tea with her out of the + right tea things, “come at last,” or be told to notice what was fresh + there. It wasn't simply that I had never had a house before, but I had + really never been, except in the most transitory way, in any house that + was nearly so delightful as mine promised to be. Everything was fresh and + bright, and softly and harmoniously toned. Downstairs we had a green + dining-room with gleaming silver, dark oak, and English colour-prints; + above was a large drawing-room that could be made still larger by throwing + open folding doors, and it was all carefully done in greys and blues, for + the most part with real Sheraton supplemented by Sheraton so skilfully + imitated by an expert Margaret had discovered as to be indistinguishable + except to a minute scrutiny. And for me, above this and next to my + bedroom, there was a roomy study, with specially thick stair-carpet + outside and thick carpets in the bedroom overhead and a big old desk for + me to sit at and work between fire and window, and another desk specially + made for me by that expert if I chose to stand and write, and open + bookshelves and bookcases and every sort of convenient fitting. There were + electric heaters beside the open fire, and everything was put for me to + make tea at any time—electric kettle, infuser, biscuits and fresh + butter, so that I could get up and work at any hour of the day or night. I + could do no work in this apartment for a long time, I was so interested in + the perfection of its arrangements. And when I brought in my books and + papers from Vincent Square, Margaret seized upon all the really shabby + volumes and had them re-bound in a fine official-looking leather. + </p> + <p> + I can remember sitting down at that desk and looking round me and feeling + with a queer effect of surprise that after all even a place in the + Cabinet, though infinitely remote, was nevertheless in the same large + world with these fine and quietly expensive things. + </p> + <p> + On the same floor Margaret had a “den,” a very neat and pretty den with + good colour-prints of Botticellis and Carpaccios, and there was a third + apartment for sectarial purposes should the necessity for them arise, with + a severe-looking desk equipped with patent files. And Margaret would come + flitting into the room to me, or appear noiselessly standing, a tall + gracefully drooping form, in the wide open doorway. “Is everything right, + dear?” she would ask. + </p> + <p> + “Come in,” I would say, “I'm sorting out papers.” + </p> + <p> + She would come to the hearthrug. + </p> + <p> + “I mustn't disturb you,” she would remark. + </p> + <p> + “I'm not busy yet.” + </p> + <p> + “Things are getting into order. Then we must make out a time-table as the + Baileys do, and BEGIN!” + </p> + <p> + Altiora came in to see us once or twice, and a number of serious young + wives known to Altiora called and were shown over the house, and discussed + its arrangements with Margaret. They were all tremendously keen on + efficient arrangements. + </p> + <p> + “A little pretty,” said Altiora, with the faintest disapproval, “still—” + </p> + <p> + It was clear she thought we should grow out of that. From the day of our + return we found other people's houses open to us and eager for us. We went + out of London for week-ends and dined out, and began discussing our + projects for reciprocating these hospitalities. As a single man + unattached, I had had a wide and miscellaneous social range, but now I + found myself falling into place in a set. For a time I acquiesced in this. + I went very little to my clubs, the Climax and the National Liberal, and + participated in no bachelor dinners at all. For a time, too, I dropped out + of the garrulous literary and journalistic circles I had frequented. I put + up for the Reform, not so much for the use of the club as a sign of + serious and substantial political standing. I didn't go up to Cambridge, I + remember, for nearly a year, so occupied was I with my new adjustments. + </p> + <p> + The people we found ourselves among at this time were people, to put it + roughly, of the Parliamentary candidate class, or people already actually + placed in the political world. They ranged between very considerable + wealth and such a hard, bare independence as old Willersley and the sister + who kept house for him possessed. There were quite a number of young + couples like ourselves, a little younger and more artless, or a little + older and more established. Among the younger men I had a sort of + distinction because of my Cambridge reputation and my writing, and + because, unlike them, I was an adventurer and had won and married my way + into their circles instead of being naturally there. They couldn't quite + reckon upon what I should do; they felt I had reserves of experience and + incalculable traditions. Close to us were the Cramptons, Willie Crampton, + who has since been Postmaster-General, rich and very important in + Rockshire, and his younger brother Edward, who has specialised in history + and become one of those unimaginative men of letters who are the glory of + latter-day England. Then there was Lewis, further towards Kensington, + where his cousins the Solomons and the Hartsteins lived, a brilliant + representative of his race, able, industrious and invariably uninspired, + with a wife a little in revolt against the racial tradition of feminine + servitude and inclined to the suffragette point of view, and Bunting + Harblow, an old blue, and with an erratic disposition well under the + control of the able little cousin he had married. I had known all these + men, but now (with Altiora floating angelically in benediction) they + opened their hearts to me and took me into their order. They were all like + myself, prospective Liberal candidates, with a feeling that the period of + wandering in the wilderness of opposition was drawing near its close. They + were all tremendously keen upon social and political service, and all + greatly under the sway of the ideal of a simple, strenuous life, a life + finding its satisfactions in political achievements and distinctions. The + young wives were as keen about it as the young husbands, Margaret most of + all, and I—whatever elements in me didn't march with the attitudes + and habits of this set were very much in the background during that time. + </p> + <p> + We would give little dinners and have evening gatherings at which + everything was very simple and very good, with a slight but perceptible + austerity, and there was more good fruit and flowers and less perhaps in + the way of savouries, patties and entrees than was customary. Sherry we + banished, and Marsala and liqueurs, and there was always good home-made + lemonade available. No men waited, but very expert parlourmaids. Our meat + was usually Welsh mutton—I don't know why, unless that mountains + have ever been the last refuge of the severer virtues. And we talked + politics and books and ideas and Bernard Shaw (who was a department by + himself and supposed in those days to be ethically sound at bottom), and + mingled with the intellectuals—I myself was, as it were, a promoted + intellectual. + </p> + <p> + The Cramptons had a tendency to read good things aloud on their less + frequented receptions, but I have never been able to participate + submissively in this hyper-digestion of written matter, and generally + managed to provoke a disruptive debate. We were all very earnest to make + the most of ourselves and to be and do, and I wonder still at times, with + an unassuaged perplexity, how it is that in that phase of utmost + earnestness I have always seemed to myself to be most remote from reality. + </p> + <p> + 2 + </p> + <p> + I look back now across the detaching intervention of sixteen crowded + years, critically and I fancy almost impartially, to those beginnings of + my married life. I try to recall something near to their proper order the + developing phases of relationship. I am struck most of all by the immense + unpremeditated, generous-spirited insincerities upon which Margaret and I + were building. + </p> + <p> + It seems to me that here I have to tell perhaps the commonest experience + of all among married educated people, the deliberate, shy, complex effort + to fill the yawning gaps in temperament as they appear, the sustained, + failing attempt to bridge abysses, level barriers, evade violent + pressures. I have come these latter years of my life to believe that it is + possible for a man and woman to be absolutely real with one another, to + stand naked souled to each other, unashamed and unafraid, because of the + natural all-glorifying love between them. It is possible to love and be + loved untroubling, as a bird flies through the air. But it is a rare and + intricate chance that brings two people within sight of that essential + union, and for the majority marriage must adjust itself on other terms. + Most coupled people never really look at one another. They look a little + away to preconceived ideas. And each from the first days of love-making + HIDES from the other, is afraid of disappointing, afraid of offending, + afraid of discoveries in either sense. They build not solidly upon the + rock of truth, but upon arches and pillars and queer provisional supports + that are needed to make a common foundation, and below in the imprisoned + darknesses, below the fine fabric they sustain together begins for each of + them a cavernous hidden life. Down there things may be prowling that + scarce ever peep out to consciousness except in the grey half-light of + sleepless nights, passions that flash out for an instant in an angry + glance and are seen no more, starved victims and beautiful dreams bricked + up to die. For the most of us there is no jail delivery of those inner + depths, and the life above goes on to its honourable end. + </p> + <p> + I have told how I loved Margaret and how I came to marry her. Perhaps + already unintentionally I have indicated the quality of the injustice our + marriage did us both. There was no kindred between us and no + understanding. We were drawn to one another by the unlikeness of our + quality, by the things we misunderstood in each other. I know a score of + couples who have married in that fashion. + </p> + <p> + Modern conditions and modern ideas, and in particular the intenser and + subtler perceptions of modern life, press more and more heavily upon a + marriage tie whose fashion comes from an earlier and less discriminating + time. When the wife was her husband's subordinate, meeting him simply and + uncritically for simple ends, when marriage was a purely domestic + relationship, leaving thought and the vivid things of life almost entirely + to the unencumbered man, mental and temperamental incompatibilities + mattered comparatively little. But now the wife, and particularly the + loving childless wife, unpremeditatedly makes a relentless demand for a + complete association, and the husband exacts unthought of delicacies of + understanding and co-operation. These are stupendous demands. People not + only think more fully and elaborately about life than they ever did + before, but marriage obliges us to make that ever more accidented progress + a three-legged race of carelessly assorted couples.... + </p> + <p> + Our very mental texture was different. I was rough-minded, to use the + phrase of William James, primary and intuitive and illogical; she was + tender-minded, logical, refined and secondary. She was loyal to pledge and + persons, sentimental and faithful; I am loyal to ideas and instincts, + emotional and scheming. My imagination moves in broad gestures; her's was + delicate with a real dread of extravagance. My quality is sensuous and + ruled by warm impulses; hers was discriminating and essentially + inhibitory. I like the facts of the case and to mention everything; I like + naked bodies and the jolly smells of things. She abounded in reservations, + in circumlocutions and evasions, in keenly appreciated secondary points. + Perhaps the reader knows that Tintoretto in the National Gallery, the + Origin of the Milky Way. It is an admirable test of temperamental quality. + In spite of my early training I have come to regard that picture as + altogether delightful; to Margaret it has always been “needlessly + offensive.” In that you have our fundamental breach. She had a habit, by + no means rare, of damning what she did not like or find sympathetic in me + on the score that it was not my “true self,” and she did not so much + accept the universe as select from it and do her best to ignore the rest. + And also I had far more initiative than had she. This is no catalogue of + rights and wrongs, or superiorities and inferiorities; it is a catalogue + of differences between two people linked in a relationship that constantly + becomes more intolerant of differences. + </p> + <p> + This is how we stood to each other, and none of it was clear to either of + us at the outset. To begin with, I found myself reserving myself from her, + then slowly apprehending a jarring between our minds and what seemed to me + at first a queer little habit of misunderstanding in her.... + </p> + <p> + It did not hinder my being very fond of her.... + </p> + <p> + Where our system of reservation became at once most usual and most + astounding was in our personal relations. It is not too much to say that + in that regard we never for a moment achieved sincerity with one another + during the first six years of our life together. It goes even deeper than + that, for in my effort to realise the ideal of my marriage I ceased even + to attempt to be sincere with myself. I would not admit my own perceptions + and interpretations. I tried to fit myself to her thinner and finer + determinations. There are people who will say with a note of approval that + I was learning to conquer myself. I record that much without any note of + approval.... + </p> + <p> + For some years I never deceived Margaret about any concrete fact nor, + except for the silence about my earlier life that she had almost forced + upon me, did I hide any concrete fact that seemed to affect her, but from + the outset I was guilty of immense spiritual concealments, my very + marriage was based, I see now, on a spiritual subterfuge; I hid moods from + her, pretended feelings.... + </p> + <p> + 3 + </p> + <p> + The interest and excitement of setting-up a house, of walking about it + from room to room and from floor to floor, or sitting at one's own dinner + table and watching one's wife control conversation with a pretty, timid + resolution, of taking a place among the secure and free people of our + world, passed almost insensibly into the interest and excitement of my + Parliamentary candidature for the Kinghamstead Division, that shapeless + chunk of agricultural midland between the Great Western and the North + Western railways. I was going to “take hold” at last, the Kinghamstead + Division was my appointed handle. I was to find my place in the rather + indistinctly sketched constructions that were implicit in the minds of all + our circle. The precise place I had to fill and the precise functions I + had to discharge were not as yet very clear, but all that, we felt sure, + would become plain as things developed. + </p> + <p> + A few brief months of vague activities of “nursing” gave place to the + excitements of the contest that followed the return of Mr. + Camphell-Bannerman to power in 1905. So far as the Kinghamstead Division + was concerned it was a depressed and tepid battle. I went about the + constituency making three speeches that were soon threadbare, and an odd + little collection of people worked for me; two solicitors, a cheap + photographer, a democratic parson, a number of dissenting ministers, the + Mayor of Kinghamstead, a Mrs. Bulger, the widow of an old Chartist who had + grown rich through electric traction patents, Sir Roderick Newton, a Jew + who had bought Calersham Castle, and old Sir Graham Rivers, that sturdy + old soldier, were among my chief supporters. We had headquarters in each + town and village, mostly there were empty shops we leased temporarily, and + there at least a sort of fuss and a coming and going were maintained. The + rest of the population stared in a state of suspended judgment as we went + about the business. The country was supposed to be in a state of + intellectual conflict and deliberate decision, in history it will no doubt + figure as a momentous conflict. Yet except for an occasional flare of + bill-sticking or a bill in a window or a placard-plastered motor-car or an + argumentative group of people outside a public-house or a sluggish + movement towards the schoolroom or village hall, there was scarcely a sign + that a great empire was revising its destinies. Now and then one saw a + canvasser on a doorstep. For the most part people went about their + business with an entirely irresponsible confidence in the stability of the + universe. At times one felt a little absurd with one's flutter of colours + and one's air of saving the country. + </p> + <p> + My opponent was a quite undistinguished Major-General who relied upon his + advocacy of Protection, and was particularly anxious we should avoid + “personalities” and fight the constituency in a gentlemanly spirit. He was + always writing me notes, apologising for excesses on the part of his + supporters, or pointing out the undesirability of some course taken by + mine. + </p> + <p> + My speeches had been planned upon broad lines, but they lost touch with + these as the polling approached. To begin with I made a real attempt to + put what was in my mind before the people I was to supply with a political + voice. I spoke of the greatness of our empire and its destinies, of the + splendid projects and possibilities of life and order that lay before the + world, of all that a resolute and constructive effort might do at the + present time. “We are building a state,” I said, “secure and splendid, we + are in the dawn of the great age of mankind.” Sometimes that would get a + solitary “'Ear! 'ear!” Then having created, as I imagined, a fine + atmosphere, I turned upon the history of the last Conservative + administration and brought it into contrast with the wide occasions of the + age; discussed its failure to control the grasping financiers in South + Africa, its failure to release public education from sectarian squabbles, + its misconduct of the Boer War, its waste of the world's resources.... + </p> + <p> + It soon became manifest that my opening and my general spaciousness of + method bored my audiences a good deal. The richer and wider my phrases the + thinner sounded my voice in these non-resonating gatherings. Even the + platform supporters grew restive unconsciously, and stirred and coughed. + They did not recognise themselves as mankind. Building an empire, + preparing a fresh stage in the history of humanity, had no appeal for + them. They were mostly everyday, toiling people, full of small personal + solicitudes, and they came to my meetings, I think, very largely as a + relaxation. This stuff was not relaxing. They did not think politics was a + great constructive process, they thought it was a kind of dog-fight. They + wanted fun, they wanted spice, they wanted hits, they wanted also a chance + to say “'Ear', 'ear!” in an intelligent and honourable manner and clap + their hands and drum with their feet. The great constructive process in + history gives so little scope for clapping and drumming and saying “'Ear, + 'ear!” One might as well think of hounding on the solar system. + </p> + <p> + So after one or two attempts to lift my audiences to the level of the + issues involved, I began to adapt myself to them. I cut down my review of + our imperial outlook and destinies more and more, and developed a series + of hits and anecdotes and—what shall I call them?—“crudifications” + of the issue. My helper's congratulated me on the rapid improvement of my + platform style. I ceased to speak of the late Prime Minister with the + respect I bore him, and began to fall in with the popular caricature of + him as an artful rabbit-witted person intent only on keeping his + leadership, in spite of the vigorous attempts of Mr. Joseph Chamberlain to + oust him therefrom. I ceased to qualify my statement that Protection would + make food dearer for the agricultural labourer. I began to speak of Mr. + Alfred Lyttelton as an influence at once insane and diabolical, as a man + inspired by a passionate desire to substitute manacled but still criminal + Chinese for honest British labourers throughout the world. And when it + came to the mention of our own kindly leader, of Mr. John Burns or any one + else of any prominence at all on our side I fell more and more into the + intonation of one who mentions the high gods. And I had my reward in + brighter meetings and readier and readier applause. + </p> + <p> + One goes on from phase to phase in these things. + </p> + <p> + “After all,” I told myself, “if one wants to get to Westminster one must + follow the road that leads there,” but I found the road nevertheless + rather unexpectedly distasteful. “When one gets there,” I said, “then it + is one begins.” + </p> + <p> + But I would lie awake at nights with that sore throat and headache and + fatigue which come from speaking in ill-ventilated rooms, and wondering + how far it was possible to educate a whole people to great political + ideals. Why should political work always rot down to personalities and + personal appeals in this way? Life is, I suppose, to begin with and end + with a matter of personalities, from personalities all our broader + interests arise and to personalities they return. All our social and + political effort, all of it, is like trying to make a crowd of people fall + into formation. The broader lines appear, but then come a rush and + excitement and irrelevancy, and forthwith the incipient order has vanished + and the marshals must begin the work over again! + </p> + <p> + My memory of all that time is essentially confusion. There was a frightful + lot of tiresome locomotion in it; for the Kinghamstead Division is + extensive, abounding in ill-graded and badly metalled cross-roads and + vicious little hills, and singularly unpleasing to the eye in a muddy + winter. It is sufficiently near to London to have undergone the same + process of ill-regulated expansion that made Bromstead the place it is. + Several of its overgrown villages have developed strings of factories and + sidings along the railway lines, and there is an abundance of petty + villas. There seemed to be no place at which one could take hold of more + than this or that element of the population. Now we met in a + meeting-house, now in a Masonic Hall or Drill Hall; I also did a certain + amount of open-air speaking in the dinner hour outside gas-works and + groups of factories. Some special sort of people was, as it were, secreted + in response to each special appeal. One said things carefully adjusted to + the distinctive limitations of each gathering. Jokes of an incredible + silliness and shallowness drifted about us. Our advisers made us declare + that if we were elected we would live in the district, and one hasty agent + had bills printed, “If Mr. Remington is elected he will live here.” The + enemy obtained a number of these bills and stuck them on outhouses, + pigstyes, dog-kennels; you cannot imagine how irksome the repetition of + that jest became. The vast drifting indifference in between my meetings + impressed me more and more. I realised the vagueness of my own plans as I + had never done before I brought them to the test of this experience. I was + perplexed by the riddle of just how far I was, in any sense of the word, + taking hold at all, how far I wasn't myself flowing into an accepted + groove. + </p> + <p> + Margaret was troubled by no such doubts. She was clear I had to go into + Parliament on the side of Liberalism and the light, as against the late + Government and darkness. Essential to the memory of my first contest, is + the memory of her clear bright face, very resolute and grave, helping me + consciously, steadfastly, with all her strength. Her quiet confidence, + while I was so dissatisfied, worked curiously towards the alienation of my + sympathies. I felt she had no business to be so sure of me. I had moments + of vivid resentment at being thus marched towards Parliament. + </p> + <p> + I seemed now always to be discovering alien forces of character in her. + Her way of taking life diverged from me more and more. She sounded + amazing, independent notes. She bought some particularly costly furs for + the campaign that roused enthusiasm whenever she appeared. She also made + me a birthday present in November of a heavily fur-trimmed coat and this + she would make me remove as I went on to the platform, and hold over her + arm until I was ready to resume it. It was fearfully heavy for her and she + liked it to be heavy for her. That act of servitude was in essence a + towering self-assertion. I would glance sideways while some chairman + floundered through his introduction and see the clear blue eye with which + she regarded the audience, which existed so far as she was concerned + merely to return me to Parliament. It was a friendly eye, provided they + were not silly or troublesome. But it kindled a little at the hint of a + hostile question. After we had come so far and taken so much trouble! + </p> + <p> + She constituted herself the dragoman of our political travels. In hotels + she was serenely resolute for the quietest and the best, she rejected all + their proposals for meals and substituted a severely nourishing dietary of + her own, and even in private houses she astonished me by her tranquil + insistence upon special comforts and sustenance. I can see her face now as + it would confront a hostess, a little intent, but sweetly resolute and + assured. + </p> + <p> + Since our marriage she had read a number of political memoirs, and she had + been particularly impressed by the career of Mrs. Gladstone. I don't think + it occurred to her to compare and contrast my quality with that of Mrs. + Gladstone's husband. I suspect her of a deliberate intention of achieving + parallel results by parallel methods. I was to be Gladstonised. Gladstone + it appeared used to lubricate his speeches with a mixture—if my + memory serves me right—of egg beaten up in sherry, and Margaret was + very anxious I should take a leaf from that celebrated book. She wanted, I + know, to hold the glass in her hand while I was speaking. + </p> + <p> + But here I was firm. “No,” I said, very decisively, “simply I won't stand + that. It's a matter of conscience. I shouldn't feel—democratic. I'll + take my chance of the common water in the carafe on the chairman's table.” + </p> + <p> + “I DO wish you wouldn't,” she said, distressed. + </p> + <p> + It was absurd to feel irritated; it was so admirable of her, a little + childish, infinitely womanly and devoted and fine—and I see now how + pathetic. But I could not afford to succumb to her. I wanted to follow my + own leading, to see things clearly, and this reassuring pose of a high + destiny, of an almost terribly efficient pursuit of a fixed end when as a + matter of fact I had a very doubtful end and an aim as yet by no means + fixed, was all too seductive for dalliance.... + </p> + <p> + 4 + </p> + <p> + And into all these things with the manner of a trifling and casual + incident comes the figure of Isabel Rivers. My first impressions of her + were of a rather ugly and ungainly, extraordinarily interesting schoolgirl + with a beautiful quick flush under her warm brown skin, who said and did + amusing and surprising things. When first I saw her she was riding a very + old bicycle downhill with her feet on the fork of the frame—it + seemed to me to the public danger, but afterwards I came to understand the + quality of her nerve better—and on the third occasion she was for + her own private satisfaction climbing a tree. On the intervening occasion + we had what seems now to have been a long sustained conversation about the + political situation and the books and papers I had written. + </p> + <p> + I wonder if it was. + </p> + <p> + What a delightful mixture of child and grave woman she was at that time, + and how little I reckoned on the part she would play in my life! And since + she has played that part, how impossible it is to tell now of those early + days! Since I wrote that opening paragraph to this section my idle pen has + been, as it were, playing by itself and sketching faces on the blotting + pad—one impish wizened visage is oddly like little Bailey—and + I have been thinking cheek on fist amidst a limitless wealth of memories. + She sits below me on the low wall under the olive trees with our little + child in her arms. She is now the central fact in my life. It still seems + a little incredible that that should be so. She has destroyed me as a + politician, brought me to this belated rebeginning of life. When I sit + down and try to make her a girl again, I feel like the Arabian fisherman + who tried to put the genius back into the pot from which it had spread + gigantic across the skies.... + </p> + <p> + I have a very clear vision of her rush downhill past our labouring + ascendant car—my colours fluttered from handle-bar and shoulder-knot—and + her waving hand and the sharp note of her voice. She cried out something, + I don't know what, some greeting. + </p> + <p> + “What a pretty girl!” said Margaret. + </p> + <p> + Parvill, the cheap photographer, that industrious organiser for whom by + way of repayment I got those magic letters, that knighthood of the + underlings, “J. P.” was in the car with us and explained her to us. “One + of the best workers you have,” he said.... + </p> + <p> + And then after a toilsome troubled morning we came, rather cross from the + strain of sustained amiability, to Sir Graham Rivers' house. It seemed all + softness and quiet—I recall dead white panelling and oval mirrors + horizontally set and a marble fireplace between white marble-blind Homer + and marble-blind Virgil, very grave and fine—and how Isabel came in + to lunch in a shapeless thing like a blue smock that made her bright + quick-changing face seem yellow under her cloud of black hair. Her + step-sister was there, Miss Gamer, to whom the house was to descend, a + well-dressed lady of thirty, amiably disavowing responsibility for Isabel + in every phrase and gesture. And there was a very pleasant doctor, an + Oxford man, who seemed on excellent terms with every one. It was manifest + that he was in the habit of sparring with the girl, but on this occasion + she wasn't sparring and refused to be teased into a display in spite of + the taunts of either him or her father. She was, they discovered with + rising eyebrows, shy. It seemed an opportunity too rare for them to miss. + They proclaimed her enthusiasm for me in a way that brought a flush to her + cheek and a look into her eye between appeal and defiance. They declared + she had read my books, which I thought at the time was exaggeration, their + dry political quality was so distinctly not what one was accustomed to + regard as schoolgirl reading. Miss Gamer protested to protect her, “When + once in a blue moon Isabel is well-behaved....!” + </p> + <p> + Except for these attacks I do not remember much of the conversation at + table; it was, I know, discursive and concerned with the sort of + topographical and social and electioneering fact natural to such a visit. + Old Rivers struck me as a delightful person, modestly unconscious of his + doubly-earned V. C. and the plucky defence of Kardin-Bergat that won his + baronetcy. He was that excellent type, the soldier radical, and we began + that day a friendship that was only ended by his death in the + hunting-field three years later. He interested Margaret into a disregard + of my plate and the fact that I had secured the illegal indulgence of + Moselle. After lunch we went for coffee into another low room, this time + brown panelled and looking through French windows on a red-walled garden, + graceful even in its winter desolation. And there the conversation + suddenly picked up and became good. It had fallen to a pause, and the + doctor, with an air of definitely throwing off a mask and wrecking an + established tranquillity, remarked: “Very probably you Liberals will come + in, though I'm not sure you'll come in so mightily as you think, but what + you do when you do come in passes my comprehension.” + </p> + <p> + “There's good work sometimes,” said Sir Graham, “in undoing.” + </p> + <p> + “You can't govern a great empire by amending and repealing the Acts of + your predecessors,” said the doctor. + </p> + <p> + There came that kind of pause that happens when a subject is broached too + big and difficult for the gathering. Margaret's blue eyes regarded the + speaker with quiet disapproval for a moment, and then came to me in the + not too confident hope that I would snub him out of existence with some + prompt rhetorical stroke. A voice spoke out of the big armchair. + </p> + <p> + “We'll do things,” said Isabel. + </p> + <p> + The doctor's eye lit with the joy of the fisherman who strikes his fish at + last. “What will you do?” he asked her. + </p> + <p> + “Every one knows we're a mixed lot,” said Isabel. + </p> + <p> + “Poor old chaps like me!” interjected the general. + </p> + <p> + “But that's not a programme,” said the doctor. + </p> + <p> + “But Mr. Remington has published a programme,” said Isabel. + </p> + <p> + The doctor cocked half an eye at me. + </p> + <p> + “In some review,” the girl went on. “After all, we're not going to elect + the whole Liberal party in the Kinghamstead Division. I'm a + Remington-ite!” + </p> + <p> + “But the programme,” said the doctor, “the programme—” + </p> + <p> + “In front of Mr. Remington!” + </p> + <p> + “Scandal always comes home at last,” said the doctor. “Let him hear the + worst.” + </p> + <p> + “I'd like to hear,” I said. “Electioneering shatters convictions and + enfeebles the mind.” + </p> + <p> + “Not mine,” said Isabel stoutly. “I mean—Well, anyhow I take it Mr. + Remington stands for constructing a civilised state out of this muddle.” + </p> + <p> + “THIS muddle,” protested the doctor with an appeal of the eye to the + beautiful long room and the ordered garden outside the bright clean + windows. + </p> + <p> + “Well, THAT muddle, if you like! There's a slum within a mile of us + already. The dust and blacks get worse and worse, Sissie?” + </p> + <p> + “They do,” agreed Miss Gamer. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Remington stands for construction, order, education, discipline.” + </p> + <p> + “And you?” said the doctor. + </p> + <p> + “I'm a good Remington-ite.” + </p> + <p> + “Discipline!” said the doctor. + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” said Isabel. “At times one has to be—Napoleonic. They want to + libel me, Mr. Remington. A political worker can't always be in time for + meals, can she? At times one has to make—splendid cuts.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Gamer said something indistinctly. + </p> + <p> + “Order, education, discipline,” said Sir Graham. “Excellent things! But + I've a sort of memory—in my young days—we talked about + something called liberty.” + </p> + <p> + “Liberty under the law,” I said, with an unexpected approving murmur from + Margaret, and took up the defence. “The old Liberal definition of liberty + was a trifle uncritical. Privilege and legal restrictions are not the only + enemies of liberty. An uneducated, underbred, and underfed propertyless + man is a man who has lost the possibility of liberty. There's no liberty + worth a rap for him. A man who is swimming hopelessly for life wants + nothing but the liberty to get out of the water; he'll give every other + liberty for it—until he gets out.” + </p> + <p> + Sir Graham took me up and we fell into a discussion of the changing + qualities of Liberalism. It was a good give-and-take talk, extraordinarily + refreshing after the nonsense and crowding secondary issues of the + electioneering outside. We all contributed more or less except Miss Gamer; + Margaret followed with knitted brows and occasional interjections. “People + won't SEE that,” for example, and “It all seems so plain to me.” The + doctor showed himself clever but unsubstantial and inconsistent. Isabel + sat back with her black mop of hair buried deep in the chair looking + quickly from face to face. Her colour came and went with her vivid + intellectual excitement; occasionally she would dart a word, usually a + very apt word, like a lizard's tongue into the discussion. I remember + chiefly that a chance illustration betrayed that she had read Bishop + Burnet.... + </p> + <p> + After that it was not surprising that Isabel should ask for a lift in our + car as far as the Lurky Committee Room, and that she should offer me quite + sound advice EN ROUTE upon the intellectual temperament of the Lurky + gasworkers. + </p> + <p> + On the third occasion that I saw Isabel she was, as I have said, climbing + a tree—and a very creditable tree—for her own private + satisfaction. It was a lapse from the high seriousness of politics, and I + perceived she felt that I might regard it as such and attach too much + importance to it. I had some difficulty in reassuring her. And it's odd to + note now—it has never occurred to me before—that from that day + to this I do not think I have ever reminded Isabel of that encounter. + </p> + <p> + And after that memory she seems to be flickering about always in the + election, an inextinguishable flame; now she flew by on her bicycle, now + she dashed into committee rooms, now she appeared on doorsteps in animated + conversation with dubious voters; I took every chance I could to talk to + her—I had never met anything like her before in the world, and she + interested me immensely—and before the polling day she and I had + become, in the frankest simplicity, fast friends.... + </p> + <p> + That, I think, sets out very fairly the facts of our early relationship. + But it is hard to get it true, either in form or texture, because of the + bright, translucent, coloured, and refracting memories that come between. + One forgets not only the tint and quality of thoughts and impressions + through that intervening haze, one forgets them altogether. I don't + remember now that I ever thought in those days of passionate love or the + possibility of such love between us. I may have done so again and again. + But I doubt it very strongly. I don't think I ever thought of such + aspects. I had no more sense of any danger between us, seeing the years + and things that separated us, than I could have had if she had been an + intelligent bright-eyed bird. Isabel came into my life as a new sort of + thing; she didn't join on at all to my previous experiences of womanhood. + They were not, as I have laboured to explain, either very wide or very + penetrating experiences, on the whole, “strangled dinginess” expresses + them, but I do not believe they were narrower or shallower than those of + many other men of my class. I thought of women as pretty things and + beautiful things, pretty rather than beautiful, attractive and at times + disconcertingly attractive, often bright and witty, but, because of the + vast reservations that hid them from me, wanting, subtly and inevitably + wanting, in understanding. My idealisation of Margaret had evaporated + insensibly after our marriage. The shrine I had made for her in my private + thoughts stood at last undisguisedly empty. But Isabel did not for a + moment admit of either idealisation or interested contempt. She opened a + new sphere of womanhood to me. With her steady amber-brown eyes, her + unaffected interest in impersonal things, her upstanding waistless blue + body, her energy, decision and courage, she seemed rather some new and + infinitely finer form of boyhood than a feminine creature, as I had come + to measure femininity. She was my perfect friend. Could I have foreseen, + had my world been more wisely planned, to this day we might have been such + friends. + </p> + <p> + She seemed at that time unconscious of sex, though she has told me since + how full she was of protesting curiosities and restrained emotions. She + spoke, as indeed she has always spoken, simply, clearly, and vividly; + schoolgirl slang mingled with words that marked ample voracious reading, + and she moved quickly with the free directness of some graceful young + animal. She took many of the easy freedoms a man or a sister might have + done with me. She would touch my arm, lay a hand on my shoulder as I sat, + adjust the lapel of a breast-pocket as she talked to me. She says now she + loved me always from the beginning. I doubt if there was a suspicion of + that in her mind those days. I used to find her regarding me with the + clearest, steadiest gaze in the world, exactly like the gaze of some nice + healthy innocent animal in a forest, interested, inquiring, speculative, + but singularly untroubled.... + </p> + <p> + 5 + </p> + <p> + Polling day came after a last hoarse and dingy crescendo. The excitement + was not of the sort that makes one forget one is tired out. The waiting + for the end of the count has left a long blank mark on my memory, and then + everyone was shaking my hand and repeating: “Nine hundred and + seventy-six.” + </p> + <p> + My success had been a foregone conclusion since the afternoon, but we all + behaved as though we had not been anticipating this result for hours, as + though any other figures but nine hundred and seventy-six would have meant + something entirely different. “Nine hundred and seventy-six!” said + Margaret. “They didn't expect three hundred.” + </p> + <p> + “Nine hundred and seventy-six,” said a little short man with a paper. “It + means a big turnover. Two dozen short of a thousand, you know.” + </p> + <p> + A tremendous hullaboo began outside, and a lot of fresh people came into + the room. + </p> + <p> + Isabel, flushed but not out of breath, Heaven knows where she had sprung + from at that time of night! was running her hand down my sleeve almost + caressingly, with the innocent bold affection of a girl. “Got you in!” she + said. “It's been no end of a lark.” + </p> + <p> + “And now,” said I, “I must go and be constructive.” + </p> + <p> + “Now you must go and be constructive,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “You've got to live here,” she added. + </p> + <p> + “By Jove! yes,” I said. “We'll have to house hunt.” + </p> + <p> + “I shall read all your speeches.” + </p> + <p> + She hesitated. + </p> + <p> + “I wish I was you,” she said, and said it as though it was not exactly the + thing she was meaning to say. + </p> + <p> + “They want you to speak,” said Margaret, with something unsaid in her + face. + </p> + <p> + “You must come out with me,” I answered, putting my arm through hers, and + felt someone urging me to the French windows that gave on the balcony. + </p> + <p> + “If you think—” she said, yielding gladly + </p> + <p> + “Oh, RATHER!” said I. + </p> + <p> + The Mayor of Kinghamstead, a managing little man with no great belief in + my oratorical powers, was sticking his face up to mine. + </p> + <p> + “It's all over,” he said, “and you've won. Say all the nice things you can + and say them plainly.” + </p> + <p> + I turned and handed Margaret out through the window and stood looking over + the Market-place, which was more than half filled with swaying people. The + crowd set up a roar of approval at the sight of us, tempered by a little + booing. Down in one corner of the square a fight was going on for a flag, + a fight that even the prospect of a speech could not instantly check. + “Speech!” cried voices, “Speech!” and then a brief “boo-oo-oo” that was + drowned in a cascade of shouts and cheers. The conflict round the flag + culminated in the smashing of a pane of glass in the chemist's window and + instantly sank to peace. + </p> + <p> + “Gentlemen voters of the Kinghamstead Division,” I began. + </p> + <p> + “Votes for Women!” yelled a voice, amidst laughter—the first time I + remember hearing that memorable war-cry. + </p> + <p> + “Three cheers for Mrs. Remington!” + </p> + <p> + “Mrs. Remington asks me to thank you,” I said, amidst further uproar and + reiterated cries of “Speech!” + </p> + <p> + Then silence came with a startling swiftness. + </p> + <p> + Isabel was still in my mind, I suppose. “I shall go to Westminster,” I + began. I sought for some compelling phrase and could not find one. “To do + my share,” I went on, “in building up a great and splendid civilisation.” + </p> + <p> + I paused, and there was a weak gust of cheering, and then a renewal of + booing. + </p> + <p> + “This election,” I said, “has been the end and the beginning of much. New + ideas are abroad—” + </p> + <p> + “Chinese labour,” yelled a voice, and across the square swept a wildfire + of booting and bawling. + </p> + <p> + It is one of the few occasions when I quite lost my hold on a speech. I + glanced sideways and saw the Mayor of Kinghamstead speaking behind his + hand to Parvill. By a happy chance Parvill caught my eye. + </p> + <p> + “What do they want?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Eh?” + </p> + <p> + “What do they want?” + </p> + <p> + “Say something about general fairness—the other side,” prompted + Parvill, flattered but a little surprised by my appeal. I pulled myself + hastily into a more popular strain with a gross eulogy of my opponent's + good taste. + </p> + <p> + “Chinese labour!” cried the voice again. + </p> + <p> + “You've given that notice to quit,” I answered. + </p> + <p> + The Market-place roared delight, but whether that delight expressed + hostility to Chinamen or hostility to their practical enslavement no + student of the General Election of 1906 has ever been able to determine. + Certainly one of the most effective posters on our side displayed a + hideous yellow face, just that and nothing more. There was not even a + legend to it. How it impressed the electorate we did not know, but that it + impressed the electorate profoundly there can be no disputing. + </p> + <p> + 6 + </p> + <p> + Kinghamstead was one of the earliest constituencies fought, and we came + back—it must have been Saturday—triumphant but very tired, to + our house in Radnor Square. In the train we read the first intimations + that the victory of our party was likely to be a sweeping one. + </p> + <p> + Then came a period when one was going about receiving and giving + congratulations and watching the other men arrive, very like a boy who has + returned to school with the first batch after the holidays. The London + world reeked with the General Election; it had invaded the nurseries. All + the children of one's friends had got big maps of England cut up into + squares to represent constituencies and were busy sticking gummed blue + labels over the conquered red of Unionism that had hitherto submerged the + country. And there were also orange labels, if I remember rightly, to + represent the new Labour party, and green for the Irish. I engaged myself + to speak at one or two London meetings, and lunched at the Reform, which + was fairly tepid, and dined and spent one or two tumultuous evenings at + the National Liberal Club, which was in active eruption. The National + Liberal became feverishly congested towards midnight as the results of the + counting came dropping in. A big green-baize screen had been fixed up at + one end of the large smoking-room with the names of the constituencies + that were voting that day, and directly the figures came to hand, up they + went, amidst cheers that at last lost their energy through sheer + repetition, whenever there was record of a Liberal gain. I don't remember + what happened when there was a Liberal loss; I don't think that any were + announced while I was there. + </p> + <p> + How packed and noisy the place was, and what a reek of tobacco and whisky + fumes we made! Everybody was excited and talking, making waves of harsh + confused sound that beat upon one's ears, and every now and then hoarse + voices would shout for someone to speak. Our little set was much in + evidence. Both the Cramptons were in, Lewis, Bunting Harblow. We gave + brief addresses attuned to this excitement and the late hour, amidst much + enthusiasm. + </p> + <p> + “Now we can DO things!” I said amidst a rapture of applause. Men I did not + know from Adam held up glasses and nodded to me in solemn fuddled approval + as I came down past them into the crowd again. + </p> + <p> + Men were betting whether the Unionists would lose more or less than two + hundred seats. + </p> + <p> + “I wonder just what we shall do with it all,” I heard one sceptic + speculating.... + </p> + <p> + After these orgies I would get home very tired and excited, and find it + difficult to get to sleep. I would lie and speculate about what it was we + WERE going to do. One hadn't anticipated quite such a tremendous accession + to power for one's party. Liberalism was swirling in like a flood.... + </p> + <p> + I found the next few weeks very unsatisfactory and distressing. I don't + clearly remember what it was I had expected; I suppose the fuss and strain + of the General Election had built up a feeling that my return would in + some way put power into my hands, and instead I found myself a mere + undistinguished unit in a vast but rather vague majority. There were + moments when I felt very distinctly that a majority could be too big a + crowd altogether. I had all my work still before me, I had achieved + nothing as yet but opportunity, and a very crowded opportunity it was at + that. Everyone about me was chatting Parliament and appointments; one + breathed distracting and irritating speculations as to what would be done + and who would be asked to do it. I was chiefly impressed by what was + unlikely to be done and by the absence of any general plan of legislation + to hold us all together. I found the talk about Parliamentary procedure + and etiquette particularly trying. We dined with the elder Cramptons one + evening, and old Sir Edward was lengthily sage about what the House liked, + what it didn't like, what made a good impression and what a bad one. “A + man shouldn't speak more than twice in his first session, and not at first + on too contentious a topic,” said Sir Edward. “No.” + </p> + <p> + “Very much depends on manner. The House hates a lecturer. There's a sort + of airy earnestness—” + </p> + <p> + He waved his cigar to eke out his words. + </p> + <p> + “Little peculiarities of costume count for a great deal. I could name one + man who spent three years living down a pair of spatterdashers. On the + other hand—a thing like that—if it catches the eye of the + PUNCH man, for example, may be your making.” + </p> + <p> + He went off into a lengthy speculation of why the House had come to like + an originally unpopular Irishman named Biggar.... + </p> + <p> + The opening of Parliament gave me some peculiar moods. I began to feel + more and more like a branded sheep. We were sworn in in batches, dozens + and scores of fresh men, trying not to look too fresh under the inspection + of policemen and messengers, all of us carrying new silk hats and wearing + magisterial coats. It is one of my vivid memories from this period, the + sudden outbreak of silk hats in the smoking-room of the National Liberal + Club. At first I thought there must have been a funeral. Familiar faces + that one had grown to know under soft felt hats, under bowlers, under + liberal-minded wide brims, and above artistic ties and tweed jackets, + suddenly met one, staring with the stern gaze of self-consciousness, from + under silk hats of incredible glossiness. There was a disposition to wear + the hat much too forward, I thought, for a good Parliamentary style. + </p> + <p> + There was much play with the hats all through; a tremendous competition to + get in first and put hats on coveted seats. A memory hangs about me of the + House in the early afternoon, an inhumane desolation inhabited almost + entirely by silk hats. The current use of cards to secure seats came + later. There were yards and yards of empty green benches with hats and + hats and hats distributed along them, resolute-looking top hats, lax top + hats with a kind of shadowy grin under them, sensible top bats brim + upward, and one scandalous incontinent that had rolled from the front + Opposition bench right to the middle of the floor. A headless hat is + surely the most soulless thing in the world, far worse even than a + skull.... + </p> + <p> + At last, in a leisurely muddled manner we got to the Address; and I found + myself packed in a dense elbowing crowd to the right of the Speaker's + chair; while the attenuated Opposition, nearly leaderless after the + massacre, tilted its brim to its nose and sprawled at its ease amidst its + empty benches. + </p> + <p> + There was a tremendous hullaboo about something, and I craned to see over + the shoulder of the man in front. “Order, order, order!” + </p> + <p> + “What's it about?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + The man in front of me was clearly no better informed, and then I gathered + from a slightly contemptuous Scotchman beside me that it was Chris + Robinson had walked between the honourable member in possession of the + house and the Speaker. I caught a glimpse of him blushingly whispering + about his misadventure to a colleague. He was just that same little figure + I had once assisted to entertain at Cambridge, but grey-haired now, and + still it seemed with the same knitted muffler he had discarded for a + reckless half-hour while he talked to us in Hatherleigh's rooms. + </p> + <p> + It dawned upon me that I wasn't particularly wanted in the House, and that + I should get all I needed of the opening speeches next day from the TIMES. + </p> + <p> + I made my way out and was presently walking rather aimlessly through the + outer lobby. + </p> + <p> + I caught myself regarding the shadow that spread itself out before me, + multiplied itself in blue tints of various intensity, shuffled itself like + a pack of cards under the many lights, the square shoulders, the silk hat, + already worn with a parliamentary tilt backward; I found I was surveying + this statesmanlike outline with a weak approval. “A MEMBER!” I felt the + little cluster of people that were scattered about the lobby must be + saying. + </p> + <p> + “Good God!” I said in hot reaction, “what am I doing here?” + </p> + <p> + It was one of those moments infinitely trivial in themselves, that yet are + cardinal in a man's life. It came to me with extreme vividness that it + wasn't so much that I had got hold of something as that something had got + hold of me. I distinctly recall the rebound of my mind. Whatever happened + in this Parliament, I at least would attempt something. “By God!” I said, + “I won't be overwhelmed. I am here to do something, and do something I + will!” + </p> + <p> + But I felt that for the moment I could not remain in the House. + </p> + <p> + I went out by myself with my thoughts into the night. It was a chilling + night, and rare spots of rain were falling. I glanced over my shoulder at + the lit windows of the Lords. I walked, I remember, westward, and + presently came to the Grosvenar Embankment and followed it, watching the + glittering black rush of the river and the dark, dimly lit barges round + which the water swirled. Across the river was the hunched sky-line of + Doulton's potteries, and a kiln flared redly. Dimly luminous trams were + gliding amidst a dotted line of lamps, and two little trains crawled into + Waterloo station. Mysterious black figures came by me and were suddenly + changed to the commonplace at the touch of the nearer lamps. It was a big + confused world, I felt, for a man to lay his hands upon. + </p> + <p> + I remember I crossed Vauxhall Bridge and stood for a time watching the + huge black shapes in the darkness under the gas-works. A shoal of coal + barges lay indistinctly on the darkly shining mud and water below, and a + colossal crane was perpetually hauling up coal into mysterious blacknesses + above, and dropping the empty clutch back to the barges. Just one or two + minute black featureless figures of men toiled amidst these monster + shapes. They did not seem to be controlling them but only moving about + among them. These gas-works have a big chimney that belches a lurid flame + into the night, a livid shivering bluish flame, shot with strange crimson + streaks.... + </p> + <p> + On the other side of Lambeth Bridge broad stairs go down to the lapping + water of the river; the lower steps are luminous under the lamps and one + treads unwarned into thick soft Thames mud. They seem to be purely + architectural steps, they lead nowhere, they have an air of absolute + indifference to mortal ends. + </p> + <p> + Those shapes and large inhuman places—for all of mankind that one + sees at night about Lambeth is minute and pitiful beside the industrial + monsters that snort and toil there—mix up inextricably with my + memories of my first days as a legislator. Black figures drift by me, + heavy vans clatter, a newspaper rough tears by on a motor bicycle, and + presently, on the Albert Embankment, every seat has its one or two + outcasts huddled together and slumbering. + </p> + <p> + “These things come, these things go,” a whispering voice urged upon me, + “as once those vast unmeaning Saurians whose bones encumber museums came + and went rejoicing noisily in fruitless lives.”... + </p> + <p> + Fruitless lives!—was that the truth of it all?... + </p> + <p> + Later I stood within sight of the Houses of Parliament in front of the + colonnades of St Thomas's Hospital. I leant on the parapet close by a + lamp-stand of twisted dolphins—and I prayed! + </p> + <p> + I remember the swirl of the tide upon the water, and how a string of + barges presently came swinging and bumping round as high-water turned to + ebb. That sudden change of position and my brief perplexity at it, sticks + like a paper pin through the substance of my thoughts. It was then I was + moved to prayer. I prayed that night that life might not be in vain, that + in particular I might not live in vain. I prayed for strength and faith, + that the monstrous blundering forces in life might not overwhelm me, might + not beat me back to futility and a meaningless acquiescence in existent + things. I knew myself for the weakling I was, I knew that nevertheless it + was set for me to make such order as I could out of these disorders, and + my task cowed me, gave me at the thought of it a sense of yielding + feebleness. + </p> + <p> + “Break me, O God,” I prayed at last, “disgrace me, torment me, destroy me + as you will, but save me from self-complacency and little interests and + little successes and the life that passes like the shadow of a dream.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + BOOK THE THIRD: THE HEART OF POLITICS + </h2> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE FIRST ~~ THE RIDDLE FOR THE STATESMAN + </h2> + <p> + 1 + </p> + <p> + I have been planning and replanning, writing and rewriting, this next + portion of my book for many days. I perceive I must leave it raw edged and + ill joined. I have learnt something of the impossibility of History. For + all I have had to tell is the story of one man's convictions and aims and + how they reacted upon his life; and I find it too subtle and involved and + intricate for the doing. I find it taxes all my powers to convey even the + main forms and forces in that development. It is like looking through + moving media of changing hue and variable refraction at something vitally + unstable. Broad theories and generalisations are mingled with personal + influences, with prevalent prejudices; and not only coloured but altered + by phases of hopefulness and moods of depression. The web is made up of + the most diverse elements, beyond treatment multitudinous.... For a week + or so I desisted altogether, and walked over the mountains and returned to + sit through the warm soft mornings among the shaded rocks above this + little perched-up house of ours, discussing my difficulties with Isabel + and I think on the whole complicating them further in the effort to + simplify them to manageable and stateable elements. + </p> + <p> + Let me, nevertheless, attempt a rough preliminary analysis of this + confused process. A main strand is quite easily traceable. This main + strand is the story of my obvious life, my life as it must have looked to + most of my acquaintances. It presents you with a young couple, bright, + hopeful, and energetic, starting out under Altiora's auspices to make a + career. You figure us well dressed and active, running about in + motor-cars, visiting in great people's houses, dining amidst brilliant + companies, going to the theatre, meeting in the lobby. Margaret wore + hundreds of beautiful dresses. We must have had an air of succeeding + meritoriously during that time. + </p> + <p> + We did very continually and faithfully serve our joint career. I thought + about it a great deal, and did and refrained from doing ten thousand + things for the sake of it. I kept up a solicitude for it, as it were by + inertia, long after things had happened and changes occurred in me that + rendered its completion impossible. Under certain very artless pretences, + we wanted steadfastly to make a handsome position in the world, achieve + respect, SUCCEED. Enormous unseen changes had been in progress for years + in my mind and the realities of my life, before our general circle could + have had any inkling of their existence, or suspected the appearances of + our life. Then suddenly our proceedings began to be deflected, our outward + unanimity visibly strained and marred by the insurgence of these so + long-hidden developments. + </p> + <p> + That career had its own hidden side, of course; but when I write of these + unseen factors I do not mean that but something altogether broader. I do + not mean the everyday pettinesses which gave the cynical observer scope + and told of a narrower, baser aspect of the fair but limited ambitions of + my ostensible self. This “sub-careerist” element noted little things that + affected the career, made me suspicious of the rivalry of so-and-so, + propitiatory to so-and-so, whom, as a matter of fact, I didn't respect or + feel in the least sympathetic towards; guarded with that man, who for all + his charm and interest wasn't helpful, and a little touchy at the + appearance of neglect from that. No, I mean something greater and not + something smaller when I write of a hidden life. + </p> + <p> + In the ostensible self who glowed under the approbation of Altiora Bailey, + and was envied and discussed, praised and depreciated, in the House and in + smoking-room gossip, you really have as much of a man as usually figures + in a novel or an obituary notice. But I am tremendously impressed now in + the retrospect by the realisation of how little that frontage represented + me, and just how little such frontages do represent the complexities of + the intelligent contemporary. Behind it, yet struggling to disorganise and + alter it, altogether, was a far more essential reality, a self less + personal, less individualised, and broader in its references. Its aims + were never simply to get on; it had an altogether different system of + demands and satisfactions. It was critical, curious, more than a little + unfeeling—and relentlessly illuminating. + </p> + <p> + It is just the existence and development of this more generalised + self-behind-the-frontage that is making modern life so much more subtle + and intricate to render, and so much more hopeful in its relations to the + perplexities of the universe. I see this mental and spiritual hinterland + vary enormously in the people about me, from a type which seems to keep, + as people say, all its goods in the window, to others who, like myself, + come to regard the ostensible existence more and more as a mere + experimental feeder and agent for that greater personality behind. And + this back-self has its history of phases, its crises and happy accidents + and irrevocable conclusions, more or less distinct from the adventures and + achievements of the ostensible self. It meets persons and phrases, it + assimilates the spirit of a book, it is startled into new realisations by + some accident that seems altogether irrelevant to the general tenor of + one's life. Its increasing independence of the ostensible career makes it + the organ of corrective criticism; it accumulates disturbing energy. Then + it breaks our overt promises and repudiates our pledges, coming down at + last like an overbearing mentor upon the small engagements of the pupil. + </p> + <p> + In the life of the individual it takes the role that the growth of + philosophy, science, and creative literature may play in the development + of mankind. + </p> + <p> + 2 + </p> + <p> + It is curious to recall how Britten helped shatter that obvious, lucidly + explicable presentation of myself upon which I had embarked with Margaret. + He returned to revive a memory of adolescent dreams and a habit of + adolescent frankness; he reached through my shallow frontage as no one + else seemed capable of doing, and dragged that back-self into relation + with it. + </p> + <p> + I remember very distinctly a dinner and a subsequent walk with him which + presents itself now as altogether typical of the quality of his influence. + </p> + <p> + I had come upon him one day while lunching with Somers and Sutton at the + Playwrights' Club, and had asked him to dinner on the spur of the moment. + He was oddly the same curly-headed, red-faced ventriloquist, and oddly + different, rather seedy as well as untidy, and at first a little inclined + to make comparisons with my sleek successfulness. But that disposition + presently evaporated, and his talk was good and fresh and provocative. And + something that had long been straining at its checks in my mind flapped + over, and he and I found ourselves of one accord. + </p> + <p> + Altiora wasn't at this dinner. When she came matters were apt to become + confusedly strenuous. There was always a slight and ineffectual struggle + at the end on the part of Margaret to anticipate Altiora's overpowering + tendency to a rally and the establishment of some entirely unjustifiable + conclusion by a COUP-DE-MAIN. When, however, Altiora was absent, the + quieter influence of the Cramptons prevailed; temperance and information + for its own sake prevailed excessively over dinner and the play of + thought.... Good Lord! what bores the Cramptons were! I wonder I endured + them as I did. They had all of them the trick of lying in wait + conversationally; they had no sense of the self-exposures, the gallant + experiments in statement that are necessary for good conversation. They + would watch one talking with an expression exactly like peeping through + bushes. Then they would, as it were, dash out, dissent succinctly, + contradict some secondary fact, and back to cover. They gave one twilight + nerves. Their wives were easier but still difficult at a stretch; they + talked a good deal about children and servants, but with an air caught + from Altiora of making observations upon sociological types. Lewis + gossiped about the House in an entirely finite manner. He never raised a + discussion; nobody ever raised a discussion. He would ask what we thought + of Evesham's question that afternoon, and Edward would say it was good, + and Mrs. Willie, who had been behind the grille, would think it was very + good, and then Willie, parting the branches, would say rather conclusively + that he didn't think it was very much good, and I would deny hearing the + question in order to evade a profitless statement of views in that vacuum, + and then we would cast about in our minds for some other topic of equal + interest.... + </p> + <p> + On this occasion Altiora was absent, and to qualify our Young Liberal + bleakness we had Mrs. Millingham, with her white hair and her fresh mind + and complexion, and Esmeer. Willie Crampton was with us, but not his wife, + who was having her third baby on principle; his brother Edward was + present, and the Lewises, and of course the Bunting Harblows. There was + also some other lady. I remember her as pale blue, but for the life of me + I cannot remember her name. + </p> + <p> + Quite early there was a little breeze between Edward Crampton and Esmeer, + who had ventured an opinion about the partition of Poland. Edward was at + work then upon the seventh volume of his monumental Life of Kosciusko, and + a little impatient with views perhaps not altogether false but betraying a + lamentable ignorance of accessible literature. At any rate, his correction + of Esmeer was magisterial. After that there was a distinct and not + altogether delightful pause, and then some one, it may have been the + pale-blue lady, asked Mrs. Lewis whether her aunt Lady Carmixter had + returned from her rest-and-sun-cure in Italy. That led to a rather + anxiously sustained talk about regimen, and Willie told us how he had + profited by the no-breakfast system. It had increased his power of work + enormously. He could get through ten hours a day now without + inconvenience. + </p> + <p> + “What do you do?” said Esmeer abruptly. + </p> + <p> + “Oh! no end of work. There's all the estate and looking after things.” + </p> + <p> + “But publicly?” + </p> + <p> + “I asked three questions yesterday. And for one of them I had to consult + nine books!” + </p> + <p> + We were drifting, I could see, towards Doctor Haig's system of dietary, + and whether the exclusion or inclusion of fish and chicken were most + conducive to high efficiency, when Britten, who had refused lemonade and + claret and demanded Burgundy, broke out, and was discovered to be + demanding in his throat just what we Young Liberals thought we were up to? + </p> + <p> + “I want,” said Britten, repeating his challenge a little louder, “to hear + just exactly what you think you are doing in Parliament?” + </p> + <p> + Lewis laughed nervously, and thought we were “Seeking the Good of the + Community.” + </p> + <p> + “HOW?” + </p> + <p> + “Beneficient Legislation,” said Lewis. + </p> + <p> + “Beneficient in what direction?” insisted Britten. “I want to know where + you think you are going.” + </p> + <p> + “Amelioration of Social Conditions,” said Lewis. + </p> + <p> + “That's only a phrase!” + </p> + <p> + “You wouldn't have me sketch bills at dinner?” + </p> + <p> + “I'd like you to indicate directions,” said Britten, and waited. + </p> + <p> + “Upward and On,” said Lewis with conscious neatness, and turned to ask + Mrs. Bunting Harblow about her little boy's French. + </p> + <p> + For a time talk frothed over Britten's head, but the natural mischief in + Mrs. Millingham had been stirred, and she was presently echoing his demand + in lisping, quasi-confidential undertones. “What ARE we Liberals doing?” + Then Esmeer fell in with the revolutionaries. + </p> + <p> + To begin with, I was a little shocked by this clamour for fundamentals—and + a little disconcerted. I had the experience that I suppose comes to every + one at times of discovering oneself together with two different sets of + people with whom one has maintained two different sets of attitudes. It + had always been, I perceived, an instinctive suppression in our circle + that we shouldn't be more than vague about our political ideals. It had + almost become part of my morality to respect this convention. It was + understood we were all working hard, and keeping ourselves fit, + tremendously fit, under Altiora's inspiration, Pro Bono Publico. Bunting + Harblow had his under-secretaryship, and Lewis was on the verge of the + Cabinet, and these things we considered to be in the nature of + confirmations.... It added to the discomfort of the situation that these + plunging enquiries were being made in the presence of our wives. + </p> + <p> + The rebel section of our party forced the talk. + </p> + <p> + Edward Crampton was presently declaring—I forget in what relation: + “The country is with us.” + </p> + <p> + My long-controlled hatred of the Cramptons' stereotyped phrases about the + Country and the House got the better of me. I showed my cloven hoof to my + friends for the first time. + </p> + <p> + “We don't respect the Country as we used to do,” I said. “We haven't the + same belief we used to have in the will of the people. It's no good, + Crampton, trying to keep that up. We Liberals know as a matter of fact—nowadays + every one knows—that the monster that brought us into power has, + among other deficiencies, no head. We've got to give it one—if + possible with brains and a will. That lies in the future. For the present + if the country is with us, it means merely that we happen to have hold of + its tether.” + </p> + <p> + Lewis was shocked. A “mandate” from the Country was sacred to his system + of pretences. + </p> + <p> + Britten wasn't subdued by his first rebuff; presently he was at us again. + There were several attempts to check his outbreak of interrogation; I + remember the Cramptons asked questions about the welfare of various + cousins of Lewis who were unknown to the rest of us, and Margaret tried to + engage Britten in a sympathetic discussion of the Arts and Crafts + exhibition. But Britten and Esmeer were persistent, Mrs. Millingham was + mischievous, and in the end our rising hopes of Young Liberalism took to + their thickets for good, while we talked all over them of the prevalent + vacuity of political intentions. Margaret was perplexed by me. It is only + now I perceive just how perplexing I must have been. “Of course, she said + with that faint stress of apprehension in her eyes, one must have aims.” + And, “it isn't always easy to put everything into phrases.” “Don't be + long,” said Mrs. Edward Crampton to her husband as the wives trooped out. + And afterwards when we went upstairs I had an indefinable persuasion that + the ladies had been criticising Britten's share in our talk in an + altogether unfavourable spirit. Mrs. Edward evidently thought him + aggressive and impertinent, and Margaret with a quiet firmness that + brooked no resistance, took him at once into a corner and showed him + Italian photographs by Coburn. We dispersed early. + </p> + <p> + I walked with Britten along the Chelsea back streets towards Battersea + Bridge—he lodged on the south side. + </p> + <p> + “Mrs. Millingham's a dear,” he began. + </p> + <p> + “She's a dear.” + </p> + <p> + “I liked her demand for a hansom because a four-wheeler was too safe.” + </p> + <p> + “She was worked up,” I said. “She's a woman of faultless character, but + her instincts, as Altiora would say, are anarchistic—when she gives + them a chance.” + </p> + <p> + “So she takes it out in hansom cabs.” + </p> + <p> + “Hansom cabs.” + </p> + <p> + “She's wise,” said Britten.... + </p> + <p> + “I hope, Remington,” he went on after a pause, “I didn't rag your other + guests too much. I've a sort of feeling at moments—Remington, those + chaps are so infernally not—not bloody. It's part of a man's duty + sometimes at least to eat red beef and get drunk. How is he to understand + government if he doesn't? It scares me to think of your lot—by a + sort of misapprehension—being in power. A kind of neuralgia in the + head, by way of government. I don't understand where YOU come in. Those + others—they've no lusts. Their ideal is anaemia. You and I, we had + at least a lust to take hold of life and make something of it. They—they + want to take hold of life and make nothing of it. They want to cut out all + the stimulants. Just as though life was anything else but a reaction to + stimulation!”... + </p> + <p> + He began to talk of his own life. He had had ill-fortune through most of + it. He was poor and unsuccessful, and a girl he had been very fond of had + been attacked and killed by a horse in a field in a very horrible manner. + These things had wounded and tortured him, but they hadn't broken him. + They had, it seemed to me, made a kind of crippled and ugly demigod of + him. He was, I began to perceive, so much better than I had any right to + expect. At first I had been rather struck by his unkempt look, and it made + my reaction all the stronger. There was about him something, a kind of raw + and bleeding faith in the deep things of life, that stirred me profoundly + as he showed it. My set of people had irritated him and disappointed him. + I discovered at his touch how they irritated him. He reproached me boldly. + He made me feel ashamed of my easy acquiescences as I walked in my sleek + tall neatness beside his rather old coat, his rather battered hat, his + sturdier shorter shape, and listened to his denunciations of our + self-satisfied New Liberalism and Progressivism. + </p> + <p> + “It has the same relation to progress—the reality of progress—that + the things they paint on door panels in the suburbs have to art and + beauty. There's a sort of filiation.... Your Altiora's just the political + equivalent of the ladies who sell traced cloth for embroidery; she's a + dealer in Refined Social Reform for the Parlour. The real progress, + Remington, is a graver thing and a painfuller thing and a slower thing + altogether. Look! THAT”—and he pointed to where under a boarding in + the light of a gas lamp a dingy prostitute stood lurking—“was in + Babylon and Nineveh. Your little lot make believe there won't be anything + of the sort after this Parliament! They're going to vanish at a few top + notes from Altiora Bailey! Remington!—it's foolery. It's prigs at + play. It's make-believe, make-believe! Your people there haven't got hold + of things, aren't beginning to get hold of things, don't know anything of + life at all, shirk life, avoid life, get in little bright clean rooms and + talk big over your bumpers of lemonade while the Night goes by outside—untouched. + Those Crampton fools slink by all this,”—he waved at the woman again—“pretend + it doesn't exist, or is going to be banished root and branch by an Act to + keep children in the wet outside public-houses. Do you think they really + care, Remington? I don't. It's make-believe. What they want to do, what + Lewis wants to do, what Mrs. Bunting Harblow wants her husband to do, is + to sit and feel very grave and necessary and respected on the Government + benches. They think of putting their feet out like statesmen, and tilting + shiny hats with becoming brims down over their successful noses. + Presentation portrait to a club at fifty. That's their Reality. That's + their scope. They don't, it's manifest, WANT to think beyond that. The + things there ARE, Remington, they'll never face! the wonder and the depth + of life,—lust, and the night-sky,—pain.” + </p> + <p> + “But the good intention,” I pleaded, “the Good Will!” + </p> + <p> + “Sentimentality,” said Britten. “No Good Will is anything but dishonesty + unless it frets and burns and hurts and destroys a man. That lot of yours + have nothing but a good will to think they have good will. Do you think + they lie awake of nights searching their hearts as we do? Lewis? Crampton? + Or those neat, admiring, satisfied little wives? See how they shrank from + the probe!” + </p> + <p> + “We all,” I said, “shrink from the probe.” + </p> + <p> + “God help us!” said Britten.... + </p> + <p> + “We are but vermin at the best, Remington,” he broke out, “and the + greatest saint only a worm that has lifted its head for a moment from the + dust. We are damned, we are meant to be damned, coral animalculae building + upward, upward in a sea of damnation. But of all the damned things that + ever were damned, your damned shirking, temperate, sham-efficient, + self-satisfied, respectable, make-believe, Fabian-spirited Young Liberal + is the utterly damnedest.” He paused for a moment, and resumed in an + entirely different note: “Which is why I was so surprised, Remington, to + find YOU in this set!” + </p> + <p> + “You're just the old plunger you used to be, Britten,” I said. “You're + going too far with all your might for the sake of the damns. Like a donkey + that drags its cart up a bank to get thistles. There's depths in + Liberalism—” + </p> + <p> + “We were talking about Liberals.” + </p> + <p> + “Liberty!” + </p> + <p> + “Liberty! What do YOOR little lot know of liberty?” + </p> + <p> + “What does any little lot know of liberty?” + </p> + <p> + “It waits outside, too big for our understanding. Like the night and the + stars. And lust, Remington! lust and bitterness! Don't I know them? with + all the sweetness and hope of life bitten and trampled, the dear eyes and + the brain that loved and understood—and my poor mumble of a life + going on! I'm within sight of being a drunkard, Remington! I'm a failure + by most standards! Life has cut me to the bone. But I'm not afraid of it + any more. I've paid something of the price, I've seen something of the + meaning.” + </p> + <p> + He flew off at a tangent. “I'd rather die in Delirium Tremens,” he cried, + “than be a Crampton or a Lewis....” + </p> + <p> + “Make-believe. Make-believe.” The phrase and Britten's squat gestures + haunted me as I walked homeward alone. I went to my room and stood before + my desk and surveyed papers and files and Margaret's admirable equipment + of me. + </p> + <p> + I perceived in the lurid light of Britten's suggestions that so it was Mr. + George Alexander would have mounted a statesman's private room.... + </p> + <p> + 3 + </p> + <p> + I was never at any stage a loyal party man. I doubt if party will ever + again be the force it was during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. + Men are becoming increasingly constructive and selective, less patient + under tradition and the bondage of initial circumstances. As education + becomes more universal and liberating, men will sort themselves more and + more by their intellectual temperaments and less and less by their + accidental associations. The past will rule them less; the future more. It + is not simply party but school and college and county and country that + lose their glamour. One does not hear nearly as much as our forefathers + did of the “old Harrovian,” “old Arvonian,” “old Etonian” claim to this or + that unfair advantage or unearnt sympathy. Even the Scotch and the + Devonians weaken a little in their clannishness. A widening sense of fair + play destroys such things. They follow freemasonry down—freemasonry + of which one is chiefly reminded nowadays in England by propitiatory + symbols outside shady public-houses.... + </p> + <p> + There is, of course, a type of man which clings very obstinately to party + ties. These are the men with strong reproductive imaginations and no + imaginative initiative, such men as Cladingbowl, for example, or Dayton. + They are the scholars-at-large in life. For them the fact that the party + system has been essential in the history of England for two hundred years + gives it an overwhelming glamour. They have read histories and memoirs, + they see the great grey pile of Westminster not so much for what it is as + for what it was, rich with dramatic memories, populous with glorious + ghosts, phrasing itself inevitably in anecdotes and quotations. It seems + almost scandalous that new things should continue to happen, swamping with + strange qualities the savour of these old associations. + </p> + <p> + That Mr. Ramsay Macdonald should walk through Westminster Hall, thrust + himself, it may be, through the very piece of space that once held Charles + the Martyr pleading for his life, seems horrible profanation to Dayton, a + last posthumous outrage; and he would, I think, like to have the front + benches left empty now for ever, or at most adorned with laureated ivory + tablets: “Here Dizzy sat,” and “On this Spot William Ewart Gladstone made + his First Budget Speech.” Failing this, he demands, if only as signs of + modesty and respect on the part of the survivors, meticulous imitation. + “Mr. G.,” he murmurs, “would not have done that,” and laments a vanished + subtlety even while Mr. Evesham is speaking. He is always gloomily + disposed to lapse into wonderings about what things are coming to, + wonderings that have no grain of curiosity. His conception of perfect + conduct is industrious persistence along the worn-down, well-marked + grooves of the great recorded days. So infinitely more important to him is + the documented, respected thing than the elusive present. + </p> + <p> + Cladingbowl and Dayton do not shine in the House, though Cladingbowl is a + sound man on a committee, and Dayton keeps the OLD COUNTRY GAZETTE, the + most gentlemanly paper in London. They prevail, however, in their clubs at + lunch time. There, with the pleasant consciousness of a morning's work + free from either zeal or shirking, they mingle with permanent officials, + prominent lawyers, even a few of the soberer type of business men, and + relax their minds in the discussion of the morning paper, of the + architecture of the West End, and of the latest public appointments, of + golf, of holiday resorts, of the last judicial witticisms and forensic + “crushers.” The New Year and Birthday honours lists are always very sagely + and exhaustively considered, and anecdotes are popular and keenly judged. + They do not talk of the things that are really active in their minds, but + in the formal and habitual manner they suppose to be proper to intelligent + but still honourable men. Socialism, individual money matters, and + religion are forbidden topics, and sex and women only in so far as they + appear in the law courts. It is to me the strangest of conventions, this + assumption of unreal loyalties and traditional respects, this repudiation + and concealment of passionate interests. It is like wearing gloves in + summer fields, or bathing in a gown, or falling in love with the heroine + of a novel, or writing under a pseudonym, or becoming a masked Tuareg.... + </p> + <p> + It is not, I think, that men of my species are insensitive to the great + past that is embodied in Westminster and its traditions; we are not so + much wanting in the historical sense as alive to the greatness of our + present opportunities and the still vaster future that is possible to us. + London is the most interesting, beautiful, and wonderful city in the world + to me, delicate in her incidental and multitudinous littleness, and + stupendous in her pregnant totality; I cannot bring myself to use her as a + museum or an old bookshop. When I think of Whitehall that little affair on + the scaffold outside the Banqueting Hall seems trivial and remote in + comparison with the possibilities that offer themselves to my imagination + within the great grey Government buildings close at hand. + </p> + <p> + It gives me a qualm of nostalgia even to name those places now. I think of + St. Stephen's tower streaming upwards into the misty London night and the + great wet quadrangle of New Palace Yard, from which the hansom cabs of my + first experiences were ousted more and more by taxicabs as the second + Parliament of King Edward the Seventh aged; I think of the Admiralty and + War office with their tall Marconi masts sending out invisible threads of + direction to the armies in the camps, to great fleets about the world. The + crowded, darkly shining river goes flooding through my memory once again, + on to those narrow seas that part us from our rival nations; I see + quadrangles and corridors of spacious grey-toned offices in which + undistinguished little men and little files of papers link us to islands + in the tropics, to frozen wildernesses gashed for gold, to vast + temple-studded plains, to forest worlds and mountain worlds, to ports and + fortresses and lighthouses and watch-towers and grazing lands and corn + lands all about the globe. Once more I traverse Victoria Street, grimy and + dark, where the Agents of the Empire jostle one another, pass the big + embassies in the West End with their flags and scutcheons, follow the + broad avenue that leads to Buckingham Palace, witness the coming and going + of troops and officials and guests along it from every land on earth.... + Interwoven in the texture of it all, mocking, perplexing, stimulating + beyond measure, is the gleaming consciousness, the challenging knowledge: + “You and your kind might still, if you could but grasp it here, mould all + the destiny of Man!” + </p> + <p> + 4 + </p> + <p> + My first three years in Parliament were years of active discontent. The + little group of younger Liberals to which I belonged was very ignorant of + the traditions and qualities of our older leaders, and quite out of touch + with the mass of the party. For a time Parliament was enormously taken up + with moribund issues and old quarrels. The early Educational legislation + was sectarian and unenterprising, and the Licensing Bill went little + further than the attempted rectification of a Conservative mistake. I was + altogether for the nationalisation of the public-houses, and of this end + the Bill gave no intimations. It was just beer-baiting. I was recalcitrant + almost from the beginning, and spoke against the Government so early as + the second reading of the first Education Bill, the one the Lords rejected + in 1906. I went a little beyond my intention in the heat of speaking,—it + is a way with inexperienced man. I called the Bill timid, narrow, a mere + sop to the jealousies of sects and little-minded people. I contrasted its + aim and methods with the manifest needs of the time. + </p> + <p> + I am not a particularly good speaker; after the manner of a writer I worry + to find my meaning too much; but this was one of my successes. I spoke + after dinner and to a fairly full House, for people were already a little + curious about me because of my writings. Several of the Conservative + leaders were present and stayed, and Mr. Evesham, I remember, came + ostentatiously to hear me, with that engaging friendliness of his, and + gave me at the first chance an approving “Hear, Hear!” I can still recall + quite distinctly my two futile attempts to catch the Speaker's eye before + I was able to begin, the nervous quiver of my rather too prepared opening, + the effect of hearing my own voice and my subconscious wonder as to what I + could possibly be talking about, the realisation that I was getting on + fairly well, the immense satisfaction afterwards of having on the whole + brought it off, and the absurd gratitude I felt for that encouraging + cheer. + </p> + <p> + Addressing the House of Commons is like no other public speaking in the + world. Its semi-colloquial methods give it an air of being easy, but its + shifting audience, the comings and goings and hesitations of members + behind the chair—not mere audience units, but men who matter—the + desolating emptiness that spreads itself round the man who fails to + interest, the little compact, disciplined crowd in the strangers' gallery, + the light, elusive, flickering movements high up behind the grill, the + wigged, attentive, weary Speaker, the table and the mace and the + chapel-like Gothic background with its sombre shadows, conspire together, + produce a confused, uncertain feeling in me, as though I was walking upon + a pavement full of trap-doors and patches of uncovered morass. A + misplaced, well-meant “Hear, Hear!” is apt to be extraordinarily + disconcerting, and under no other circumstances have I had to speak with + quite the same sideways twist that the arrangement of the House imposes. + One does not recognise one's own voice threading out into the stirring + brown. Unless I was excited or speaking to the mind of some particular + person in the house, I was apt to lose my feeling of an auditor. I had no + sense of whither my sentences were going, such as one has with a public + meeting well under one's eye. And to lose one's sense of an auditor is for + a man of my temperament to lose one's sense of the immediate, and to + become prolix and vague with qualifications. + </p> + <p> + 5 + </p> + <p> + My discontents with the Liberal party and my mental exploration of the + quality of party generally is curiously mixed up with certain impressions + of things and people in the National Liberal Club. The National Liberal + Club is Liberalism made visible in the flesh—and Doultonware. It is + an extraordinary big club done in a bold, wholesale, shiny, marbled style, + richly furnished with numerous paintings, steel engravings, busts, and + full-length statues of the late Mr. Gladstone; and its spacious + dining-rooms, its long, hazy, crowded smoking-room with innumerable little + tables and groups of men in armchairs, its magazine room and library + upstairs, have just that undistinguished and unconcentrated diversity + which is for me the Liberal note. The pensive member sits and hears + perplexing dialects and even fragments of foreign speech, and among the + clustering masses of less insistent whites his roving eye catches profiles + and complexions that send his mind afield to Calcutta or Rangoon or the + West Indies or Sierra Leone or the Cape.... + </p> + <p> + I was not infrequently that pensive member. I used to go to the Club to + doubt about Liberalism. + </p> + <p> + About two o'clock in the day the great smoking-room is crowded with + countless little groups. They sit about small round tables, or in circles + of chairs, and the haze of tobacco seems to prolong the great narrow + place, with its pillars and bays, to infinity. Some of the groups are big, + as many as a dozen men talk in loud tones; some are duologues, and there + is always a sprinkling of lonely, dissociated men. At first one gets an + impression of men going from group to group and as it were linking them, + but as one watches closely one finds that these men just visit three or + four groups at the outside, and know nothing of the others. One begins to + perceive more and more distinctly that one is dealing with a sort of human + mosaic; that each patch in that great place is of a different quality and + colour from the next and never to be mixed with it. Most clubs have a + common link, a lowest common denominator in the Club Bore, who spares no + one, but even the National Liberal bores are specialised and sectional. As + one looks round one sees here a clump of men from the North Country or the + Potteries, here an island of South London politicians, here a couple of + young Jews ascendant from Whitechapel, here a circle of journalists and + writers, here a group of Irish politicians, here two East Indians, here a + priest or so, here a clump of old-fashioned Protestants, here a little + knot of eminent Rationalists indulging in a blasphemous story SOTTO VOCE. + Next them are a group of anglicised Germans and highly specialised + chess-players, and then two of the oddest-looking persons—bulging + with documents and intent upon extraordinary business transactions over + long cigars.... + </p> + <p> + I would listen to a stormy sea of babblement, and try to extract some + constructive intimations. Every now and then I got a whiff of politics. It + was clear they were against the Lords—against plutocrats—against + Cossington's newspapers—against the brewers.... It was tremendously + clear what they were against. The trouble was to find out what on earth + they were for!... + </p> + <p> + As I sat and thought, the streaked and mottled pillars and wall, the + various views, aspects, and portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone, the + partitions of polished mahogany, the yellow-vested waiters, would dissolve + and vanish, and I would have a vision of this sample of miscellaneous men + of limited, diverse interests and a universal littleness of imagination + enlarged, unlimited, no longer a sample but a community, spreading, + stretching out to infinity—all in little groups and duologues and + circles, all with their special and narrow concerns, all with their backs + to most of the others. + </p> + <p> + What but a common antagonism would ever keep these multitudes together? I + understood why modern electioneering is more than half of it denunciation. + Let us condemn, if possible, let us obstruct and deprive, but not let us + do. There is no real appeal to the commonplace mind in “Let us do.” That + calls for the creative imagination, and few have been accustomed to + respond to that call. The other merely needs jealousy and bate, of which + there are great and easily accessible reservoirs in every human heart.... + </p> + <p> + I remember that vision of endless, narrow, jealous individuality very + vividly. A seething limitlessness it became at last, like a waste place + covered by crawling locusts that men sweep up by the sackload and drown by + the million in ditches.... + </p> + <p> + Grotesquely against it came the lean features, the sidelong shy movements + of Edward Crampton, seated in a circle of talkers close at hand. I had a + whiff of his strained, unmusical voice, and behold! he was saying + something about the “Will of the People....” + </p> + <p> + The immense and wonderful disconnectednesses of human life! I forgot the + smoke and jabber of the club altogether; I became a lonely spirit flung + aloft by some queer accident, a stone upon a ledge in some high and rocky + wilderness, and below as far as the eye could reach stretched the swarming + infinitesimals of humanity, like grass upon the field, like pebbles upon + unbounded beaches. Was there ever to be in human life more than that + endless struggling individualism? Was there indeed some giantry, some + immense valiant synthesis, still to come—or present it might be and + still unseen by me, or was this the beginning and withal the last phase of + mankind?... + </p> + <p> + I glimpsed for a while the stupendous impudence of our ambitions, the + tremendous enterprise to which the modern statesman is implicitly + addressed. I was as it were one of a little swarm of would-be reef + builders looking back at the teeming slime upon the ocean floor. All the + history of mankind, all the history of life, has been and will be the + story of something struggling out of the indiscriminated abyss, struggling + to exist and prevail over and comprehend individual lives—an effort + of insidious attraction, an idea of invincible appeal. That something + greater than ourselves, which does not so much exist as seek existence, + palpitating between being and not-being, how marvellous it is! It has worn + the form and visage of ten thousand different gods, sought a shape for + itself in stone and ivory and music and wonderful words, spoken more and + more clearly of a mystery of love, a mystery of unity, dabbling meanwhile + in blood and cruelty beyond the common impulses of men. It is something + that comes and goes, like a light that shines and is withdrawn, withdrawn + so completely that one doubts if it has ever been.... + </p> + <p> + 6 + </p> + <p> + I would mark with a curious interest the stray country member of the club + up in town for a night or so. My mind would be busy with speculations + about him, about his home, his family, his reading, his horizons, his + innumerable fellows who didn't belong and never came up. I would fill in + the outline of him with memories of my uncle and his Staffordshire + neighbours. He was perhaps Alderman This or Councillor That down there, a + great man in his ward, J. P. within seven miles of the boundary of the + borough, and a God in his home. Here he was nobody, and very shy, and + either a little too arrogant or a little too meek towards our very + democratic mannered but still livened waiters. Was he perhaps the backbone + of England? He over-ate himself lest he should appear mean, went through + our Special Dinner conscientiously, drank, unless he was teetotal, of + unfamiliar wines, and did his best, in spite of the rules, to tip. + Afterwards, in a state of flushed repletion, he would have old brandy, + black coffee, and a banded cigar, or in the name of temperance omit the + brandy and have rather more coffee, in the smoking-room. I would sit and + watch that stiff dignity of self-indulgence, and wonder, wonder.... + </p> + <p> + An infernal clairvoyance would come to me. I would have visions of him in + relation to his wife, checking always, sometimes bullying, sometimes being + ostentatiously “kind”; I would see him glance furtively at his domestic + servants upon his staircase, or stiffen his upper lip against the + reluctant, protesting business employee. We imaginative people are base + enough, heaven knows, but it is only in rare moods of bitter penetration + that we pierce down to the baser lusts, the viler shames, the everlasting + lying and muddle-headed self-justification of the dull. + </p> + <p> + I would turn my eyes down the crowded room and see others of him and + others. What did he think he was up to? Did he for a moment realise that + his presence under that ceramic glory of a ceiling with me meant, if it + had any rational meaning at all, that we were jointly doing something with + the nation and the empire and mankind?... How on earth could any one get + hold of him, make any noble use of him? He didn't read beyond his + newspaper. He never thought, but only followed imaginings in his heart. He + never discussed. At the first hint of discussion his temper gave way. He + was, I knew, a deep, thinly-covered tank of resentments and quite + irrational moral rages. Yet withal I would have to resist an impulse to go + over to him and nudge him and say to him, “Look here! What indeed do you + think we are doing with the nation and the empire and mankind? You know—MANKIND!” + </p> + <p> + I wonder what reply I should have got. + </p> + <p> + So far as any average could be struck and so far as any backbone could be + located, it seemed to me that this silent, shy, replete, sub-angry, + middle-class sentimentalist was in his endless species and varieties and + dialects the backbone of our party. So far as I could be considered as + representing anything in the House, I pretended to sit for the elements of + HIM.... + </p> + <p> + 7 + </p> + <p> + For a time I turned towards the Socialists. They at least had an air of + coherent intentions. At that time Socialism had come into politics again + after a period of depression and obscurity, with a tremendous ECLAT. There + was visibly a following of Socialist members to Chris Robinson; + mysteriously uncommunicative gentlemen in soft felt hats and short coats + and square-toed boots who replied to casual advances a little surprisingly + in rich North Country dialects. Members became aware of a “seagreen + incorruptible,” as Colonel Marlow put it to me, speaking on the Address, a + slender twisted figure supporting itself on a stick and speaking with a + fire that was altogether revolutionary. This was Philip Snowden, the + member for Blackburn. They had come in nearly forty strong altogether, and + with an air of presently meaning to come in much stronger. They were only + one aspect of what seemed at that time a big national movement. Socialist + societies, we gathered, were springing up all over the country, and every + one was inquiring about Socialism and discussing Socialism. It had taken + the Universities with particular force, and any youngster with the + slightest intellectual pretension was either actively for or brilliantly + against. For a time our Young Liberal group was ostentatiously + sympathetic.... + </p> + <p> + When I think of the Socialists there comes a vivid memory of certain + evening gatherings at our house.... + </p> + <p> + These gatherings had been organised by Margaret as the outcome of a + discussion at the Baileys'. Altiora had been very emphatic and + uncharitable upon the futility of the Socialist movement. It seemed that + even the leaders fought shy of dinner-parties. + </p> + <p> + “They never meet each other,” said Altiora, “much less people on the other + side. How can they begin to understand politics until they do that?” + </p> + <p> + “Most of them have totally unpresentable wives,” said Altiora, “totally!” + and quoted instances, “and they WILL bring them. Or they won't come! Some + of the poor creatures have scarcely learnt their table manners. They just + make holes in the talk....” + </p> + <p> + I thought there was a great deal of truth beneath Altiora's outburst. The + presentation of the Socialist case seemed very greatly crippled by the + want of a common intimacy in its leaders; the want of intimacy didn't at + first appear to be more than an accident, and our talk led to Margaret's + attempt to get acquaintance and easy intercourse afoot among them and + between them and the Young Liberals of our group. She gave a series of + weekly dinners, planned, I think, a little too accurately upon Altiora's + model, and after each we had as catholic a reception as we could contrive. + </p> + <p> + Our receptions were indeed, I should think, about as catholic as + receptions could be. Margaret found herself with a weekly houseful of + insoluble problems in intercourse. One did one's best, but one got a + nightmare feeling as the evening wore on. + </p> + <p> + It was one of the few unanimities of these parties that every one should + be a little odd in appearance, funny about the hair or the tie or the + shoes or more generally, and that bursts of violent aggression should + alternate with an attitude entirely defensive. A number of our guests had + an air of waiting for a clue that never came, and stood and sat about + silently, mildly amused but not a bit surprised that we did not discover + their distinctive Open-Sesames. There was a sprinkling of manifest seers + and prophetesses in shapeless garments, far too many, I thought, for + really easy social intercourse, and any conversation at any moment was + liable to become oracular. One was in a state of tension from first to + last; the most innocent remark seemed capable of exploding resentment, and + replies came out at the most unexpected angles. We Young Liberals went + about puzzled but polite to the gathering we had evoked. The Young + Liberals' tradition is on the whole wonderfully discreet, superfluous + steam is let out far away from home in the Balkans or Africa, and the + neat, stiff figures of the Cramptons, Bunting Harblow, and Lewis, either + in extremely well-cut morning coats indicative of the House, or in what is + sometimes written of as “faultless evening dress,” stood about on those + evenings, they and their very quietly and simply and expensively dressed + little wives, like a datum line amidst lakes and mountains. + </p> + <p> + I didn't at first see the connection between systematic social + reorganisation and arbitrary novelties in dietary and costume, just as I + didn't realise why the most comprehensive constructive projects should + appear to be supported solely by odd and exceptional personalities. On one + of these evenings a little group of rather jolly-looking pretty young + people seated themselves for no particular reason in a large circle on the + floor of my study, and engaged, so far as I could judge, in the game of + Hunt the Meaning, the intellectual equivalent of Hunt the Slipper. It must + have been that same evening I came upon an unbleached young gentleman + before the oval mirror on the landing engaged in removing the remains of + an anchovy sandwich from his protruded tongue—visible ends of cress + having misled him into the belief that he was dealing with doctrinally + permissible food. It was not unusual to be given hand-bills and printed + matter by our guests, but there I had the advantage over Lewis, who was + too tactful to refuse the stuff, too neatly dressed to pocket it, and had + no writing-desk available upon which he could relieve himself in a manner + flattering to the giver. So that his hands got fuller and fuller. A + relentless, compact little woman in what Margaret declared to be an + extremely expensive black dress has also printed herself on my memory; she + had set her heart upon my contributing to a weekly periodical in the + lentil interest with which she was associated, and I spent much time and + care in evading her. + </p> + <p> + Mingling with the more hygienic types were a number of Anti-Puritan + Socialists, bulging with bias against temperance, and breaking out against + austere methods of living all over their faces. Their manner was packed + with heartiness. They were apt to choke the approaches to the little + buffet Margaret had set up downstairs, and there engage in discussions of + Determinism—it always seemed to be Determinism—which became + heartier and noisier, but never acrimonious even in the small hours. It + seemed impossible to settle about this Determinism of theirs—ever. + And there were worldly Socialists also. I particularly recall a large, + active, buoyant, lady-killing individual with an eyeglass borne upon a + broad black ribbon, who swam about us one evening. He might have been a + slightly frayed actor, in his large frock-coat, his white waistcoat, and + the sort of black and white check trousers that twinkle. He had a + high-pitched voice with aristocratic intonations, and he seemed to be in a + perpetual state of interrogation. “What are we all he-a for?” he would ask + only too audibly. “What are we doing he-a? What's the connection?” + </p> + <p> + What WAS the connection? + </p> + <p> + We made a special effort with our last assembly in June, 1907. We tried to + get something like a representative collection of the parliamentary + leaders of Socialism, the various exponents of Socialist thought and a + number of Young Liberal thinkers into one room. Dorvil came, and Horatio + Bulch; Featherstonehaugh appeared for ten minutes and talked charmingly to + Margaret and then vanished again; there was Wilkins the novelist and + Toomer and Dr. Tumpany. Chris Robinson stood about for a time in a new + comforter, and Magdeberg and Will Pipes and five or six Labour members. + And on our side we had our particular little group, Bunting Harblow, + Crampton, Lewis, all looking as broad-minded and open to conviction as + they possibly could, and even occasionally talking out from their bushes + almost boldly. But the gathering as a whole refused either to mingle or + dispute, and as an experiment in intercourse the evening was a failure. + Unexpected dissociations appeared between Socialists one had supposed + friendly. I could not have imagined it was possible for half so many + people to turn their backs on everybody else in such small rooms as ours. + But the unsaid things those backs expressed broke out, I remarked, with + refreshed virulence in the various organs of the various sections of the + party next week. + </p> + <p> + I talked, I remember, with Dr. Tumpany, a large young man in a still + larger professional frock-coat, and with a great shock of very fair hair, + who was candidate for some North Country constituency. We discussed the + political outlook, and, like so many Socialists at that time, he was full + of vague threatenings against the Liberal party. I was struck by a thing + in him that I had already observed less vividly in many others of these + Socialist leaders, and which gave me at last a clue to the whole business. + He behaved exactly like a man in possession of valuable patent rights, who + wants to be dealt with. He had an air of having a corner in ideas. Then it + flashed into my head that the whole Socialist movement was an attempted + corner in ideas.... + </p> + <p> + 8 + </p> + <p> + Late that night I found myself alone with Margaret amid the debris of the + gathering. + </p> + <p> + I sat before the fire, hands in pockets, and Margaret, looking white and + weary, came and leant upon the mantel. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Lord!” said Margaret. + </p> + <p> + I agreed. Then I resumed my meditation. + </p> + <p> + “Ideas,” I said, “count for more than I thought in the world.” + </p> + <p> + Margaret regarded me with that neutral expression behind which she was + accustomed to wait for clues. + </p> + <p> + “When you think of the height and depth and importance and wisdom of the + Socialist ideas, and see the men who are running them,” I explained.... “A + big system of ideas like Socialism grows up out of the obvious common + sense of our present conditions. It's as impersonal as science. All these + men—They've given nothing to it. They're just people who have pegged + out claims upon a big intellectual No-Man's-Land—and don't feel + quite sure of the law. There's a sort of quarrelsome uneasiness.... If we + professed Socialism do you think they'd welcome us? Not a man of them! + They'd feel it was burglary....” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Margaret, looking into the fire. “That is just what I felt + about them all the evening.... Particularly Dr. Tumpany.” + </p> + <p> + “We mustn't confuse Socialism with the Socialists,” I said; “that's the + moral of it. I suppose if God were to find He had made a mistake in dates + or something, and went back and annihilated everybody from Owen onwards + who was in any way known as a Socialist leader or teacher, Socialism would + be exactly where it is and what it is to-day—a growing realisation + of constructive needs in every man's mind, and a little corner in party + politics. So, I suppose, it will always be.... But they WERE a damned lot, + Margaret!” + </p> + <p> + I looked up at the little noise she made. “TWICE!” she said, smiling + indulgently, “to-day!” (Even the smile was Altiora's.) + </p> + <p> + I returned to my thoughts. They WERE a damned human lot. It was an + excellent word in that connection.... + </p> + <p> + But the ideas marched on, the ideas marched on, just as though men's + brains were no more than stepping-stones, just as though some great brain + in which we are all little cells and corpuscles was thinking them!... + </p> + <p> + “I don't think there is a man among them who makes me feel he is + trustworthy,” said Margaret; “unless it is Featherstonehaugh.” + </p> + <p> + I sat taking in this proposition. + </p> + <p> + “They'll never help us, I feel,” said Margaret. + </p> + <p> + “Us?” + </p> + <p> + “The Liberals.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, damn the Liberals!” I said. “They'll never even help themselves.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't think I could possibly get on with any of those people,” said + Margaret, after a pause. + </p> + <p> + She remained for a time looking down at me and, I could feel, perplexed by + me, but I wanted to go on with my thinking, and so I did not look up, and + presently she stooped to my forehead and kissed me and went rustling + softly to her room. + </p> + <p> + I remained in my study for a long time with my thoughts crystallising + out.... + </p> + <p> + It was then, I think, that I first apprehended clearly how that opposition + to which I have already alluded of the immediate life and the mental + hinterland of a man, can be applied to public and social affairs. The + ideas go on—and no person or party succeeds in embodying them. The + reality of human progress never comes to the surface, it is a power in the + deeps, an undertow. It goes on in silence while men think, in studies + where they write self-forgetfully, in laboratories under the urgency of an + impersonal curiosity, in the rare illumination of honest talk, in moments + of emotional insight, in thoughtful reading, but not in everyday affairs. + Everyday affairs and whatever is made an everyday affair, are transactions + of the ostensible self, the being of habits, interests, usage. Temper, + vanity, hasty reaction to imitation, personal feeling, are their + substance. No man can abolish his immediate self and specialise in the + depths; if he attempt that, he simply turns himself into something a + little less than the common man. He may have an immense hinterland, but + that does not absolve him from a frontage. That is the essential error of + the specialist philosopher, the specialist teacher, the specialist + publicist. They repudiate frontage; claim to be pure hinterland. That is + what bothered me about Codger, about those various schoolmasters who had + prepared me for life, about the Baileys and their dream of an official + ruling class. A human being who is a philosopher in the first place, a + teacher in the first place, or a statesman in the first place, is thereby + and inevitably, though he bring God-like gifts to the pretence—a + quack. These are attempts to live deep-side shallow, inside out. They + produce merely a new pettiness. To understand Socialism, again, is to gain + a new breadth of outlook; to join a Socialist organisation is to join a + narrow cult which is not even tolerably serviceable in presenting or + spreading the ideas for which it stands.... + </p> + <p> + I perceived I had got something quite fundamental here. It had taken me + some years to realise the true relation of the great constructive ideas + that swayed me not only to political parties, but to myself. I had been + disposed to identify the formulae of some one party with social + construction, and to regard the other as necessarily anti-constructive, + just as I had been inclined to follow the Baileys in the + self-righteousness of supposing myself to be wholly constructive. But I + saw now that every man of intellectual freedom and vigour is necessarily + constructive-minded nowadays, and that no man is disinterestedly so. Each + one of us repeats in himself the conflict of the race between the + splendour of its possibilities and its immediate associations. We may be + shaping immortal things, but we must sleep and answer the dinner gong, and + have our salt of flattery and self-approval. In politics a man counts not + for what he is in moments of imaginative expansion, but for his common + workaday, selfish self; and political parties are held together not by a + community of ultimate aims, but by the stabler bond of an accustomed life. + Everybody almost is for progress in general, and nearly everybody is + opposed to any change, except in so far as gross increments are change, in + his particular method of living and behaviour. Every party stands + essentially for the interests and mental usages of some definite class or + group of classes in the exciting community, and every party has its + scientific-minded and constructive leading section, with well-defined + hinterlands formulating its social functions in a public-spirited form, + and its superficial-minded following confessing its meannesses and + vanities and prejudices. No class will abolish itself, materially alter + its way of life, or drastically reconstruct itself, albeit no class is + indisposed to co-operate in the unlimited socialisation of any other + class. In that capacity for aggression upon other classes lies the + essential driving force of modern affairs. The instincts, the persons, the + parties, and vanities sway and struggle. The ideas and understandings + march on and achieve themselves for all—in spite of every one.... + </p> + <p> + The methods and traditions of British politics maintain the form of two + great parties, with rider groups seeking to gain specific ends in the + event of a small Government majority. These two main parties are more or + less heterogeneous in composition. Each, however, has certain necessary + characteristics. The Conservative Party has always stood quite definitely + for the established propertied interests. The land-owner, the big lawyer, + the Established Church, and latterly the huge private monopoly of the + liquor trade which has been created by temperance legislation, are the + essential Conservatives. Interwoven now with the native wealthy are the + families of the great international usurers, and a vast miscellaneous mass + of financial enterprise. Outside the range of resistance implied by these + interests, the Conservative Party has always shown itself just as + constructive and collectivist as any other party. The great landowners + have been as well-disposed towards the endowment of higher education, and + as willing to co-operate with the Church in protective and mildly + educational legislation for children and the working class, as any + political section. The financiers, too, are adventurous-spirited and eager + for mechanical progress and technical efficiency. They are prepared to + spend public money upon research, upon ports and harbours and public + communications, upon sanitation and hygienic organisation. A certain rude + benevolence of public intention is equally characteristic of the liquor + trade. Provided his comfort leads to no excesses of temperance, the liquor + trade is quite eager to see the common man prosperous, happy, and with + money to spend in a bar. All sections of the party are aggressively + patriotic and favourably inclined to the idea of an upstanding, well-fed, + and well-exercised population in uniform. Of course there are reactionary + landowners and old-fashioned country clergy, full of localised + self-importance, jealous even of the cottager who can read, but they have + neither the power nor the ability to retard the constructive forces in the + party as a whole. On the other hand, when matters point to any definitely + confiscatory proposal, to the public ownership and collective control of + land, for example, or state mining and manufactures, or the + nationalisation of the so-called public-house or extended municipal + enterprise, or even to an increase of the taxation of property, then the + Conservative Party presents a nearly adamantine bar. It does not stand + for, it IS, the existing arrangement in these affairs. + </p> + <p> + Even more definitely a class party is the Labour Party, whose immediate + interest is to raise wages, shorten hours of labor, increase employment, + and make better terms for the working-man tenant and working-man + purchaser. Its leaders are no doubt constructive minded, but the mass of + the following is naturally suspicious of education and discipline, hostile + to the higher education, and—except for an obvious antagonism to + employers and property owners—almost destitute of ideas. What else + can it be? It stands for the expropriated multitude, whose whole situation + and difficulty arise from its individual lack of initiative and organising + power. It favours the nationalisation of land and capital with no sense of + the difficulties involved in the process; but, on the other hand, the + equally reasonable socialisation of individuals which is implied by + military service is steadily and quite naturally and quite illogically + opposed by it. It is only in recent years that Labour has emerged as a + separate party from the huge hospitable caravanserai of Liberalism, and + there is still a very marked tendency to step back again into that + multitudinous assemblage. + </p> + <p> + For multitudinousness has always been the Liberal characteristic. + Liberalism never has been nor ever can be anything but a diversified + crowd. Liberalism has to voice everything that is left out by these other + parties. It is the party against the predominating interests. It is at + once the party of the failing and of the untried; it is the party of + decadence and hope. From its nature it must be a vague and planless + association in comparison with its antagonist, neither so constructive on + the one hand, nor on the other so competent to hinder the inevitable + constructions of the civilised state. Essentially it is the party of + criticism, the “Anti” party. It is a system of hostilities and objections + that somehow achieves at times an elusive common soul. It is a gathering + together of all the smaller interests which find themselves at a + disadvantage against the big established classes, the leasehold tenant as + against the landowner, the retail tradesman as against the merchant and + the moneylender, the Nonconformist as against the Churchman, the small + employer as against the demoralising hospitable publican, the man without + introductions and broad connections against the man who has these things. + It is the party of the many small men against the fewer prevailing men. It + has no more essential reason for loving the Collectivist state than the + Conservatives; the small dealer is doomed to absorption in that just as + much as the large owner; but it resorts to the state against its + antagonists as in the middle ages common men pitted themselves against the + barons by siding with the king. The Liberal Party is the party against + “class privilege” because it represents no class advantages, but it is + also the party that is on the whole most set against Collective control + because it represents no established responsibility. It is constructive + only so far as its antagonism to the great owner is more powerful than its + jealousy of the state. It organises only because organisation is forced + upon it by the organisation of its adversaries. It lapses in and out of + alliance with Labour as it sways between hostility to wealth and hostility + to public expenditure.... + </p> + <p> + Every modern European state will have in some form or other these three + parties: the resistent, militant, authoritative, dull, and unsympathetic + party of establishment and success, the rich party; the confused, + sentimental, spasmodic, numerous party of the small, struggling, various, + undisciplined men, the poor man's party; and a third party sometimes + detaching itself from the second and sometimes reuniting with it, the + party of the altogether expropriated masses, the proletarians, Labour. + Change Conservative and Liberal to Republican and Democrat, for example, + and you have the conditions in the United States. The Crown or a dethroned + dynasty, the Established Church or a dispossessed church, nationalist + secessions, the personalities of party leaders, may break up, complicate, + and confuse the self-expression of these three necessary divisions in the + modern social drama, the analyst will make them out none the less for + that.... + </p> + <p> + And then I came back as if I came back to a refrain;—the ideas go on—as + though we are all no more than little cells and corpuscles in some great + brain beyond our understanding.... + </p> + <p> + So it was I sat and thought my problem out.... I still remember my + satisfaction at seeing things plainly at last. It was like clouds + dispersing to show the sky. Constructive ideas, of course, couldn't hold a + party together alone, “interests and habits, not ideas,” I had that now, + and so the great constructive scheme of Socialism, invading and inspiring + all parties, was necessarily claimed only by this collection of odds and + ends, this residuum of disconnected and exceptional people. This was true + not only of the Socialist idea, but of the scientific idea, the idea of + veracity—of human confidence in humanity—of all that mattered + in human life outside the life of individuals.... The only real party that + would ever profess Socialism was the Labour Party, and that in the + entirely one-sided form of an irresponsible and non-constructive attack on + property. Socialism in that mutilated form, the teeth and claws without + the eyes and brain, I wanted as little as I wanted anything in the world. + </p> + <p> + Perfectly clear it was, perfectly clear, and why hadn't I seen it + before?... I looked at my watch, and it was half-past two. + </p> + <p> + I yawned, stretched, got up and went to bed. + </p> + <p> + 9 + </p> + <p> + My ideas about statecraft have passed through three main phases to the + final convictions that remain. There was the first immediacy of my dream + of ports and harbours and cities, railways, roads, and administered + territories—the vision I had seen in the haze from that little + church above Locarno. Slowly that had passed into a more elaborate + legislative constructiveness, which had led to my uneasy association with + the Baileys and the professedly constructive Young Liberals. To get that + ordered life I had realised the need of organisation, knowledge, + expertness, a wide movement of co-ordinated methods. On the individual + side I thought that a life of urgent industry, temperance, and close + attention was indicated by my perception of these ends. I married Margaret + and set to work. But something in my mind refused from the outset to + accept these determinations as final. There was always a doubt lurking + below, always a faint resentment, a protesting criticism, a feeling of + vitally important omissions. + </p> + <p> + I arrived at last at the clear realisation that my political associates, + and I in my association with them, were oddly narrow, priggish, and + unreal, that the Socialists with whom we were attempting co-operation were + preposterously irrelevant to their own theories, that my political life + didn't in some way comprehend more than itself, that rather perplexingly I + was missing the thing I was seeking. Britten's footnotes to Altiora's + self-assertions, her fits of energetic planning, her quarrels and rallies + and vanities, his illuminating attacks on Cramptonism and the + heavy-spirited triviality of such Liberalism as the Children's Charter, + served to point my way to my present conclusions. I had been trying to + deal all along with human progress as something immediate in life, + something to be immediately attacked by political parties and groups + pointing primarily to that end. I now began to see that just as in my own + being there was the rather shallow, rather vulgar, self-seeking careerist, + who wore an admirable silk hat and bustled self-consciously through the + lobby, and a much greater and indefinitely growing unpublished personality + behind him—my hinterland, I have called it—so in human affairs + generally the permanent reality is also a hinterland, which is never + really immediate, which draws continually upon human experience and + influences human action more and more, but which is itself never the + actual player upon the stage. It is the unseen dramatist who never takes a + call. Now it was just through the fact that our group about the Baileys + didn't understand this, that with a sort of frantic energy they were + trying to develop that sham expert officialdom of theirs to plan, + regulate, and direct the affairs of humanity, that the perplexing note of + silliness and shallowness that I had always felt and felt now most acutely + under Britten's gibes, came in. They were neglecting human life altogether + in social organisation. + </p> + <p> + In the development of intellectual modesty lies the growth of + statesmanship. It has been the chronic mistake of statecraft and all + organising spirits to attempt immediately to scheme and arrange and + achieve. Priests, schools of thought, political schemers, leaders of men, + have always slipped into the error of assuming that they can think out the + whole—or at any rate completely think out definite parts—of + the purpose and future of man, clearly and finally; they have set + themselves to legislate and construct on that assumption, and, + experiencing the perplexing obduracy and evasions of reality, they have + taken to dogma, persecution, training, pruning, secretive education; and + all the stupidities of self-sufficient energy. In the passion of their + good intentions they have not hesitated to conceal fact, suppress thought, + crush disturbing initiatives and apparently detrimental desires. And so it + is blunderingly and wastefully, destroying with the making, that any + extension of social organisation is at present achieved. + </p> + <p> + Directly, however, this idea of an emancipation from immediacy is grasped, + directly the dominating importance of this critical, less personal, mental + hinterland in the individual and of the collective mind in the race is + understood, the whole problem of the statesman and his attitude towards + politics gain a new significance, and becomes accessible to a new series + of solutions. He wants no longer to “fix up,” as people say, human + affairs, but to devote his forces to the development of that needed + intellectual life without which all his shallow attempts at fixing up are + futile. He ceases to build on the sands, and sets himself to gather + foundations. + </p> + <p> + You see, I began in my teens by wanting to plan and build cities and + harbours for mankind; I ended in the middle thirties by desiring only to + serve and increase a general process of thought, a process fearless, + critical, real-spirited, that would in its own time give cities, harbours, + air, happiness, everything at a scale and quality and in a light + altogether beyond the match-striking imaginations of a contemporary mind. + I wanted freedom of speech and suggestion, vigour of thought, and the + cultivation of that impulse of veracity that lurks more or less + discouraged in every man. With that I felt there must go an emotion. I hit + upon a phrase that became at last something of a refrain in my speech and + writings, to convey the spirit that I felt was at the very heart of real + human progress—love and fine thinking. + </p> + <p> + (I suppose that nowadays no newspaper in England gets through a week + without the repetition of that phrase.) + </p> + <p> + My convictions crystallised more and more definitely upon this. The more + of love and fine thinking the better for men, I said; the less, the worse. + And upon this fresh basis I set myself to examine what I as a politician + might do. I perceived I was at last finding an adequate expression for all + that was in me, for those forces that had rebelled at the crude + presentations of Bromstead, at the secrecies and suppressions of my youth, + at the dull unrealities of City Merchants, at the conventions and + timidities of the Pinky Dinkys, at the philosophical recluse of Trinity + and the phrases and tradition-worship of my political associates. None of + these things were half alive, and I wanted life to be intensely alive and + awake. I wanted thought like an edge of steel and desire like a flame. The + real work before mankind now, I realised once and for all, is the + enlargement of human expression, the release and intensification of human + thought, the vivider utilisation of experience and the invigoration of + research—and whatever one does in human affairs has or lacks value + as it helps or hinders that. + </p> + <p> + With that I had got my problem clear, and the solution, so far as I was + concerned, lay in finding out the point in the ostensible life of politics + at which I could most subserve these ends. I was still against the muddles + of Bromstead, but I had hunted them down now to their essential form. The + jerry-built slums, the roads that went nowhere, the tarred fences, + litigious notice-boards and barbed wire fencing, the litter and the heaps + of dump, were only the outward appearances whose ultimate realities were + jerry-built conclusions, hasty purposes, aimless habits of thought, and + imbecile bars and prohibitions in the thoughts and souls of men. How are + we through politics to get at that confusion? + </p> + <p> + We want to invigorate and reinvigorate education. We want to create a + sustained counter effort to the perpetual tendency of all educational + organisations towards classicalism, secondary issues, and the evasion of + life. + </p> + <p> + We want to stimulate the expression of life through art and literature, + and its exploration through research. + </p> + <p> + We want to make the best and finest thought accessible to every one, and + more particularly to create and sustain an enormous free criticism, + without which art, literature, and research alike degenerate into + tradition or imposture. + </p> + <p> + Then all the other problems which are now so insoluble, destitution, + disease, the difficulty of maintaining international peace, the scarcely + faced possibility of making life generally and continually beautiful, + become—EASY.... + </p> + <p> + It was clear to me that the most vital activities in which I could engage + would be those which most directly affected the Church, public habits of + thought, education, organised research, literature, and the channels of + general discussion. I had to ask myself how my position as Liberal member + for Kinghamstead squared with and conduced to this essential work. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE SECOND ~~ SEEKING ASSOCIATES + </h2> + <p> + 1 + </p> + <p> + I have told of my gradual abandonment of the pretensions and habits of + party Liberalism. In a sense I was moving towards aristocracy. Regarding + the development of the social and individual mental hinterland as the + essential thing in human progress, I passed on very naturally to the + practical assumption that we wanted what I may call “hinterlanders.” Of + course I do not mean by aristocracy the changing unorganised medley of + rich people and privileged people who dominate the civilised world of + to-day, but as opposed to this, a possibility of co-ordinating the will of + the finer individuals, by habit and literature, into a broad common aim. + We must have an aristocracy—not of privilege, but of understanding + and purpose—or mankind will fail. I find this dawning more and more + clearly when I look through my various writings of the years between 1903 + and 1910. I was already emerging to plain statements in 1908. + </p> + <p> + I reasoned after this fashion. The line of human improvement and the + expansion of human life lies in the direction of education and finer + initiatives. If humanity cannot develop an education far beyond anything + that is now provided, if it cannot collectively invent devices and solve + problems on a much richer, broader scale than it does at the present time, + it cannot hope to achieve any very much finer order or any more general + happiness than it now enjoys. We must believe, therefore, that it CAN + develop such a training and education, or we must abandon secular + constructive hope. And here my peculiar difficulty as against crude + democracy comes in. If humanity at large is capable of that high education + and those creative freedoms our hope demands, much more must its better + and more vigorous types be so capable. And if those who have power and + leisure now, and freedom to respond to imaginative appeals, cannot be won + to the idea of collective self-development, then the whole of humanity + cannot be won to that. From that one passes to what has become my general + conception in politics, the conception of the constructive imagination + working upon the vast complex of powerful people, clever people, + enterprising people, influential people, amidst whom power is diffused + to-day, to produce that self-conscious, highly selective, open-minded, + devoted aristocratic culture, which seems to me to be the necessary next + phase in the development of human affairs. I see human progress, not as + the spontaneous product of crowds of raw minds swayed by elementary needs, + but as a natural but elaborate result of intricate human + interdependencies, of human energy and curiosity liberated and acting at + leisure, of human passions and motives, modified and redirected by + literature and art.... + </p> + <p> + But now the reader will understand how it came about that, disappointed by + the essential littleness of Liberalism, and disillusioned about the + representative quality of the professed Socialists, I turned my mind more + and more to a scrutiny of the big people, the wealthy and influential + people, against whom Liberalism pits its forces. I was asking myself + definitely whether, after all, it was not my particular job to work + through them and not against them. Was I not altogether out of my element + as an Anti-? Weren't there big bold qualities about these people that + common men lack, and the possibility of far more splendid dreams? Were + they really the obstacles, might they not be rather the vehicles of the + possible new braveries of life? + </p> + <p> + 2 + </p> + <p> + The faults of the Imperialist movement were obvious enough. The conception + of the Boer War had been clumsy and puerile, the costly errors of that + struggle appalling, and the subsequent campaign of Mr. Chamberlain for + Tariff Reform seemed calculated to combine the financial adventurers of + the Empire in one vast conspiracy against the consumer. The cant of + Imperialism was easy to learn and use; it was speedily adopted by all + sorts of base enterprises and turned to all sorts of base ends. But a big + child is permitted big mischief, and my mind was now continually returning + to the persuasion that after all in some development of the idea of + Imperial patriotism might be found that wide, rough, politically + acceptable expression of a constructive dream capable of sustaining a + great educational and philosophical movement such as no formula of + Liberalism supplied. The fact that it readily took vulgar forms only + witnessed to its strong popular appeal. Mixed in with the noisiness and + humbug of the movement there appeared a real regard for social efficiency, + a real spirit of animation and enterprise. There suddenly appeared in my + world—I saw them first, I think, in 1908—a new sort of little + boy, a most agreeable development of the slouching, cunning, + cigarette-smoking, town-bred youngster, a small boy in a khaki hat, and + with bare knees and athletic bearing, earnestly engaged in wholesome and + invigorating games up to and occasionally a little beyond his strength—the + Boy Scout. I liked the Boy Scout, and I find it difficult to express how + much it mattered to me, with my growing bias in favour of deliberate + national training, that Liberalism hadn't been able to produce, and had + indeed never attempted to produce, anything of this kind. + </p> + <p> + 3 + </p> + <p> + In those days there existed a dining club called—there was some lost + allusion to the exorcism of party feeling in its title—the Pentagram + Circle. It included Bailey and Dayton and myself, Sir Herbert Thorns, Lord + Charles Kindling, Minns the poet, Gerbault the big railway man, Lord Gane, + fresh from the settlement of Framboya, and Rumbold, who later became Home + Secretary and left us. We were men of all parties and very various + experiences, and our object was to discuss the welfare of the Empire in a + disinterested spirit. We dined monthly at the Mermaid in Westminster, and + for a couple of years we kept up an average attendance of ten out of + fourteen. The dinner-time was given up to desultory conversation, and it + is odd how warm and good the social atmosphere of that little gathering + became as time went on; then over the dessert, so soon as the waiters had + swept away the crumbs and ceased to fret us, one of us would open with + perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes' exposition of some specially prepared + question, and after him we would deliver ourselves in turn, each for three + or four minutes. When every one present had spoken once talk became + general again, and it was rare we emerged upon Hendon Street before + midnight. Sometimes, as my house was conveniently near, a knot of men + would come home with me and go on talking and smoking in my dining-room + until two or three. We had Fred Neal, that wild Irish journalist, among us + towards the end, and his stupendous flow of words materially prolonged our + closing discussions and made our continuance impossible. + </p> + <p> + I learned very much and very many things at those dinners, but more + particularly did I become familiarised with the habits of mind of such men + as Neal, Crupp, Gane, and the one or two other New Imperialists who + belonged to us. They were nearly all like Bailey Oxford men, though mostly + of a younger generation, and they were all mysteriously and inexplicably + advocates of Tariff Reform, as if it were the principal instead of at best + a secondary aspect of constructive policy. They seemed obsessed by the + idea that streams of trade could be diverted violently so as to link the + parts of the Empire by common interests, and they were persuaded, I still + think mistakenly, that Tariff Reform would have an immense popular appeal. + They were also very keen on military organisation, and with a curious + little martinet twist in their minds that boded ill for that side of + public liberty. So much against them. But they were disposed to spend + money much more generously on education and research of all sorts than our + formless host of Liberals seemed likely to do; and they were altogether + more accessible than the Young Liberals to bold, constructive ideas + affecting the universities and upper classes. The Liberals are abjectly + afraid of the universities. I found myself constantly falling into line + with these men in our discussions, and more and more hostile to Dayton's + sentimentalising evasions of definite schemes and Minns' trust in such + things as the “Spirit of our People” and the “General Trend of Progress.” + It wasn't that I thought them very much righter than their opponents; I + believe all definite party “sides” at any time are bound to be about + equally right and equally lop-sided; but that I thought I could get more + out of them and what was more important to me, more out of myself if I + co-operated with them. By 1908 I had already arrived at a point where I + could be definitely considering a transfer of my political allegiance. + </p> + <p> + These abstract questions are inseparably interwoven with my memory of a + shining long white table, and our hock bottles and burgundy bottles, and + bottles of Perrier and St. Galmier and the disturbed central trophy of + dessert, and scattered glasses and nut-shells and cigarette-ends and + menu-cards used for memoranda. I see old Dayton sitting back and cocking + his eye to the ceiling in a way he had while he threw warmth into the + ancient platitudes of Liberalism, and Minns leaning forward, and a little + like a cockatoo with a taste for confidences, telling us in a hushed voice + of his faith in the Destiny of Mankind. Thorns lounges, rolling his round + face and round eyes from speaker to speaker and sounding the visible + depths of misery whenever Neal begins. Gerbault and Gane were given to + conversation in undertones, and Bailey pursued mysterious purposes in + lisping whispers. It was Crupp attracted me most. He had, as people say, + his eye on me from the beginning. He used to speak at me, and drifted into + a custom of coming home with me very regularly for an after-talk. + </p> + <p> + He opened his heart to me. + </p> + <p> + “Neither of us,” he said, “are dukes, and neither of us are horny-handed + sons of toil. We want to get hold of the handles, and to do that, one must + go where the power is, and give it just as constructive a twist as we can. + That's MY Toryism.” + </p> + <p> + “Is it Kindling's—or Gerbault's?” + </p> + <p> + “No. But theirs is soft, and mine's hard. Mine will wear theirs out. You + and I and Bailey are all after the same thing, and why aren't we working + together?” + </p> + <p> + “Are you a Confederate?” I asked suddenly. + </p> + <p> + “That's a secret nobody tells,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “What are the Confederates after?” + </p> + <p> + “Making aristocracy work, I suppose. Just as, I gather, you want to + do.”... + </p> + <p> + The Confederates were being heard of at that time. They were at once + attractive and repellent to me, an odd secret society whose membership + nobody knew, pledged, it was said, to impose Tariff Reform and an ample + constructive policy upon the Conservatives. In the press, at any rate, + they had an air of deliberately organised power. I have no doubt the + rumour of them greatly influenced my ideas.... + </p> + <p> + In the end I made some very rapid decisions, but for nearly two years I + was hesitating. Hesitations were inevitable in such a matter. I was not + dealing with any simple question of principle, but with elusive and + fluctuating estimates of the trend of diverse forces and of the nature of + my own powers. All through that period I was asking over and over again: + how far are these Confederates mere dreamers? How far—and this was + more vital—are they rendering lip-service to social organisations? + Is it true they desire war because it confirms the ascendency of their + class? How far can Conservatism be induced to plan and construct before it + resists the thrust towards change. Is it really in bulk anything more than + a mass of prejudice and conceit, cynical indulgence, and a hard suspicion + of and hostility to the expropriated classes in the community? + </p> + <p> + That is a research which yields no statistics, an enquiry like asking what + is the ruling colour of a chameleon. The shadowy answer varied with my + health, varied with my mood and the conduct of the people I was watching. + How fine can people be? How generous?—not incidentally, but all + round? How far can you educate sons beyond the outlook of their fathers, + and how far lift a rich, proud, self-indulgent class above the protests of + its business agents and solicitors and its own habits and vanity? Is + chivalry in a class possible?—was it ever, indeed, or will it ever + indeed be possible? Is the progress that seems attainable in certain + directions worth the retrogression that may be its price? + </p> + <p> + 4 + </p> + <p> + It was to the Pentagram Circle that I first broached the new conceptions + that were developing in my mind. I count the evening of my paper the + beginning of the movement that created the BLUE WEEKLY and our wing of the + present New Tory party. I do that without any excessive egotism, because + my essay was no solitary man's production; it was my reaction to forces + that had come to me very large through my fellow-members; its quick + reception by them showed that I was, so to speak, merely the first of the + chestnuts to pop. The atmospheric quality of the evening stands out very + vividly in my memory. The night, I remember, was warmly foggy when after + midnight we went to finish our talk at my house. + </p> + <p> + We had recently changed the rules of the club to admit visitors, and so it + happened that I had brought Britten, and Crupp introduced Arnold + Shoesmith, my former schoolfellow at City Merchants, and now the wealthy + successor of his father and elder brother. I remember his heavy, + inexpressively handsome face lighting to his rare smile at the sight of + me, and how little I dreamt of the tragic entanglement that was destined + to involve us both. Gane was present, and Esmeer, a newly-added member, + but I think Bailey was absent. Either he was absent, or he said something + so entirely characteristic and undistinguished that it has left no + impression on my mind. + </p> + <p> + I had broken a little from the traditions of the club even in my title, + which was deliberately a challenge to the liberal idea: it was, “The World + Exists for Exceptional People.” It is not the title I should choose now—for + since that time I have got my phrase of “mental hinterlander” into + journalistic use. I should say now, “The World Exists for Mental + Hinterland.” + </p> + <p> + The notes I made of that opening have long since vanished with a thousand + other papers, but some odd chance has preserved and brought with me to + Italy the menu for the evening; its back black with the scrawled notes I + made of the discussion for my reply. I found it the other day among some + letters from Margaret and a copy of the 1909 Report of the Poor Law + Commission, also rich with pencilled marginalia. + </p> + <p> + My opening was a criticism of the democratic idea and method, upon lines + such as I have already sufficiently indicated in the preceding sections. I + remember how old Dayton fretted in his chair, and tushed and pished at + that, even as I gave it, and afterwards we were treated to one of his + platitudinous harangues, he sitting back in his chair with that small + obstinate eye of his fixed on the ceiling, and a sort of cadaverous glow + upon his face, repeating—quite regardless of all my reasoning and + all that had been said by others in the debate—the sacred empty + phrases that were his soul's refuge from reality. “You may think it very + clever,” he said with a nod of his head to mark his sense of his point, + “not to Trust in the People. I do.” And so on. Nothing in his life or work + had ever shown that he did trust in the people, but that was beside the + mark. He was the party Liberal, and these were the party incantations. + </p> + <p> + After my preliminary attack on vague democracy I went on to show that all + human life was virtually aristocratic; people must either recognise + aristocracy in general or else follow leaders, which is aristocracy in + particular, and so I came to my point that the reality of human progress + lay necessarily through the establishment of freedoms for the human best + and a collective receptivity and understanding. There was a disgusted + grunt from Dayton, “Superman rubbish—Nietzsche. Shaw! Ugh!” I sailed + on over him to my next propositions. The prime essential in a progressive + civilisation was the establishment of a more effective selective process + for the privilege of higher education, and the very highest educational + opportunity for the educable. We were too apt to patronise scholarship + winners, as though a scholarship was toffee given as a reward for virtue. + It wasn't any reward at all; it was an invitation to capacity. We had no + more right to drag in virtue, or any merit but quality, than we had to + involve it in a search for the tallest man. We didn't want a mere process + for the selection of good as distinguished from gifted and able boys—“No, + you DON'T,” from Dayton—we wanted all the brilliant stuff in the + world concentrated upon the development of the world. Just to exasperate + Dayton further I put in a plea for gifts as against character in + educational, artistic, and legislative work. “Good teaching,” I said, “is + better than good conduct. We are becoming idiotic about character.” + </p> + <p> + Dayton was too moved to speak. He slewed round upon me an eye of agonised + aversion. + </p> + <p> + I expatiated on the small proportion of the available ability that is + really serving humanity to-day. “I suppose to-day all the thought, all the + art, all the increments of knowledge that matter, are supplied so far as + the English-speaking community is concerned by—how many?—by + three or four thousand individuals. ('Less,' said Thorns.) To be more + precise, by the mental hinterlands of three or four thousand individuals. + We who know some of the band entertain no illusions as to their innate + rarity. We know that they are just the few out of many, the few who got in + our world of chance and confusion, the timely stimulus, the apt suggestion + at the fortunate moment, the needed training, the leisure. The rest are + lost in the crowd, fail through the defects of their qualities, become + commonplace workmen and second-rate professional men, marry commonplace + wives, are as much waste as the driftage of superfluous pollen in a pine + forest is waste.” + </p> + <p> + “Decent honest lives!” said Dayton to his bread-crumbs, with his chin in + his necktie. “WASTE!” + </p> + <p> + “And the people who do get what we call opportunity get it usually in + extremely limited and cramping forms. No man lives a life of intellectual + productivity alone; he needs not only material and opportunity, but + helpers, resonators. Round and about what I might call the REAL men, you + want the sympathetic cooperators, who help by understanding. It isn't that + our—SALT of three or four thousand is needlessly rare; it is + sustained by far too small and undifferentiated a public. Most of the good + men we know are not really doing the very best work of their gifts; nearly + all are a little adapted, most are shockingly adapted to some second-best + use. Now, I take it, this is the very centre and origin of the muddle, + futility, and unhappiness that distresses us; it's the cardinal problem of + the state—to discover, develop, and use the exceptional gifts of + men. And I see that best done—I drift more and more away from the + common stuff of legislative and administrative activity—by a quite + revolutionary development of the educational machinery, but by a still + more unprecedented attempt to keep science going, to keep literature + going, and to keep what is the necessary spur of all science and + literature, an intelligent and appreciative criticism going. You know none + of these things have ever been kept going hitherto; they've come + unexpectedly and inexplicably.” + </p> + <p> + “Hear, hear!” from Dayton, cough, nodding of the head, and an expression + of mystical profundity. + </p> + <p> + “They've lit up a civilisation and vanished, to give place to darkness + again. Now the modern state doesn't mean to go back to darkness again—and + so it's got to keep its light burning.” I went on to attack the present + organisation of our schools and universities, which seemed elaborately + designed to turn the well-behaved, uncritical, and uncreative men of each + generation into the authoritative leaders of the next, and I suggested + remedies upon lines that I have already indicated in the earlier chapters + of this story.... + </p> + <p> + So far I had the substance of the club with me, but I opened new ground + and set Crupp agog by confessing my doubt from which party or combination + of groups these developments of science and literature and educational + organisation could most reasonably be expected. I looked up to find + Crupp's dark little eye intent upon me. + </p> + <p> + There I left it to them. + </p> + <p> + We had an astonishingly good discussion; Neal burst once, but we emerged + from his flood after a time, and Dayton had his interlude. The rest was + all close, keen examination of my problem. + </p> + <p> + I see Crupp now with his arm bent before him on the table in a way we had, + as though it was jointed throughout its length like a lobster's antenna, + his plump, short-fingered hand crushing up a walnut shell into smaller and + smaller fragments. “Remington,” he said, “has given us the data for a + movement, a really possible movement. It's not only possible, but + necessary—urgently necessary, I think, if the Empire is to go on.” + </p> + <p> + “We're working altogether too much at the social basement in education and + training,” said Gane. “Remington is right about our neglect of the higher + levels.” + </p> + <p> + Britten made a good contribution with an analysis of what he called the + spirit of a country and what made it. “The modern community needs its + serious men to be artistic and its artists to be taken seriously,” I + remember his saying. “The day has gone by for either dull responsibility + or merely witty art.” + </p> + <p> + I remember very vividly how Shoesmith harped on an idea I had thrown out + of using some sort of review or weekly to express and elaborate these + conceptions of a new, severer, aristocratic culture. + </p> + <p> + “It would have to be done amazingly well,” said Britten, and my mind went + back to my school days and that ancient enterprise of ours, and how + Cossington had rushed it. Well, Cossington had too many papers nowadays to + interfere with us, and we perhaps had learnt some defensive devices. + </p> + <p> + “But this thing has to be linked to some political party,” said Crupp, + with his eye on me. “You can't get away from that. The Liberals,” he + added, “have never done anything for research or literature.” + </p> + <p> + “They had a Royal Commission on the Dramatic Censorship,” said Thorns, + with a note of minute fairness. “It shows what they were made of,” he + added. + </p> + <p> + “It's what I've told Remington again and again,” said Crupp, “we've got to + pick up the tradition of aristocracy, reorganise it, and make it work. But + he's certainly suggested a method.” + </p> + <p> + “There won't be much aristocracy to pick up,” said Dayton, darkly to the + ceiling, “if the House of Lords throws out the Budget.” + </p> + <p> + “All the more reason for picking it up,” said Neal. “For we can't do + without it.” + </p> + <p> + “Will they go to the bad, or will they rise from the ashes, aristocrats + indeed—if the Liberals come in overwhelmingly?” said Britten. + </p> + <p> + “It's we who might decide that,” said Crupp, insidiously. + </p> + <p> + “I agree,” said Gane. + </p> + <p> + “No one can tell,” said Thorns. “I doubt if they will get beaten.” + </p> + <p> + It was an odd, fragmentary discussion that night. We were all with ideas + in our minds at once fine and imperfect. We threw out suggestions that + showed themselves at once far inadequate, and we tried to qualify them by + minor self-contradictions. Britten, I think, got more said than any one. + “You all seem to think you want to organise people, particular groups and + classes of individuals,” he insisted. “It isn't that. That's the standing + error of politicians. You want to organise a culture. Civilisation isn't a + matter of concrete groupings; it's a matter of prevailing ideas. The + problem is how to make bold, clear ideas prevail. The question for + Remington and us is just what groups of people will most help this culture + forward.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, but how are the Lords going to behave?” said Crupp. “You yourself + were asking that a little while ago.” + </p> + <p> + “If they win or if they lose,” Gane maintained, “there will be a movement + to reorganise aristocracy—Reform of the House of Lords, they'll call + the political form of it.” + </p> + <p> + “Bailey thinks that,” said some one. + </p> + <p> + “The labour people want abolition,” said some one. “Let 'em,” said Thorns. + </p> + <p> + He became audible, sketching a possibility of action. + </p> + <p> + “Suppose all of us were able to work together. It's just one of those + indeterminate, confused, eventful times ahead when a steady jet of ideas + might produce enormous results.” + </p> + <p> + “Leave me out of it,” said Dayton, “IF you please.” + </p> + <p> + “We should,” said Thorns under his breath. + </p> + <p> + I took up Crupp's initiative, I remember, and expanded it. + </p> + <p> + “I believe we could do—extensive things,” I insisted. + </p> + <p> + “Revivals and revisions of Toryism have been tried so often,” said Thorns, + “from the Young England movement onward.” + </p> + <p> + “Not one but has produced its enduring effects,” I said. “It's the + peculiarity of English conservatism that it's persistently progressive and + rejuvenescent.” + </p> + <p> + I think it must have been about that point that Dayton fled our presence, + after some clumsy sentence that I decided upon reflection was intended to + remind me of my duty to my party. + </p> + <p> + Then I remember Thorns firing doubts at me obliquely across the table. + “You can't run a country through its spoilt children,” he said. “What you + call aristocrats are really spoilt children. They've had too much of + everything, except bracing experience.” + </p> + <p> + “Children can always be educated,” said Crupp. + </p> + <p> + “I said SPOILT children,” said Thorns. + </p> + <p> + “Look here, Thorns!” said I. “If this Budget row leads to a storm, and + these big people get their power clipped, what's going to happen? Have you + thought of that? When they go out lock, stock, and barrel, who comes in?” + </p> + <p> + “Nature abhors a Vacuum,” said Crupp, supporting me. + </p> + <p> + “Bailey's trained officials,” suggested Gane. + </p> + <p> + “Quacks with a certificate of approval from Altiora,” said Thorns. “I + admit the horrors of the alternative. There'd be a massacre in three + years.” + </p> + <p> + “One may go on trying possibilities for ever,” I said. “One thing emerges. + Whatever accidents happen, our civilisation needs, and almost consciously + needs, a culture of fine creative minds, and all the necessary tolerances, + opennesses, considerations, that march with that. For my own part, I think + that is the Most Vital Thing. Build your ship of state as you will; get + your men as you will; I concentrate on what is clearly the affair of my + sort of man,—I want to ensure the quality of the quarter deck.” + </p> + <p> + “Hear, hear!” said Shoesmith, suddenly—his first remark for a long + time. “A first-rate figure,” said Shoesmith, gripping it. + </p> + <p> + “Our danger is in missing that,” I went on. “Muddle isn't ended by + transferring power from the muddle-headed few to the muddle-headed many, + and then cheating the many out of it again in the interests of a + bureaucracy of sham experts. But that seems the limit of the liberal + imagination. There is no real progress in a country, except a rise in the + level of its free intellectual activity. All other progress is secondary + and dependant. If you take on Bailey's dreams of efficient machinery and a + sort of fanatical discipline with no free-moving brains behind it, + confused ugliness becomes rigid ugliness,—that's all. No doubt + things are moving from looseness to discipline, and from irresponsible + controls to organised controls—and also and rather contrariwise + everything is becoming as people say, democratised; but all the more need + in that, for an ark in which the living element may be saved.” + </p> + <p> + “Hear, hear!” said Shoesmith, faint but pursuing. + </p> + <p> + It must have been in my house afterwards that Shoesmith became noticeable. + He seemed trying to say something vague and difficult that he didn't get + said at all on that occasion. “We could do immense things with a weekly,” + he repeated, echoing Neal, I think. And there he left off and became a + mute expressiveness, and it was only afterwards, when I was in bed, that I + saw we had our capitalist in our hands.... + </p> + <p> + We parted that night on my doorstep in a tremendous glow—but in that + sort of glow one doesn't act upon without much reconsideration, and it was + some months before I made my decision to follow up the indications of that + opening talk. + </p> + <p> + 5 + </p> + <p> + I find my thoughts lingering about the Pentagram Circle. In my + developments it played a large part, not so much by starting new trains of + thought as by confirming the practicability of things I had already + hesitatingly entertained. Discussion with these other men so prominently + involved in current affairs endorsed views that otherwise would have + seemed only a little less remote from actuality than the guardians of + Plato or the labour laws of More. Among other questions that were never + very distant from our discussions, that came apt to every topic, was the + true significance of democracy, Tariff Reform as a method of international + hostility, and the imminence of war. On the first issue I can still recall + little Bailey, glib and winking, explaining that democracy was really just + a dodge for getting assent to the ordinances of the expert official by + means of the polling booth. “If they don't like things,” said he, “they + can vote for the opposition candidate and see what happens then—and + that, you see, is why we don't want proportional representation to let in + the wild men.” I opened my eyes—the lids had dropped for a moment + under the caress of those smooth sounds—to see if Bailey's artful + forefinger wasn't at the side of his predominant nose. + </p> + <p> + The international situation exercised us greatly. Our meetings were + pervaded by the feeling that all things moved towards a day of reckoning + with Germany, and I was largely instrumental in keeping up the suggestion + that India was in a state of unstable equilibrium, that sooner or later + something must happen there—something very serious to our Empire. + Dayton frankly detested these topics. He was full of that old Middle + Victorian persuasion that whatever is inconvenient or disagreeable to the + English mind could be annihilated by not thinking about it. He used to sit + low in his chair and look mulish. “Militarism,” he would declare in a tone + of the utmost moral fervour, “is a curse. It's an unmitigated curse.” Then + he would cough shortly and twitch his head back and frown, and seem + astonished beyond measure that after this conclusive statement we could + still go on talking of war. + </p> + <p> + All our Imperialists were obsessed by the thought of international + conflict, and their influence revived for a time those uneasinesses that + had been aroused in me for the first time by my continental journey with + Willersley and by Meredith's “One of Our Conquerors.” That quite + justifiable dread of a punishment for all the slackness, mental + dishonesty, presumption, mercenary respectability and sentimentalised + commercialism of the Victorian period, at the hands of the better + organised, more vigorous, and now far more highly civilised peoples of + Central Europe, seemed to me to have both a good and bad series of + consequences. It seemed the only thing capable of bracing English minds to + education, sustained constructive effort and research; but on the other + hand it produced the quality of a panic, hasty preparation, impatience of + thought, a wasteful and sometimes quite futile immediacy. In 1909, for + example, there was a vast clamour for eight additional Dreadnoughts— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “We want eight + And we won't wait,” + </pre> + <p> + but no clamour at all about our national waste of inventive talent, our + mean standard of intellectual attainment, our disingenuous criticism, and + the consequent failure to distinguish men of the quality needed to carry + on the modern type of war. Almost universally we have the wrong men in our + places of responsibility and the right men in no place at all, almost + universally we have poorly qualified, hesitating, and resentful + subordinates, because our criticism is worthless and, so habitually as to + be now almost unconsciously, dishonest. Germany is beating England in + every matter upon which competition is possible, because she attended + sedulously to her collective mind for sixty pregnant years, because in + spite of tremendous defects she is still far more anxious for quality in + achievement than we are. I remember saying that in my paper. From that, I + remember, I went on to an image that had flashed into my mind. “The + British Empire,” I said, “is like some of those early vertebrated + monsters, the Brontosaurus and the Atlantosaurus and such-like; it + sacrifices intellect to character; its backbone, that is to say,—especially + in the visceral region—is bigger than its cranium. It's no accident + that things are so. We've worked for backbone. We brag about backbone, and + if the joints are anchylosed so much the better. We're still but only half + awake to our error. You can't change that suddenly.” + </p> + <p> + “Turn it round and make it go backwards,” interjected Thorns. + </p> + <p> + “It's trying to do that,” I said, “in places.” + </p> + <p> + And afterwards Crupp declared I had begotten a nightmare which haunted him + of nights; he was trying desperately and belatedly to blow a brain as one + blows soap-bubbles on such a mezoroic saurian as I had conjured up, while + the clumsy monster's fate, all teeth and brains, crept nearer and + nearer.... + </p> + <p> + I've grown, I think, since those days out of the urgency of that + apprehension. I still think a European war, and conceivably a very + humiliating war for England, may occur at no very distant date, but I do + not think there is any such heroic quality in our governing class as will + make that war catastrophic. The prevailing spirit in English life—it + is one of the essential secrets of our imperial endurance—is one of + underbred aggression in prosperity and diplomatic compromise in moments of + danger; we bully haughtily where we can and assimilate where we must. It + is not for nothing that our upper and middle-class youth is educated by + teachers of the highest character, scholars and gentlemen, men who can + pretend quite honestly that Darwinism hasn't upset the historical fall of + man, that cricket is moral training, and that Socialism is an outrage upon + the teachings of Christ. A sort of dignified dexterity of evasion is the + national reward. Germany, with a larger population, a vigorous and + irreconcilable proletariat, a bolder intellectual training, a harsher + spirit, can scarcely fail to drive us at last to a realisation of + intolerable strain. So we may never fight at all. The war of preparations + that has been going on for thirty years may end like a sham-fight at last + in an umpire's decision. We shall proudly but very firmly take the second + place. For my own part, since I love England as much as I detest her + present lethargy of soul, I pray for a chastening war—I wouldn't + mind her flag in the dirt if only her spirit would come out of it. So I + was able to shake off that earlier fear of some final and irrevocable + destruction truncating all my schemes. At the most, a European war would + be a dramatic episode in the reconstruction I had in view. + </p> + <p> + In India, too, I no longer foresee, as once I was inclined to see, + disaster. The English rule in India is surely one of the most + extraordinary accidents that has ever happened in history. We are there + like a man who has fallen off a ladder on to the neck of an elephant, and + doesn't know what to do or how to get down. Until something happens he + remains. Our functions in India are absurd. We English do not own that + country, do not even rule it. We make nothing happen; at the most we + prevent things happening. We suppress our own literature there. Most + English people cannot even go to this land they possess; the authorities + would prevent it. If Messrs. Perowne or Cook organised a cheap tour of + Manchester operatives, it would be stopped. No one dare bring the average + English voter face to face with the reality of India, or let the Indian + native have a glimpse of the English voter. In my time I have talked to + English statesmen, Indian officials and ex-officials, viceroys, soldiers, + every one who might be supposed to know what India signifies, and I have + prayed them to tell me what they thought we were up to there. I am not + writing without my book in these matters. And beyond a phrase or so about + “even-handed justice”—and look at our sedition trials!—they + told me nothing. Time after time I have heard of that apocryphal native + ruler in the north-west, who, when asked what would happen if we left + India, replied that in a week his men would be in the saddle, and in six + months not a rupee nor a virgin would be left in Lower Bengal. That is + always given as our conclusive justification. But is it our business to + preserve the rupees and virgins of Lower Bengal in a sort of magic + inconclusiveness? Better plunder than paralysis, better fire and sword + than futility. Our flag is spread over the peninsula, without plans, + without intentions—a vast preventive. The sum total of our policy is + to arrest any discussion, any conferences that would enable the Indians to + work out a tolerable scheme of the future for themselves. But that does + not arrest the resentment of men held back from life. Consider what it + must be for the educated Indian sitting at the feast of contemporary + possibilities with his mouth gagged and his hands bound behind him! The + spirit of insurrection breaks out in spite of espionage and seizures. Our + conflict for inaction develops stupendous absurdities. The other day the + British Empire was taking off and examining printed cotton stomach wraps + for seditious emblems and inscriptions.... + </p> + <p> + In some manner we shall have to come out of India. We have had our chance, + and we have demonstrated nothing but the appalling dulness of our national + imagination. We are not good enough to do anything with India. Codger and + Flack, and Gates and Dayton, Cladingbowl in the club, and the HOME + CHURCHMAN in the home, cant about “character,” worship of strenuous force + and contempt of truth; for the sake of such men and things as these, we + must abandon in fact, if not in appearance, that empty domination. Had we + great schools and a powerful teaching, could we boast great men, had we + the spirit of truth and creation in our lives, then indeed it might be + different. But a race that bears a sceptre must carry gifts to justify it. + </p> + <p> + It does not follow that we shall be driven catastrophically from India. + That was my earlier mistake. We are not proud enough in our bones to be + ruined by India as Spain was by her empire. We may be able to abandon + India with an air of still remaining there. It is our new method. We train + our future rulers in the public schools to have a very wholesome respect + for strength, and as soon as a power arises in India in spite of us, be it + a man or a culture, or a native state, we shall be willing to deal with + it. We may or may not have a war, but our governing class will be quick to + learn when we are beaten. Then they will repeat our South African + diplomacy, and arrange for some settlement that will abandon the reality, + such as it is, and preserve the semblance of power. The conqueror DE FACTO + will become the new “loyal Briton,” and the democracy at home will be + invited to celebrate our recession—triumphantly. I am no believer in + the imminent dissolution of our Empire; I am less and less inclined to see + in either India or Germany the probability of an abrupt truncation of + those slow intellectual and moral constructions which are the essentials + of statecraft. + </p> + <p> + 6 + </p> + <p> + I sit writing in this little loggia to the sound of dripping water—this + morning we had rain, and the roof of our little casa is still not dry, + there are pools in the rocks under the sweet chestnuts, and the torrent + that crosses the salita is full and boastful,—and I try to recall + the order of my impressions during that watching, dubious time, before I + went over to the Conservative Party. I was trying—chaotic task—to + gauge the possibilities inherent in the quality of the British + aristocracy. There comes a broad spectacular effect of wide parks, + diversified by woods and bracken valleys, and dappled with deer; of great + smooth lawns shaded by ancient trees; of big facades of sunlit buildings + dominating the country side; of large fine rooms full of handsome, + easy-mannered people. As a sort of representative picture to set off + against those other pictures of Liberals and of Socialists I have given, I + recall one of those huge assemblies the Duchess of Clynes inaugurated at + Stamford House. The place itself is one of the vastest private houses in + London, a huge clustering mass of white and gold saloons with polished + floors and wonderful pictures, and staircases and galleries on a + Gargantuan scale. And there she sought to gather all that was most + representative of English activities, and did, in fact, in those brilliant + nocturnal crowds, get samples of nearly every section of our social and + intellectual life, with a marked predominance upon the political and + social side. + </p> + <p> + I remember sitting in one of the recesses at the end of the big saloon + with Mrs. Redmondson, one of those sharp-minded, beautiful rich women one + meets so often in London, who seem to have done nothing and to be capable + of everything, and we watched the crowd—uniforms and splendours were + streaming in from a State ball—and exchanged information. I told her + about the politicians and intellectuals, and she told me about the + aristocrats, and we sharpened our wit on them and counted the percentage + of beautiful people among the latter, and wondered if the general effect + of tallness was or was not an illusion. + </p> + <p> + They were, we agreed, for the most part bigger than the average of people + in London, and a handsome lot, even when they were not subtly + individualised. “They look so well nurtured,” I said, “well cared for. I + like their quiet, well-trained movements, their pleasant consideration for + each other.” + </p> + <p> + “Kindly, good tempered, and at bottom utterly selfish,” she said, “like + big, rather carefully trained, rather pampered children. What else can you + expect from them?” + </p> + <p> + “They are good tempered, anyhow,” I witnessed, “and that's an achievement. + I don't think I could ever be content under a bad-tempered, + sentimentalism, strenuous Government. That's why I couldn't stand the + Roosevelt REGIME in America. One's chief surprise when one comes across + these big people for the first time is their admirable easiness and a real + personal modesty. I confess I admire them. Oh! I like them. I wouldn't at + all mind, I believe, giving over the country to this aristocracy—given + SOMETHING—” + </p> + <p> + “Which they haven't got.” + </p> + <p> + “Which they haven't got—or they'd be the finest sort of people in + the world.” + </p> + <p> + “That something?” she inquired. + </p> + <p> + “I don't know. I've been puzzling my wits to know. They've done all sorts + of things—” + </p> + <p> + “That's Lord Wrassleton,” she interrupted, “whose leg was broken—you + remember?—at Spion Kop.” + </p> + <p> + “It's healed very well. I like the gold lace and the white glove resting, + with quite a nice awkwardness, on the sword. When I was a little boy I + wanted to wear clothes like that. And the stars! He's got the V. C. Most + of these people here have at any rate shown pluck, you know—brought + something off.” + </p> + <p> + “Not quite enough,” she suggested. + </p> + <p> + “I think that's it,” I said. “Not quite enough—not quite hard + enough,” I added. + </p> + <p> + She laughed and looked at me. “You'd like to make us,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “What?” + </p> + <p> + “Hard.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't think you'll go on if you don't get hard.” + </p> + <p> + “We shan't be so pleasant if we do.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, there my puzzled wits come in again. I don't see why an aristocracy + shouldn't be rather hard trained, and yet kindly. I'm not convinced that + the resources of education are exhausted. I want to better this, because + it already looks so good.” + </p> + <p> + “How are we to do it?” asked Mrs. Redmondson. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, there you have me! I've been spending my time lately in trying to + answer that! It makes me quarrel with”—I held up my fingers and + ticked the items off—“the public schools, the private tutors, the + army exams, the Universities, the Church, the general attitude of the + country towards science and literature—” + </p> + <p> + “We all do,” said Mrs. Redmondson. “We can't begin again at the + beginning,” she added. + </p> + <p> + “Couldn't one,” I nodded at the assembly in general, start a movement? + </p> + <p> + “There's the Confederates,” she said, with a faint smile that masked a + gleam of curiosity.... “You want,” she said, “to say to the aristocracy, + 'Be aristocrats. NOBLESSE OBLIGE.' Do you remember what happened to the + monarch who was told to 'Be a King'?” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” I said, “I want an aristocracy.” + </p> + <p> + “This,” she said, smiling, “is the pick of them. The backwoodsmen are off + the stage. These are the brilliant ones—the smart and the blues.... + They cost a lot of money, you know.” + </p> + <p> + So far Mrs. Redmondson, but the picture remained full of things not stated + in our speech. They were on the whole handsome people, charitable minded, + happy, and easy. They led spacious lives, and there was something free and + fearless about their bearing that I liked extremely. The women + particularly were wide-reading, fine-thinking. Mrs. Redmondson talked as + fully and widely and boldly as a man, and with those flashes of intuition, + those startling, sudden delicacies of perception few men display. I liked, + too, the relations that held between women and men, their general + tolerance, their antagonism to the harsh jealousies that are the essence + of the middle-class order.... + </p> + <p> + After all, if one's aim resolved itself into the development of a type and + culture of men, why shouldn't one begin at this end? + </p> + <p> + It is very easy indeed to generalise about a class of human beings, but + much harder to produce a sample. Was old Lady Forthundred, for instance, + fairly a sample? I remember her as a smiling, magnificent presence, a + towering accumulation of figure and wonderful shimmering blue silk and + black lace and black hair, and small fine features and chins and chins and + chins, disposed in a big cane chair with wraps and cushions upon the great + terrace of Champneys. Her eye was blue and hard, and her accent and + intonation were exactly what you would expect from a rather commonplace + dressmaker pretending to be aristocratic. I was, I am afraid, posing a + little as the intelligent but respectful inquirer from below investigating + the great world, and she was certainly posing as my informant. She + affected a cynical coarseness. She developed a theory on the governance of + England, beautifully frank and simple. “Give 'um all a peerage when they + get twenty thousand a year,” she maintained. “That's my remedy.” + </p> + <p> + In my new role of theoretical aristocrat I felt a little abashed. + </p> + <p> + “Twenty thousand,” she repeated with conviction. + </p> + <p> + It occurred to me that I was in the presence of the aristocratic theory + currently working as distinguished from my as yet unformulated intentions. + </p> + <p> + “You'll get a lot of loafers and scamps among 'um,” said Lady Forthundred. + “You get loafers and scamps everywhere, but you'll get a lot of men who'll + work hard to keep things together, and that's what we're all after, isn't + ut? + </p> + <p> + “It's not an ideal arrangement.” + </p> + <p> + “Tell me anything better,” said Lady Forthundred. + </p> + <p> + On the whole, and because she refused emphatically to believe in + education, Lady Forthundred scored. + </p> + <p> + We had been discussing Cossington's recent peerage, for Cossington, my old + schoolfellow at City Merchants', and my victor in the affair of the + magazine, had clambered to an amazing wealth up a piled heap of + energetically pushed penny and halfpenny magazines, and a group of daily + newspapers. I had expected to find the great lady hostile to the + new-comer, but she accepted him, she gloried in him. + </p> + <p> + “We're a peerage,” she said, “but none of us have ever had any nonsense + about nobility.” + </p> + <p> + She turned and smiled down on me. “We English,” she said, “are a practical + people. We assimilate 'um.” + </p> + <p> + “Then, I suppose, they don't give trouble?” + </p> + <p> + “Then they don't give trouble.” + </p> + <p> + “They learn to shoot?” + </p> + <p> + “And all that,” said Lady Forthundred. “Yes. And things go on. Sometimes + better than others, but they go on—somehow. It depends very much on + the sort of butler who pokes 'um about.” + </p> + <p> + I suggested that it might be possible to get a secure twenty thousand a + year by at least detrimental methods—socially speaking. + </p> + <p> + “We must take the bad and the good of 'um,” said Lady Forthundred, + courageously.... + </p> + <p> + Now, was she a sample? It happened she talked. What was there in the + brains of the multitude of her first, second, third, fourth, and fifth + cousins, who didn't talk, who shone tall, and bearing themselves finely, + against a background of deft, attentive maids and valets, on every + spacious social scene? How did things look to them? + </p> + <p> + 7 + </p> + <p> + Side by side with Lady Forthundred, it is curious to put Evesham with his + tall, bent body, his little-featured almost elvish face, his unequal mild + brown eyes, his gentle manner, his sweet, amazing oratory. He led all + these people wonderfully. He was always curious and interested about life, + wary beneath a pleasing frankness—and I tormented my brain to get to + the bottom of him. For a long time he was the most powerful man in England + under the throne; he had the Lords in his hand, and a great majority in + the Commons, and the discontents and intrigues that are the concomitants + of an overwhelming party advantage broke against him as waves break + against a cliff. He foresaw so far in these matters that it seemed he + scarcely troubled to foresee. He brought political art to the last triumph + of naturalness. Always for me he has been the typical aristocrat, so + typical and above the mere forms of aristocracy, that he remained a + commoner to the end of his days. + </p> + <p> + I had met him at the beginning of my career; he read some early papers of + mine, and asked to see me, and I conceived a flattered liking for him that + strengthened to a very strong feeling indeed. He seemed to me to stand + alone without an equal, the greatest man in British political life. Some + men one sees through and understands, some one cannot see into or round + because they are of opaque clay, but about Evesham I had a sense of things + hidden as it were by depth and mists, because he was so big and + atmospheric a personality. No other contemporary has had that effect upon + me. I've sat beside him at dinners, stayed in houses with him—he was + in the big house party at Champneys—talked to him, sounded him, + watching him as I sat beside him. I could talk to him with extraordinary + freedom and a rare sense of being understood. Other men have to be treated + in a special manner; approached through their own mental dialect, + flattered by a minute regard for what they have said and done. Evesham was + as widely and charitably receptive as any man I have ever met. The common + politicians beside him seemed like rows of stuffy little rooms looking out + upon the sea. + </p> + <p> + And what was he up to? What did HE think we were doing with Mankind? That + I thought worth knowing. + </p> + <p> + I remember his talking on one occasion at the Hartsteins', at a dinner so + tremendously floriferous and equipped that we were almost forced into + duologues, about the possible common constructive purpose in politics. + </p> + <p> + “I feel so much,” he said, “that the best people in every party converge. + We don't differ at Westminster as they do in the country towns. There's a + sort of extending common policy that goes on under every government, + because on the whole it's the right thing to do, and people know it. + Things that used to be matters of opinion become matters of science—and + cease to be party questions.” + </p> + <p> + He instanced education. + </p> + <p> + “Apart,” said I, “from the religious question.” + </p> + <p> + “Apart from the religious question.” + </p> + <p> + He dropped that aspect with an easy grace, and went on with his general + theme that political conflict was the outcome of uncertainty. “Directly + you get a thing established, so that people can say, 'Now this is Right,' + with the same conviction that people can say water is a combination of + oxygen and hydrogen, there's no more to be said. The thing has to be + done....” + </p> + <p> + And to put against this effect of Evesham, broad and humanely tolerant, + posing as the minister of a steadily developing constructive conviction, + there are other memories. + </p> + <p> + Have I not seen him in the House, persistent, persuasive, indefatigable, + and by all my standards wickedly perverse, leaning over the table with + those insistent movements of his hand upon it, or swaying forward with a + grip upon his coat lapel, fighting with a diabolical skill to preserve + what are in effect religious tests, tests he must have known would outrage + and humiliate and injure the consciences of a quarter—and that + perhaps the best quarter—of the youngsters who come to the work of + elementary education? + </p> + <p> + In playing for points in the game of party advantage Evesham displayed at + times a quite wicked unscrupulousness in the use of his subtle mind. I + would sit on the Liberal benches and watch him, and listen to his urbane + voice, fascinated by him. Did he really care? Did anything matter to him? + And if it really mattered nothing, why did he trouble to serve the + narrowness and passion of his side? Or did he see far beyond my scope, so + that this petty iniquity was justified by greater, remoter ends of which I + had no intimation? + </p> + <p> + They accused him of nepotism. His friends and family were certainly well + cared for. In private life he was full of an affectionate intimacy; he + pleased by being charmed and pleased. One might think at times there was + no more of him than a clever man happily circumstanced, and finding an + interest and occupation in politics. And then came a glimpse of thought, + of imagination, like the sight of a soaring eagle through a staircase + skylight. Oh, beyond question he was great! No other contemporary + politician had his quality. In no man have I perceived so sympathetically + the great contrast between warm, personal things and the white dream of + statecraft. Except that he had it seemed no hot passions, but only + interests and fine affections and indolences, he paralleled the conflict + of my life. He saw and thought widely and deeply; but at times it seemed + to me his greatness stood over and behind the reality of his life, like + some splendid servant, thinking his own thoughts, who waits behind a + lesser master's chair.... + </p> + <p> + 8 + </p> + <p> + Of course, when Evesham talked of this ideal of the organised state + becoming so finely true to practicability and so clearly stated as to have + the compelling conviction of physical science, he spoke quite after my + heart. Had he really embodied the attempt to realise that, I could have + done no more than follow him blindly. But neither he nor I embodied that, + and there lies the gist of my story. And when it came to a study of others + among the leading Tories and Imperialists the doubt increased, until with + some at last it was possible to question whether they had any imaginative + conception of constructive statecraft at all; whether they didn't opaquely + accept the world for what it was, and set themselves single-mindedly to + make a place for themselves and cut a figure in it. + </p> + <p> + There were some very fine personalities among them: there were the great + peers who had administered Egypt, India, South Africa, Framboya—Cromer, + Kitchener, Curzon, Milner, Gane, for example. So far as that easier task + of holding sword and scales had gone, they had shown the finest qualities, + but they had returned to the perplexing and exacting problem of the home + country, a little glorious, a little too simply bold. They wanted to arm + and they wanted to educate, but the habit of immediate necessity made them + far more eager to arm than to educate, and their experience of + heterogeneous controls made them overrate the need for obedience in a + homogeneous country. They didn't understand raw men, ill-trained men, + uncertain minds, and intelligent women; and these are the things that + matter in England.... There were also the great business adventurers, from + Cranber to Cossington (who was now Lord Paddockhurst). My mind remained + unsettled, and went up and down the scale between a belief in their + far-sighted purpose and the perception of crude vanities, coarse + ambitions, vulgar competitiveness, and a mere habitual persistence in the + pursuit of gain. For a time I saw a good deal of Cossington—I wish I + had kept a diary of his talk and gestures, to mark how he could vary from + day to day between a POSEUR, a smart tradesman, and a very bold and + wide-thinking political schemer. He had a vanity of sweeping actions, + motor car pounces, Napoleonic rushes, that led to violent ineffectual + changes in the policy of his papers, and a haunting pursuit by parallel + columns in the liberal press that never abashed him in the slightest + degree. By an accident I plumbed the folly in him—but I feel I never + plumbed his wisdom. I remember him one day after a lunch at the Barhams' + saying suddenly, out of profound meditation over the end of a cigar, one + of those sentences that seem to light the whole interior being of a man. + “Some day,” he said softly, rather to himself than to me, and A PROPOS of + nothing—“some day I will raise the country.” + </p> + <p> + “Why not?” I said, after a pause, and leant across him for the little + silver spirit-lamp, to light my cigarette.... + </p> + <p> + Then the Tories had for another section the ancient creations, and again + there were the financial peers, men accustomed to reserve, and their big + lawyers, accustomed to—well, qualified statement. And below the + giant personalities of the party were the young bloods, young, adventurous + men of the type of Lord Tarvrille, who had seen service in South Africa, + who had travelled and hunted; explorers, keen motorists, interested in + aviation, active in army organisation. Good, brown-faced stuff they were, + but impervious to ideas outside the range of their activities, more + ignorant of science than their chauffeurs, and of the quality of English + people than welt-politicians; contemptuous of school and university by + reason of the Gateses and Flacks and Codgers who had come their way, + witty, light-hearted, patriotic at the Kipling level, with a certain + aptitude for bullying. They varied in insensible gradations between the + noble sportsmen on the one hand, and men like Gane and the Tories of our + Pentagram club on the other. You perceive how a man might exercise his + mind in the attempt to strike an average of public serviceability in this + miscellany! And mixed up with these, mixed up sometimes in the same man, + was the pure reactionary, whose predominant idea was that the village + schools should confine themselves to teaching the catechism, hat-touching + and courtesying, and be given a holiday whenever beaters were in + request.... + </p> + <p> + I find now in my mind as a sort of counterpoise to Evesham the figure of + old Lord Wardingham, asleep in the largest armchair in the library of + Stamford Court after lunch. One foot rested on one of those things—I + think they are called gout stools. He had been playing golf all the + morning and wearied a weak instep; at lunch he had sat at my table and + talked in the overbearing manner permitted to irascible important men + whose insteps are painful. Among other things he had flouted the idea that + women would ever understand statecraft or be more than a nuisance in + politics, denied flatly that Hindoos were capable of anything whatever + except excesses in population, regretted he could not censor picture + galleries and circulating libraries, and declared that dissenters were + people who pretended to take theology seriously with the express purpose + of upsetting the entirely satisfactory compromise of the Established + Church. “No sensible people, with anything to gain or lose, argue about + religion,” he said. “They mean mischief.” Having delivered his soul upon + these points, and silenced the little conversation to the left of him from + which they had arisen, he became, after an appreciative encounter with a + sanguinary woodcock, more amiable, responded to some respectful + initiatives of Crupp's, and related a number of classical anecdotes of + those blighting snubs, vindictive retorts and scandalous miscarriages of + justice that are so dear to the forensic mind. Now he reposed. He was + breathing heavily with his mouth a little open and his head on one side. + One whisker was turned back against the comfortable padding. His plump + strong hands gripped the arms of his chair, and his frown was a little + assuaged. How tremendously fed up he looked! Honours, wealth, influence, + respect, he had them all. How scornful and hard it had made his unguarded + expression! + </p> + <p> + I note without comment that it didn't even occur to me then to wake him up + and ask him what HE was up to with mankind. + </p> + <p> + 9 + </p> + <p> + One countervailing influence to my drift to Toryism in those days was + Margaret's quite religious faith in the Liberals. I realised that slowly + and with a mild astonishment. It set me, indeed, even then questioning my + own change of opinion. We came at last incidentally, as our way was, to an + exchange of views. It was as nearly a quarrel as we had before I came over + to the Conservative side. It was at Champneys, and I think during the same + visit that witnessed my exploration of Lady Forthundred. It arose + indirectly, I think, out of some comments of mine upon our fellow-guests, + but it is one of those memories of which the scene and quality remain more + vivid than the things said, a memory without any very definite beginning + or end. It was afternoon, in the pause between tea and the dressing bell, + and we were in Margaret's big silver-adorned, chintz-bright room, looking + out on the trim Italian garden.... Yes, the beginning of it has escaped me + altogether, but I remember it as an odd exceptional little wrangle. + </p> + <p> + At first we seem to have split upon the moral quality of the aristocracy, + and I had an odd sense that in some way too feminine for me to understand + our hostess had aggrieved her. She said, I know, that Champneys distressed + her; made her “eager for work and reality again.” + </p> + <p> + “But aren't these people real?” + </p> + <p> + “They're so superficial, so extravagant!” + </p> + <p> + I said I was not shocked by their unreality. They seemed the least + affected people I had ever met. “And are they really so extravagant?” I + asked, and put it to her that her dresses cost quite as much as any other + woman's in the house. + </p> + <p> + “It's not only their dresses,” Margaret parried. “It's the scale and + spirit of things.” + </p> + <p> + I questioned that. “They're cynical,” said Margaret, staring before her + out of the window. + </p> + <p> + I challenged her, and she quoted the Brabants, about whom there had been + an ancient scandal. She'd heard of it from Altiora, and it was also + Altiora who'd given her a horror of Lord Carnaby, who was also with us. + “You know his reputation,” said Margaret. “That Normandy girl. Every one + knows about it. I shiver when I look at him. He seems—oh! like + something not of OUR civilisation. He WILL come and say little things to + me.” + </p> + <p> + “Offensive things?” + </p> + <p> + “No, politenesses and things. Of course his manners are—quite right. + That only makes it worse, I think. It shows he might have helped—all + that happened. I do all I can to make him see I don't like him. But none + of the others make the slightest objection to him.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps these people imagine something might be said for him.” + </p> + <p> + “That's just it,” said Margaret. + </p> + <p> + “Charity,” I suggested. + </p> + <p> + “I don't like that sort of toleration.” + </p> + <p> + I was oddly annoyed. “Like eating with publicans and sinners,” I said. + “No!...” + </p> + <p> + But scandals, and the contempt for rigid standards their condonation + displayed, weren't more than the sharp edge of the trouble. “It's their + whole position, their selfish predominance, their class conspiracy against + the mass of people,” said Margaret. “When I sit at dinner in that splendid + room, with its glitter and white reflections and candlelight, and its + flowers and its wonderful service and its candelabra of solid gold, I seem + to feel the slums and the mines and the over-crowded cottages stuffed away + under the table.” + </p> + <p> + I reminded Margaret that she was not altogether innocent of unearned + increment. + </p> + <p> + “But aren't we doing our best to give it back?” she said. + </p> + <p> + I was moved to question her. “Do you really think,” I asked, “that the + Tories and peers and rich people are to blame for social injustice as we + have it to-day? Do you really see politics as a struggle of light on the + Liberal side against darkness on the Tory?” + </p> + <p> + “They MUST know,” said Margaret. + </p> + <p> + I found myself questioning that. I see now that to Margaret it must have + seemed the perversest carping against manifest things, but at the time I + was concentrated simply upon the elucidation of her view and my own; I + wanted to get at her conception in the sharpest, hardest lines that were + possible. It was perfectly clear that she saw Toryism as the diabolical + element in affairs. The thing showed in its hopeless untruth all the + clearer for the fine, clean emotion with which she gave it out to me. My + sleeping peer in the library at Stamford Court and Evesham talking + luminously behind the Hartstein flowers embodied the devil, and my replete + citizen sucking at his cigar in the National Liberal Club, Willie Crampton + discussing the care and management of the stomach over a specially + hygienic lemonade, and Dr. Tumpany in his aggressive frock-coat pegging + out a sort of copyright in Socialism, were the centre and wings of the + angelic side. It was nonsense. But how was I to put the truth to her? + </p> + <p> + “I don't see things at all as you do,” I said. “I don't see things in the + same way.” + </p> + <p> + “Think of the poor,” said Margaret, going off at a tangent. + </p> + <p> + “Think of every one,” I said. “We Liberals have done more mischief through + well-intentioned benevolence than all the selfishness in the world could + have done. We built up the liquor interest.” + </p> + <p> + “WE!” cried Margaret. “How can you say that? It's against us.” + </p> + <p> + “Naturally. But we made it a monopoly in our clumsy efforts to prevent + people drinking what they liked, because it interfered with industrial + regularity—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” cried Margaret, stung; and I could see she thought I was talking + mere wickedness. + </p> + <p> + “That's it,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “But would you have people drink whatever they pleased?” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly. What right have I to dictate to other men and women?” + </p> + <p> + “But think of the children!” + </p> + <p> + “Ah! there you have the folly of modern Liberalism, its half-cunning, + half-silly way of getting at everything in a roundabout fashion. If + neglecting children is an offence, and it IS an offence, then deal with it + as such, but don't go badgering and restricting people who sell something + that may possibly in some cases lead to a neglect of children. If + drunkenness is an offence, punish it, but don't punish a man for selling + honest drink that perhaps after all won't make any one drunk at all. Don't + intensify the viciousness of the public-house by assuming the place isn't + fit for women and children. That's either spite or folly. Make the + public-house FIT for women and children. Make it a real public-house. If + we Liberals go on as we are going, we shall presently want to stop the + sale of ink and paper because those things tempt men to forgery. We do + already threaten the privacy of the post because of betting tout's + letters. The drift of all that kind of thing is narrow, unimaginative, + mischievous, stupid....” + </p> + <p> + I stopped short and walked to the window and surveyed a pretty fountain, + facsimile of one in Verona, amidst trim-cut borderings of yew. Beyond, and + seen between the stems of ilex trees, was a great blaze of yellow + flowers.... + </p> + <p> + “But prevention,” I heard Margaret behind me, “is the essence of our + work.” + </p> + <p> + I turned. “There's no prevention but education. There's no antiseptics in + life but love and fine thinking. Make people fine, make fine people. Don't + be afraid. These Tory leaders are better people individually than the + average; why cast them for the villains of the piece? The real villain in + the piece—in the whole human drama—is the muddle-headedness, + and it matters very little if it's virtuous-minded or wicked. I want to + get at muddle-headedness. If I could do that I could let all that you call + wickedness in the world run about and do what it jolly well pleased. It + would matter about as much as a slightly neglected dog—in an + otherwise well-managed home.” + </p> + <p> + My thoughts had run away with me. + </p> + <p> + “I can't understand you,” said Margaret, in the profoundest distress. “I + can't understand how it is you are coming to see things like this.” + </p> + <p> + 10 + </p> + <p> + The moods of a thinking man in politics are curiously evasive and + difficult to describe. Neither the public nor the historian will permit + the statesman moods. He has from the first to assume he has an Aim, a + definite Aim, and to pretend to an absolute consistency with that. Those + subtle questionings about the very fundamentals of life which plague us + all so relentlessly nowadays are supposed to be silenced. He lifts his + chin and pursues his Aim explicitly in the sight of all men. Those who + have no real political experience can scarcely imagine the immense mental + and moral strain there is between one's everyday acts and utterances on + the one hand and the “thinking-out” process on the other. It is + perplexingly difficult to keep in your mind, fixed and firm, a scheme + essentially complex, to keep balancing a swaying possibility while at the + same time under jealous, hostile, and stupid observation you tread your + part in the platitudinous, quarrelsome, ill-presented march of affairs.... + </p> + <p> + The most impossible of all autobiographies is an intellectual + autobiography. I have thrown together in the crudest way the elements of + the problem I struggled with, but I can give no record of the subtle + details; I can tell nothing of the long vacillations between Protean + values, the talks and re-talks, the meditations, the bleak lucidities of + sleepless nights.... + </p> + <p> + And yet these things I have struggled with must be thought out, and, to + begin with, they must be thought out in this muddled, experimenting way. + To go into a study to think about statecraft is to turn your back on the + realities you are constantly needing to feel and test and sound if your + thinking is to remain vital; to choose an aim and pursue it in despite of + all subsequent questionings is to bury the talent of your mind. It is no + use dealing with the intricate as though it were simple, to leap haphazard + at the first course of action that presents itself; the whole world of + politicians is far too like a man who snatches a poker to a failing watch. + It is easy to say he wants to “get something done,” but the only sane + thing to do for the moment is to put aside that poker and take thought and + get a better implement.... + </p> + <p> + One of the results of these fundamental preoccupations of mine was a + curious irritability towards Margaret that I found difficult to conceal. + It was one of the incidental cruelties of our position that this should + happen. I was in such doubt myself, that I had no power to phrase things + for her in a form she could use. Hitherto I had stage-managed our + “serious” conversations. Now I was too much in earnest and too uncertain + to go on doing this. I avoided talk with her. Her serene, sustained + confidence in vague formulae and sentimental aspirations exasperated me; + her want of sympathetic apprehension made my few efforts to indicate my + changing attitudes distressing and futile. It wasn't that I was always + thinking right, and that she was always saying wrong. It was that I was + struggling to get hold of a difficult thing that was, at any rate, half + true, I could not gauge how true, and that Margaret's habitual phrasing + ignored these elusive elements of truth, and without premeditation fitted + into the weaknesses of my new intimations, as though they had nothing but + weaknesses. It was, for example, obvious that these big people, who were + the backbone of Imperialism and Conservatism, were temperamentally lax, + much more indolent, much more sensuous, than our deliberately virtuous + Young Liberals. I didn't want to be reminded of that, just when I was in + full effort to realise the finer elements in their composition. Margaret + classed them and disposed of them. It was our incurable differences in + habits and gestures of thought coming between us again. + </p> + <p> + The desert of misunderstanding widened. I was forced back upon myself and + my own secret councils. For a time I went my way alone; an unmixed evil + for both of us. Except for that Pentagram evening, a series of talks with + Isabel Rivers, who was now becoming more and more important in my + intellectual life, and the arguments I maintained with Crupp, I never + really opened my mind at all during that period of indecisions, slow + abandonments, and slow acquisitions. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE THIRD ~~ SECESSION + </h2> + <p> + 1 + </p> + <p> + At last, out of a vast accumulation of impressions, decision distilled + quite suddenly. I succumbed to Evesham and that dream of the right thing + triumphant through expression. I determined I would go over to the + Conservatives, and use my every gift and power on the side of such forces + on that side as made for educational reorganisation, scientific research, + literature, criticism, and intellectual development. That was in 1909. I + judged the Tories were driving straight at a conflict with the country, + and I thought them bound to incur an electoral defeat. I under-estimated + their strength in the counties. There would follow, I calculated, a period + of profound reconstruction in method and policy alike. I was entirely at + one with Crupp in perceiving in this an immense opportunity for the things + we desired. An aristocracy quickened by conflict and on the defensive, and + full of the idea of justification by reconstruction, might prove + altogether more apt for thought and high professions than Mrs. + Redmondson's spoilt children. Behind the now inevitable struggle for a + reform of the House of Lords, there would be great heart searchings and + educational endeavour. On that we reckoned.... + </p> + <p> + At last we talked it out to the practical pitch, and Crupp and Shoesmith, + and I and Gane, made our definite agreement together.... + </p> + <p> + I emerged from enormous silences upon Margaret one evening. + </p> + <p> + She was just back from the display of some new musicians at the + Hartsteins. I remember she wore a dress of golden satin, very rich-looking + and splendid. About her slender neck there was a rope of gold-set amber + beads. Her hair caught up and echoed and returned these golden notes. I, + too, was in evening dress, but where I had been escapes me,—some + forgotten dinner, I suppose. I went into her room. I remember I didn't + speak for some moments. I went across to the window and pulled the blind + aside, and looked out upon the railed garden of the square, with its + shrubs and shadowed turf gleaming pallidly and irregularly in the light of + the big electric standard in the corner. + </p> + <p> + “Margaret,” I said, “I think I shall break with the party.” + </p> + <p> + She made no answer. I turned presently, a movement of enquiry. + </p> + <p> + “I was afraid you meant to do that,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “I'm out of touch,” I explained. “Altogether.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! I know.” + </p> + <p> + “It places me in a difficult position,” I said. + </p> + <p> + Margaret stood at her dressing-table, looking steadfastly at herself in + the glass, and with her fingers playing with a litter of stoppered bottles + of tinted glass. “I was afraid it was coming to this,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “In a way,” I said, “we've been allies. I owe my seat to you. I couldn't + have gone into Parliament....” + </p> + <p> + “I don't want considerations like that to affect us,” she interrupted. + </p> + <p> + There was a pause. She sat down in a chair by her dressing-table, lifted + an ivory hand-glass, and put it down again. + </p> + <p> + “I wish,” she said, with something like a sob in her voice, “it were + possible that you shouldn't do this.” She stopped abruptly, and I did not + look at her, because I could feel the effort she was making to control + herself. + </p> + <p> + “I thought,” she began again, “when you came into Parliament—” + </p> + <p> + There came another silence. “It's all gone so differently,” she said. + “Everything has gone so differently.” + </p> + <p> + I had a sudden memory of her, shining triumphant after the Kinghampstead + election, and for the first time I realised just how perplexing and + disappointing my subsequent career must have been to her. + </p> + <p> + “I'm not doing this without consideration,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “I know,” she said, in a voice of despair, “I've seen it coming. But—I + still don't understand it. I don't understand how you can go over.” + </p> + <p> + “My ideas have changed and developed,” I said. + </p> + <p> + I walked across to her bearskin hearthrug, and stood by the mantel. + </p> + <p> + “To think that you,” she said; “you who might have been leader—” She + could not finish it. “All the forces of reaction,” she threw out. + </p> + <p> + “I don't think they are the forces of reaction,” I said. “I think I can + find work to do—better work on that side.” + </p> + <p> + “Against us!” she said. “As if progress wasn't hard enough! As if it + didn't call upon every able man!” + </p> + <p> + “I don't think Liberalism has a monopoly of progress.” + </p> + <p> + She did not answer that. She sat quite still looking in front of her. “WHY + have you gone over?” she asked abruptly as though I had said nothing. + </p> + <p> + There came a silence that I was impelled to end. I began a stiff + dissertation from the hearthrug. “I am going over, because I think I may + join in an intellectual renascence on the Conservative side. I think that + in the coming struggle there will be a partial and altogether confused and + demoralising victory for democracy, that will stir the classes which now + dominate the Conservative party into an energetic revival. They will set + out to win back, and win back. Even if my estimate of contemporary forces + is wrong and they win, they will still be forced to reconstruct their + outlook. A war abroad will supply the chastening if home politics fail. + The effort at renascence is bound to come by either alternative. I believe + I can do more in relation to that effort than in any other connexion in + the world of politics at the present time. That's my case, Margaret.” + </p> + <p> + She certainly did not grasp what I said. “And so you will throw aside all + the beginnings, all the beliefs and pledges—” Again her sentence + remained incomplete. “I doubt if even, once you have gone over, they will + welcome you.” + </p> + <p> + “That hardly matters.” + </p> + <p> + I made an effort to resume my speech. + </p> + <p> + “I came into Parliament, Margaret,” I said, “a little prematurely. Still—I + suppose it was only by coming into Parliament that I could see things as I + do now in terms of personality and imaginative range....” I stopped. Her + stiff, unhappy, unlistening silence broke up my disquisition. + </p> + <p> + “After all,” I remarked, “most of this has been implicit in my writings.” + </p> + <p> + She made no sign of admission. + </p> + <p> + “What are you going to do?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “Keep my seat for a time and make the reasons of my breach clear. Then + either I must resign or—probably this new Budget will lead to a + General Election. It's evidently meant to strain the Lords and provoke a + quarrel.” + </p> + <p> + “You might, I think, have stayed to fight for the Budget.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm not,” I said, “so keen against the Lords.” + </p> + <p> + On that we halted. + </p> + <p> + “But what are you going to do?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “I shall make my quarrel over some points in the Budget. I can't quite + tell you yet where my chance will come. Then I shall either resign my seat—or + if things drift to dissolution I shall stand again.” + </p> + <p> + “It's political suicide.” + </p> + <p> + “Not altogether.” + </p> + <p> + “I can't imagine you out of Parliament again. It's just like—like + undoing all we have done. What will you do?” + </p> + <p> + “Write. Make a new, more definite place for myself. You know, of course, + there's already a sort of group about Crupp and Gane.” + </p> + <p> + Margaret seemed lost for a time in painful thought. + </p> + <p> + “For me,” she said at last, “our political work has been a religion—it + has been more than a religion.” + </p> + <p> + I heard in silence. I had no form of protest available against the + implications of that. + </p> + <p> + “And then I find you turning against all we aimed to do—talking of + going over, almost lightly—to those others.”... + </p> + <p> + She was white-lipped as she spoke. In the most curious way she had + captured the moral values of the situation. I found myself protesting + ineffectually against her fixed conviction. “It's because I think my duty + lies in this change that I make it,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “I don't see how you can say that,” she replied quietly. + </p> + <p> + There was another pause between us. + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” she said and clenched her hand upon the table. “That it should have + come to this!” + </p> + <p> + She was extraordinarily dignified and extraordinarily absurd. She was hurt + and thwarted beyond measure. She had no place in her ideas, I thought, for + me. I could see how it appeared to her, but I could not make her see + anything of the intricate process that had brought me to this divergence. + The opposition of our intellectual temperaments was like a gag in my + mouth. What was there for me to say? A flash of intuition told me that + behind her white dignity was a passionate disappointment, a shattering of + dreams that needed before everything else the relief of weeping. + </p> + <p> + “I've told you,” I said awkwardly, “as soon as I could.” + </p> + <p> + There was another long silence. “So that is how we stand,” I said with an + air of having things defined. I walked slowly to the door. + </p> + <p> + She had risen and stood now staring in front of her. + </p> + <p> + “Good-night,” I said, making no movement towards our habitual kiss. + </p> + <p> + “Good-night,” she answered in a tragic note.... + </p> + <p> + I closed the door softly. I remained for a moment or so on the big + landing, hesitating between my bedroom and my study. As I did so I heard + the soft rustle of her movement and the click of the key in her bedroom + door. Then everything was still.... + </p> + <p> + She hid her tears from me. Something gripped my heart at the thought. + </p> + <p> + “Damnation!” I said wincing. “Why the devil can't people at least THINK in + the same manner?” + </p> + <p> + 2 + </p> + <p> + And that insufficient colloquy was the beginning of a prolonged + estrangement between us. It was characteristic of our relations that we + never reopened the discussion. The thing had been in the air for some + time; we had recognised it now; the widening breach between us was + confessed. My own feelings were curiously divided. It is remarkable that + my very real affection for Margaret only became evident to me with this + quarrel. The changes of the heart are very subtle changes. I am quite + unaware how or when my early romantic love for her purity and beauty and + high-principled devotion evaporated from my life; but I do know that quite + early in my parliamentary days there had come a vague, unconfessed + resentment at the tie that seemed to hold me in servitude to her standards + of private living and public act. I felt I was caught, and none the less + so because it had been my own act to rivet on my shackles. So long as I + still held myself bound to her that resentment grew. Now, since I had + broken my bonds and taken my line it withered again, and I could think of + Margaret with a returning kindliness. + </p> + <p> + But I still felt embarrassment with her. I felt myself dependent upon her + for house room and food and social support, as it were under false + pretences. I would have liked to have separated our financial affairs + altogether. But I knew that to raise the issue would have seemed a last + brutal indelicacy. So I tried almost furtively to keep my personal + expenditure within the scope of the private income I made by writing, and + we went out together in her motor brougham, dined and made appearances, + met politely at breakfast—parted at night with a kiss upon her + cheek. The locking of her door upon me, which at that time I quite + understood, which I understand now, became for a time in my mind, through + some obscure process of the soul, an offence. I never crossed the landing + to her room again. + </p> + <p> + In all this matter, and, indeed, in all my relations with Margaret, I + perceive now I behaved badly and foolishly. My manifest blunder is that I, + who was several years older than she, much subtler and in many ways wiser, + never in any measure sought to guide and control her. After our marriage I + treated her always as an equal, and let her go her way; held her + responsible for all the weak and ineffective and unfortunate things she + said and did to me. She wasn't clever enough to justify that. It wasn't + fair to expect her to sympathise, anticipate, and understand. I ought to + have taken care of her, roped her to me when it came to crossing the + difficult places. If I had loved her more, and wiselier and more tenderly, + if there had not been the consciousness of my financial dependence on her + always stiffening my pride, I think she would have moved with me from the + outset, and left the Liberals with me. But she did not get any inkling of + the ends I sought in my change of sides. It must have seemed to her + inexplicable perversity. She had, I knew—for surely I knew it then—an + immense capacity for loyalty and devotion. There she was with these + treasures untouched, neglected and perplexed. A woman who loves wants to + give. It is the duty and business of the man she has married for love to + help her to help and give. But I was stupid. My eyes had never been + opened. I was stiff with her and difficult to her, because even on my + wedding morning there had been, deep down in my soul, voiceless though + present, something weakly protesting, a faint perception of wrong-doing, + the infinitesimally small, slow-multiplying germs of shame. + </p> + <p> + 3 + </p> + <p> + I made my breach with the party on the Budget. + </p> + <p> + In many ways I was disposed to regard the 1909 Budget as a fine piece of + statecraft. Its production was certainly a very unexpected display of + vigour on the Liberal side. But, on the whole, this movement towards + collectivist organisation on the part of the Liberals rather strengthened + than weakened my resolve to cross the floor of the house. It made it more + necessary, I thought, to leaven the purely obstructive and reactionary + elements that were at once manifest in the opposition. I assailed the land + taxation proposals in one main speech, and a series of minor speeches in + committee. The line of attack I chose was that the land was a great public + service that needed to be controlled on broad and far-sighted lines. I had + no objection to its nationalisation, but I did object most strenuously to + the idea of leaving it in private hands, and attempting to produce + beneficial social results through the pressure of taxation upon the + land-owning class. That might break it up in an utterly disastrous way. + The drift of the government proposals was all in the direction of sweating + the landowner to get immediate values from his property, and such a course + of action was bound to give us an irritated and vindictive land-owning + class, the class upon which we had hitherto relied—not unjustifiably—for + certain broad, patriotic services and an influence upon our collective + judgments that no other class seemed prepared to exercise. Abolish + landlordism if you will, I said, buy it out, but do not drive it to a + defensive fight, and leave it still sufficiently strong and wealthy to + become a malcontent element in your state. You have taxed and controlled + the brewer and the publican until the outraged Liquor Interest has become + a national danger. You now propose to do the same thing on a larger scale. + You turn a class which has many fine and truly aristocratic traditions + towards revolt, and there is nothing in these or any other of your + proposals that shows any sense of the need for leadership to replace these + traditional leaders you are ousting. This was the substance of my case, + and I hammered at it not only in the House, but in the press.... + </p> + <p> + The Kinghampstead division remained for some time insensitive to my + defection. + </p> + <p> + Then it woke up suddenly, and began, in the columns of the KINGSHAMPSTEAD + GUARDIAN, an indignant, confused outcry. I was treated to an open letter, + signed “Junius Secundus,” and I replied in provocative terms. There were + two thinly attended public meetings at different ends of the constituency, + and then I had a correspondence with my old friend Parvill, the + photographer, which ended in my seeing a deputation. + </p> + <p> + My impression is that it consisted of about eighteen or twenty people. + They had had to come upstairs to me and they were manifestly full of + indignation and a little short of breath. There was Parvill himself, J.P., + dressed wholly in black—I think to mark his sense of the occasion—and + curiously suggestive in his respect for my character and his concern for + the honourableness of the KINGHAMPSTEAD GUARDIAN editor, of Mark Antony at + the funeral of Cesar. There was Mrs. Bulger, also in mourning; she had + never abandoned the widow's streamers since the death of her husband ten + years ago, and her loyalty to Liberalism of the severest type was part as + it were of her weeds. There was a nephew of Sir Roderick Newton, a bright + young Hebrew of the graver type, and a couple of dissenting ministers in + high collars and hats that stopped halfway between the bowler of this + world and the shovel-hat of heaven. There was also a young solicitor from + Lurky done in the horsey style, and there was a very little nervous man + with a high brow and a face contracting below as though the jawbones and + teeth had been taken out and the features compressed. The rest of the + deputation, which included two other public-spirited ladies and several + ministers of religion, might have been raked out of any omnibus going + Strandward during the May meetings. They thrust Parvill forward as + spokesman, and manifested a strong disposition to say “Hear, hear!” to his + more strenuous protests provided my eye wasn't upon them at the time. + </p> + <p> + I regarded this appalling deputation as Parvill's apologetic but quite + definite utterances drew to an end. I had a moment of vision. Behind them + I saw the wonderful array of skeleton forces that stand for public + opinion, that are as much public opinion as exists indeed at the present + time. The whole process of politics which bulks so solidly in history + seemed for that clairvoyant instant but a froth of petty motives above + abysms of indifference.... + </p> + <p> + Some one had finished. I perceived I had to speak. + </p> + <p> + “Very well,” I said, “I won't keep you long in replying. I'll resign if + there isn't a dissolution before next February, and if there is I shan't + stand again. You don't want the bother and expense of a bye-election + (approving murmurs) if it can be avoided. But I may tell you plainly now + that I don't think it will be necessary for me to resign, and the sooner + you find my successor the better for the party. The Lords are in a corner; + they've got to fight now or never, and I think they will throw out the + Budget. Then they will go on fighting. It is a fight that will last for + years. They have a sort of social discipline, and you haven't. You + Liberals will find yourselves with a country behind you, vaguely indignant + perhaps, but totally unprepared with any ideas whatever in the matter, + face to face with the problem of bringing the British constitution + up-to-date. Anything may happen, provided only that it is sufficiently + absurd. If the King backs the Lords—and I don't see why he shouldn't—you + have no Republican movement whatever to fall back upon. You lost it during + the Era of Good Taste. The country, I say, is destitute of ideas, and you + have no ideas to give it. I don't see what you will do.... For my own + part, I mean to spend a year or so between a window and my writing-desk.” + </p> + <p> + I paused. “I think, gentlemen,” began Parvill, “that we hear all this with + very great regret....” + </p> + <p> + 4 + </p> + <p> + My estrangement from Margaret stands in my memory now as something that + played itself out within the four walls of our house in Radnor Square, + which was, indeed, confined to those limits. I went to and fro between my + house and the House of Commons, and the dining-rooms and clubs and offices + in which we were preparing our new developments, in a state of aggressive + and energetic dissociation, in the nascent state, as a chemist would say. + I was free now, and greedy for fresh combination. I had a tremendous sense + of released energies. I had got back to the sort of thing I could do, and + to the work that had been shaping itself for so long in my imagination. + Our purpose now was plain, bold, and extraordinarily congenial. We meant + no less than to organise a new movement in English thought and life, to + resuscitate a Public Opinion and prepare the ground for a revised and + renovated ruling culture. + </p> + <p> + For a time I seemed quite wonderfully able to do whatever I wanted to do. + Shoesmith responded to my first advances. We decided to create a weekly + paper as our nucleus, and Crupp and I set to work forthwith to collect a + group of writers and speakers, including Esmeer, Britten, Lord Gane, Neal, + and one or two younger men, which should constitute a more or less + definite editorial council about me, and meet at a weekly lunch on Tuesday + to sustain our general co-operations. We marked our claim upon Toryism + even in the colour of our wrapper, and spoke of ourselves collectively as + the Blue Weeklies. But our lunches were open to all sorts of guests, and + our deliberations were never of a character to control me effectively in + my editorial decisions. My only influential councillor at first was old + Britten, who became my sub-editor. It was curious how we two had picked up + our ancient intimacy again and resumed the easy give and take of our + speculative dreaming schoolboy days. + </p> + <p> + For a time my life centred altogether upon this journalistic work. Britten + was an experienced journalist, and I had most of the necessary instincts + for the business. We meant to make the paper right and good down to the + smallest detail, and we set ourselves at this with extraordinary zeal. It + wasn't our intention to show our political motives too markedly at first, + and through all the dust storm and tumult and stress of the political + struggle of 1910, we made a little intellectual oasis of good art + criticism and good writing. It was the firm belief of nearly all of us + that the Lords were destined to be beaten badly in 1910, and our game was + the longer game of reconstruction that would begin when the shouting and + tumult of that immediate conflict were over. Meanwhile we had to get into + touch with just as many good minds as possible. + </p> + <p> + As we felt our feet, I developed slowly and carefully a broadly conceived + and consistent political attitude. As I will explain later, we were + feminist from the outset, though that caused Shoesmith and Gane great + searching of heart; we developed Esmeer's House of Lords reform scheme + into a general cult of the aristocratic virtues, and we did much to + humanise and liberalise the narrow excellencies of that Break-up of the + Poor Law agitation, which had been organised originally by Beatrice and + Sidney Webb. In addition, without any very definite explanation to any one + but Esmeer and Isabel Rivers, and as if it was quite a small matter, I set + myself to secure a uniform philosophical quality in our columns. + </p> + <p> + That, indeed, was the peculiar virtue and characteristic of the BLUE + WEEKLY. I was now very definitely convinced that much of the confusion and + futility of contemporary thought was due to the general need of + metaphysical training.... The great mass of people—and not simply + common people, but people active and influential in intellectual things—are + still quite untrained in the methods of thought and absolutely innocent of + any criticism of method; it is scarcely a caricature to call their + thinking a crazy patchwork, discontinuous and chaotic. They arrive at + conclusions by a kind of accident, and do not suspect any other way may be + found to their attainment. A stage above this general condition stands + that minority of people who have at some time or other discovered general + terms and a certain use for generalisations. They are—to fall back + on the ancient technicality—Realists of a crude sort. When I say + Realist of course I mean Realist as opposed to Nominalist, and not Realist + in the almost diametrically different sense of opposition to Idealist. + Such are the Baileys; such, to take their great prototype, was Herbert + Spencer (who couldn't read Kant); such are whole regiments of prominent + and entirely self-satisfied contemporaries. They go through queer little + processes of definition and generalisation and deduction with the + completest belief in the validity of the intellectual instrument they are + using. They are Realists—Cocksurists—in matter of fact; + sentimentalists in behaviour. The Baileys having got to this glorious + stage in mental development—it is glorious because it has no doubts—were + always talking about training “Experts” to apply the same simple process + to all the affairs of mankind. Well, Realism isn't the last word of human + wisdom. Modest-minded people, doubtful people, subtle people, and the like—the + kind of people William James writes of as “tough-minded,” go on beyond + this methodical happiness, and are forever after critical of premises and + terms. They are truer—and less confident. They have reached + scepticism and the artistic method. They have emerged into the new + Nominalism. + </p> + <p> + Both Isabel and I believe firmly that these differences of intellectual + method matter profoundly in the affairs of mankind, that the collective + mind of this intricate complex modern state can only function properly + upon neo-Nominalist lines. This has always been her side of our mental + co-operation rather than mine. Her mind has the light movement that goes + so often with natural mental power; she has a wonderful art in + illustration, and, as the reader probably knows already, she writes of + metaphysical matters with a rare charm and vividness. So far there has + been no collection of her papers published, but they are to be found not + only in the BLUE WEEKLY columns but scattered about the monthlies; many + people must be familiar with her style. It was an intention we did much to + realise before our private downfall, that we would use the BLUE WEEKLY to + maintain a stream of suggestion against crude thinking, and at last + scarcely a week passed but some popular distinction, some large imposing + generalisation, was touched to flaccidity by her pen or mine.... + </p> + <p> + I was at great pains to give my philosophical, political, and social + matter the best literary and critical backing we could get in London. I + hunted sedulously for good descriptive writing and good criticism; I was + indefatigable in my readiness to hear and consider, if not to accept + advice; I watched every corner of the paper, and had a dozen men alert to + get me special matter of the sort that draws in the unattached reader. The + chief danger on the literary side of a weekly is that it should fall into + the hands of some particular school, and this I watched for closely. It + seems impossible to get vividness of apprehension and breadth of view + together in the same critic. So it falls to the wise editor to secure the + first and impose the second. Directly I detected the shrill partisan note + in our criticism, the attempt to puff a poor thing because it was “in the + right direction,” or damn a vigorous piece of work because it wasn't, I + tackled the man and had it out with him. Our pay was good enough for that + to matter a good deal.... + </p> + <p> + Our distinctive little blue and white poster kept up its neat persistent + appeal to the public eye, and before 1911 was out, the BLUE WEEKLY was + printing twenty pages of publishers' advertisements, and went into all the + clubs in London and three-quarters of the country houses where week-end + parties gather together. Its sale by newsagents and bookstalls grew + steadily. One got more and more the reassuring sense of being discussed, + and influencing discussion. + </p> + <p> + 5 + </p> + <p> + Our office was at the very top of a big building near the end of Adelphi + Terrace; the main window beside my desk, a big undivided window of plate + glass, looked out upon Cleopatra's Needle, the corner of the Hotel Cecil, + the fine arches of Waterloo Bridge, and the long sweep of south bank with + its shot towers and chimneys, past Bankside to the dimly seen piers of the + great bridge below the Tower. The dome of St. Paul's just floated into + view on the left against the hotel facade. By night and day, in every + light and atmosphere, it was a beautiful and various view, alive as a + throbbing heart; a perpetual flow of traffic ploughed and splashed the + streaming silver of the river, and by night the shapes of things became + velvet black and grey, and the water a shining mirror of steel, wearing + coruscating gems of light. In the foreground the Embankment trams sailed + glowing by, across the water advertisements flashed and flickered, trains + went and came and a rolling drift of smoke reflected unseen fires. By day + that spectacle was sometimes a marvel of shining wet and wind-cleared + atmosphere, sometimes a mystery of drifting fog, sometimes a miracle of + crowded details, minutely fine. + </p> + <p> + As I think of that view, so variously spacious in effect, I am back there, + and this sunlit paper might be lamp-lit and lying on my old desk. I see it + all again, feel it all again. In the foreground is a green shaded lamp and + crumpled galley slips and paged proofs and letters, two or three papers in + manuscript, and so forth. In the shadows are chairs and another table + bearing papers and books, a rotating bookcase dimly seen, a long window + seat black in the darkness, and then the cool unbroken spectacle of the + window. How often I would watch some tram-car, some string of barges go + from me slowly out of sight. The people were black animalculae by day, + clustering, collecting, dispersing, by night, they were phantom + face-specks coming, vanishing, stirring obscurely between light and shade. + </p> + <p> + I recall many hours at my desk in that room before the crisis came, hours + full of the peculiar happiness of effective strenuous work. Once some + piece of writing went on, holding me intent and forgetful of time until I + looked up from the warm circle of my electric lamp to see the eastward sky + above the pale silhouette of the Tower Bridge, flushed and banded brightly + with the dawn. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE FOURTH ~~ THE BESETTING OF SEX + </h2> + <p> + 1 + </p> + <p> + Art is selection and so is most autobiography. But I am concerned with a + more tangled business than selection, I want to show a contemporary man in + relation to the state and social usage, and the social organism in + relation to that man. To tell my story at all I have to simplify. I have + given now the broad lines of my political development, and how I passed + from my initial liberal-socialism to the conception of a constructive + aristocracy. I have tried to set that out in the form of a man discovering + himself. Incidentally that self-development led to a profound breach with + my wife. One has read stories before of husband and wife speaking + severally two different languages and coming to an understanding. But + Margaret and I began in her dialect, and, as I came more and more to use + my own, diverged. + </p> + <p> + I had thought when I married that the matter of womankind had ended for + me. I have tried to tell all that sex and women had been to me up to my + married life with Margaret and our fatal entanglement, tried to show the + queer, crippled, embarrassed and limited way in which these interests + break upon the life of a young man under contemporary conditions. I do not + think my lot was a very exceptional one. I missed the chance of sisters + and girl playmates, but that is not an uncommon misadventure in an age of + small families; I never came to know any woman at all intimately until I + was married to Margaret. My earlier love affairs were encounters of sex, + under conditions of furtiveness and adventure that made them things in + themselves, restricted and unilluminating. From a boyish disposition to be + mystical and worshipping towards women I had passed into a disregardful + attitude, as though women were things inferior or irrelevant, disturbers + in great affairs. For a time Margaret had blotted out all other women; she + was so different and so near; she was like a person who stands suddenly in + front of a little window through which one has been surveying a crowd. She + didn't become womankind for me so much as eliminate womankind from my + world.... And then came this secret separation.... + </p> + <p> + Until this estrangement and the rapid and uncontrollable development of my + relations with Isabel which chanced to follow it, I seemed to have solved + the problem of women by marriage and disregard. I thought these things + were over. I went about my career with Margaret beside me, her brow + slightly knit, her manner faintly strenuous, helping, helping; and if we + had not altogether abolished sex we had at least so circumscribed and + isolated it that it would not have affected the general tenor of our lives + in the slightest degree if we had. + </p> + <p> + And then, clothing itself more and more in the form of Isabel and her + problems, this old, this fundamental obsession of my life returned. The + thing stole upon my mind so that I was unaware of its invasion and how it + was changing our long intimacy. I have already compared the lot of the + modern publicist to Machiavelli writing in his study; in his day women and + sex were as disregarded in these high affairs as, let us say, the + chemistry of air or the will of the beasts in the fields; in ours the case + has altogether changed, and woman has come now to stand beside the tall + candles, half in the light, half in the mystery of the shadows, besetting, + interrupting, demanding unrelentingly an altogether unprecedented + attention. I feel that in these matters my life has been almost typical of + my time. Woman insists upon her presence. She is no longer a mere physical + need, an aesthetic bye-play, a sentimental background; she is a moral and + intellectual necessity in a man's life. She comes to the politician and + demands, Is she a child or a citizen? Is she a thing or a soul? She comes + to the individual man, as she came to me and asks, Is she a cherished + weakling or an equal mate, an unavoidable helper? Is she to be tried and + trusted or guarded and controlled, bond or free? For if she is a mate, one + must at once trust more and exact more, exacting toil, courage, and the + hardest, most necessary thing of all, the clearest, most shameless, + explicitness of understanding.... + </p> + <p> + 2 + </p> + <p> + In all my earlier imaginings of statecraft I had tacitly assumed either + that the relations of the sexes were all right or that anyhow they didn't + concern the state. It was a matter they, whoever “they” were, had to + settle among themselves. That sort of disregard was possible then. But + even before 1906 there were endless intimations that the dams holding back + great reservoirs of discussion were crumbling. We political schemers were + ploughing wider than any one had ploughed before in the field of social + reconstruction. We had also, we realised, to plough deeper. We had to + plough down at last to the passionate elements of sexual relationship and + examine and decide upon them. + </p> + <p> + The signs multiplied. In a year or so half the police of the metropolis + were scarce sufficient to protect the House from one clamorous aspect of + the new problem. The members went about Westminster with an odd, new sense + of being beset. A good proportion of us kept up the pretence that the Vote + for Women was an isolated fad, and the agitation an epidemic madness that + would presently pass. But it was manifest to any one who sought more than + comfort in the matter that the streams of women and sympathisers and money + forthcoming marked far deeper and wider things than an idle fancy for the + franchise. The existing laws and conventions of relationship between Man + and Woman were just as unsatisfactory a disorder as anything else in our + tumbled confusion of a world, and that also was coming to bear upon + statecraft. + </p> + <p> + My first parliament was the parliament of the Suffragettes. I don't + propose to tell here of that amazing campaign, with its absurdities and + follies, its courage and devotion. There were aspects of that unquenchable + agitation that were absolutely heroic and aspects that were absolutely + pitiful. It was unreasonable, unwise, and, except for its one central + insistence, astonishingly incoherent. It was amazingly effective. The very + incoherence of the demand witnessed, I think, to the forces that lay + behind it. It wasn't a simple argument based on a simple assumption; it + was the first crude expression of a great mass and mingling of convergent + feelings, of a widespread, confused persuasion among modern educated women + that the conditions of their relations with men were oppressive, ugly, + dishonouring, and had to be altered. They had not merely adopted the Vote + as a symbol of equality; it was fairly manifest to me that, given it, they + meant to use it, and to use it perhaps even vindictively and blindly, as a + weapon against many things they had every reason to hate.... + </p> + <p> + I remember, with exceptional vividness, that great night early in the + session of 1909, when—I think it was—fifty or sixty women went + to prison. I had been dining at the Barham's, and Lord Barham and I came + down from the direction of St. James's Park into a crowd and a confusion + outside the Caxton Hall. We found ourselves drifting with an immense + multitude towards Parliament Square and parallel with a silent, + close-packed column of girls and women, for the most part white-faced and + intent. I still remember the effect of their faces upon me. It was quite + different from the general effect of staring about and divided attention + one gets in a political procession of men. There was an expression of + heroic tension. + </p> + <p> + There had been a pretty deliberate appeal on the part of the women's + organisers to the Unemployed, who had been demonstrating throughout that + winter, to join forces with the movement, and the result was shown in the + quality of the crowd upon the pavement. It was an ugly, dangerous-looking + crowd, but as yet good-tempered and sympathetic. When at last we got + within sight of the House the square was a seething seat of excited + people, and the array of police on horse and on foot might have been + assembled for a revolutionary outbreak. There were dense masses of people + up Whitehall, and right on to Westminster Bridge. The scuffle that ended + in the arrests was the poorest explosion to follow such stupendous + preparations.... + </p> + <p> + 3 + </p> + <p> + Later on in that year the women began a new attack. Day and night, and all + through the long nights of the Budget sittings, at all the piers of the + gates of New Palace Yard and at St. Stephen's Porch, stood women pickets, + and watched us silently and reproachfully as we went to and fro. They were + women of all sorts, though, of course, the independent worker-class + predominated. There were grey-headed old ladies standing there, sturdily + charming in the rain; battered-looking, ambiguous women, with something of + the desperate bitterness of battered women showing in their eyes; + north-country factory girls; cheaply-dressed suburban women; trim, + comfortable mothers of families; valiant-eyed girl graduates and + undergraduates; lank, hungry-looking creatures, who stirred one's + imagination; one very dainty little woman in deep mourning, I recall, + grave and steadfast, with eyes fixed on distant things. Some of those + women looked defiant, some timidly aggressive, some full of the stir of + adventure, some drooping with cold and fatigue. The supply never ceased. I + had a mortal fear that somehow the supply might halt or cease. I found + that continual siege of the legislature extraordinarily impressive—infinitely + more impressive than the feeble-forcible “ragging” of the more militant + section. I thought of the appeal that must be going through the country, + summoning the women from countless scattered homes, rooms, colleges, to + Westminster. + </p> + <p> + I remember too the petty little difficulty I felt whether I should ignore + these pickets altogether, or lift a hat as I hurried past with averted + eyes, or look them in the face as I did so. Towards the end the House + evoked an etiquette of salutation. + </p> + <p> + 4 + </p> + <p> + There was a tendency, even on the part of its sympathisers, to treat the + whole suffrage agitation as if it were a disconnected issue, irrelevant to + all other broad developments of social and political life. We struggled, + all of us, to ignore the indicating finger it thrust out before us. “Your + schemes, for all their bigness,” it insisted to our reluctant, averted + minds, “still don't go down to the essential things....” + </p> + <p> + We have to go deeper, or our inadequate children's insufficient children + will starve amidst harvests of earless futility. That conservatism which + works in every class to preserve in its essentials the habitual daily life + is all against a profounder treatment of political issues. The politician, + almost as absurdly as the philosopher, tends constantly, in spite of + magnificent preludes, vast intimations, to specialise himself out of the + reality he has so stupendously summoned—he bolts back to littleness. + The world has to be moulded anew, he continues to admit, but without, he + adds, any risk of upsetting his week-end visits, his morning cup of + tea.... + </p> + <p> + The discussion of the relations of men and women disturbs every one. It + reacts upon the private life of every one who attempts it. And at any + particular time only a small minority have a personal interest in changing + the established state of affairs. Habit and interest are in a constantly + recruited majority against conscious change and adjustment in these + matters. Drift rules us. The great mass of people, and an overwhelming + proportion of influential people, are people who have banished their + dreams and made their compromise. Wonderful and beautiful possibilities + are no longer to be thought about. They have given up any aspirations for + intense love, their splendid offspring, for keen delights, have accepted a + cultivated kindliness and an uncritical sense of righteousness as their + compensation. It's a settled affair with them, a settled, dangerous + affair. Most of them fear, and many hate, the slightest reminder of those + abandoned dreams. As Dayton once said to the Pentagram Circle, when we + were discussing the problem of a universal marriage and divorce law + throughout the Empire, “I am for leaving all these things alone.” And + then, with a groan in his voice, “Leave them alone! Leave them all alone!” + </p> + <p> + That was his whole speech for the evening, in a note of suppressed + passion, and presently, against all our etiquette, he got up and went out. + </p> + <p> + For some years after my marriage, I too was for leaving them alone. I + developed a dread and dislike for romance, for emotional music, for the + human figure in art—turning my heart to landscape. I wanted to sneer + at lovers and their ecstasies, and was uncomfortable until I found the + effective sneer. In matters of private morals these were my most + uncharitable years. I didn't want to think of these things any more for + ever. I hated the people whose talk or practice showed they were not of my + opinion. I wanted to believe that their views were immoral and + objectionable and contemptible, because I had decided to treat them as at + that level. I was, in fact, falling into the attitude of the normal decent + man. + </p> + <p> + And yet one cannot help thinking! The sensible moralised man finds it hard + to escape the stream of suggestion that there are still dreams beyond + these commonplace acquiescences,—the appeal of beauty suddenly + shining upon one, the mothlike stirrings of serene summer nights, the + sweetness of distant music.... + </p> + <p> + It is one of the paradoxical factors in our public life at the present + time, which penalises abandonment to love so abundantly and so heavily, + that power, influence and control fall largely to unencumbered people and + sterile people and people who have married for passionless purposes, + people whose very deficiency in feeling has left them free to follow + ambition, people beautyblind, who don't understand what it is to fall in + love, what it is to desire children or have them, what it is to feel in + their blood and bodies the supreme claim of good births and selective + births above all other affairs in life, people almost of necessity averse + from this most fundamental aspect of existence.... + </p> + <p> + 5 + </p> + <p> + It wasn't, however, my deepening sympathy with and understanding of the + position of women in general, or the change in my ideas about all these + intimate things my fast friendship with Isabel was bringing about, that + led me to the heretical views I have in the last five years dragged from + the region of academic and timid discussion into the field of practical + politics. Those influences, no doubt, have converged to the same end, and + given me a powerful emotional push upon my road, but it was a broader and + colder view of things that first determined me in my attempt to graft the + Endowment of Motherhood in some form or other upon British Imperialism. + Now that I am exiled from the political world, it is possible to estimate + just how effectually that grafting has been done. + </p> + <p> + I have explained how the ideas of a trained aristocracy and a universal + education grew to paramount importance in my political scheme. It is but a + short step from this to the question of the quantity and quality of births + in the community, and from that again to these forbidden and fear-beset + topics of marriage, divorce, and the family organisation. A sporadic + discussion of these aspects had been going on for years, a Eugenic society + existed, and articles on the Falling Birth Rate, and the Rapid + Multiplication of the Unfit were staples of the monthly magazines. But + beyond an intermittent scolding of prosperous childless people in general—one + never addressed them in particular—nothing was done towards + arresting those adverse processes. Almost against my natural inclination, + I found myself forced to go into these things. I came to the conclusion + that under modern conditions the isolated private family, based on the + existing marriage contract, was failing in its work. It wasn't producing + enough children, and children good enough and well trained enough for the + demands of the developing civilised state. Our civilisation was growing + outwardly, and decaying in its intimate substance, and unless it was + presently to collapse, some very extensive and courageous reorganisation + was needed. The old haphazard system of pairing, qualified more and more + by worldly discretions, no longer secures a young population numerous + enough or good enough for the growing needs and possibilities of our + Empire. Statecraft sits weaving splendid garments, no doubt, but with a + puny, ugly, insufficient baby in the cradle. + </p> + <p> + No one so far has dared to take up this problem as a present question for + statecraft, but it comes unheralded, unadvocated, and sits at every + legislative board. Every improvement is provisional except the improvement + of the race, and it became more and more doubtful to me if we were + improving the race at all! Splendid and beautiful and courageous people + must come together and have children, women with their fine senses and + glorious devotion must be freed from the net that compels them to be + celibate, compels them to be childless and useless, or to bear children + ignobly to men whom need and ignorance and the treacherous pressure of + circumstances have forced upon them. We all know that, and so few dare + even to whisper it for fear that they should seem, in seeking to save the + family, to threaten its existence. It is as if a party of pigmies in a not + too capacious room had been joined by a carnivorous giant—and + decided to go on living happily by cutting him dead.... + </p> + <p> + The problem the developing civilised state has to solve is how it can get + the best possible increase under the best possible conditions. I became + more and more convinced that the independent family unit of to-day, in + which the man is master of the wife and owner of the children, in which + all are dependent upon him, subordinated to his enterprises and liable to + follow his fortunes up or down, does not supply anything like the best + conceivable conditions. We want to modernise the family footing + altogether. An enormous premium both in pleasure and competitive + efficiency is put upon voluntary childlessness, and enormous inducements + are held out to women to subordinate instinctive and selective preferences + to social and material considerations. + </p> + <p> + The practical reaction of modern conditions upon the old tradition of the + family is this: that beneath the pretence that nothing is changing, + secretly and with all the unwholesomeness of secrecy everything is + changed. Offspring fall away, the birth rate falls and falls most among + just the most efficient and active and best adapted classes in the + community. The species is recruited from among its failures and from among + less civilised aliens. Contemporary civilisations are in effect burning + the best of their possible babies in the furnaces that run the machinery. + In the United States the native Anglo-American strain has scarcely + increased at all since 1830, and in most Western European countries the + same is probably true of the ablest and most energetic elements in the + community. The women of these classes still remain legally and practically + dependent and protected, with the only natural excuse for their dependence + gone.... + </p> + <p> + The modern world becomes an immense spectacle of unsatisfactory groupings; + here childless couples bored to death in the hopeless effort to sustain an + incessant honeymoon, here homes in which a solitary child grows + unsocially, here small two or three-child homes that do no more than + continue the culture of the parents at a great social cost, here numbers + of unhappy educated but childless married women, here careless, + decivilised fecund homes, here orphanages and asylums for the heedlessly + begotten. It is just the disorderly proliferation of Bromstead over again, + in lives instead of in houses. + </p> + <p> + What is the good, what is the common sense, of rectifying boundaries, + pushing research and discovery, building cities, improving all the + facilities of life, making great fleets, waging wars, while this aimless + decadence remains the quality of the biological outlook?... + </p> + <p> + It is difficult now to trace how I changed from my early aversion until I + faced this mass of problems. But so far back as 1910 I had it clear in my + mind that I would rather fail utterly than participate in all the + surrenders of mind and body that are implied in Dayton's snarl of “Leave + it alone; leave it all alone!” Marriage and the begetting and care of + children, is the very ground substance in the life of the community. In a + world in which everything changes, in which fresh methods, fresh + adjustments and fresh ideas perpetually renew the circumstances of life, + it is preposterous that we should not even examine into these matters, + should rest content to be ruled by the uncriticised traditions of a + barbaric age. + </p> + <p> + Now, it seems to me that the solution of this problem is also the solution + of the woman's individual problem. The two go together, are right and left + of one question. The only conceivable way out from our IMPASSE lies in the + recognition of parentage, that is to say of adequate mothering, as no + longer a chance product of individual passions but a service rendered to + the State. Women must become less and less subordinated to individual men, + since this works out in a more or less complete limitation, waste, and + sterilisation of their essentially social function; they must become more + and more subordinated as individually independent citizens to the + collective purpose. Or, to express the thing by a familiar phrase, the + highly organised, scientific state we desire must, if it is to exist at + all, base itself not upon the irresponsible man-ruled family, but upon the + matriarchal family, the citizen-ship and freedom of women and the public + endowment of motherhood. + </p> + <p> + After two generations of confused and experimental revolt it grows clear + to modern women that a conscious, deliberate motherhood and mothering is + their special function in the State, and that a personal subordination to + an individual man with an unlimited power of control over this intimate + and supreme duty is a degradation. No contemporary woman of education put + to the test is willing to recognise any claim a man can make upon her but + the claim of her freely-given devotion to him. She wants the reality of + her choice and she means “family” while a man too often means only + possession. This alters the spirit of the family relationships + fundamentally. Their form remains just what it was when woman was esteemed + a pretty, desirable, and incidentally a child-producing, chattel. Against + these time-honoured ideas the new spirit of womanhood struggles in shame, + astonishment, bitterness, and tears.... + </p> + <p> + I confess myself altogether feminist. I have no doubts in the matter. I + want this coddling and browbeating of women to cease. I want to see women + come in, free and fearless, to a full participation in the collective + purpose of mankind. Women, I am convinced, are as fine as men; they can be + as wise as men; they are capable of far greater devotion than men. I want + to see them citizens, with a marriage law framed primarily for them and + for their protection and the good of the race, and not for men's + satisfactions. I want to see them bearing and rearing good children in the + State as a generously rewarded public duty and service, choosing their + husbands freely and discerningly, and in no way enslaved by or + subordinated to the men they have chosen. The social consciousness of + women seems to me an unworked, an almost untouched mine of wealth for the + constructive purpose of the world. I want to change the respective values + of the family group altogether, and make the home indeed the women's + kingdom and the mother the owner and responsible guardian of her children. + </p> + <p> + It is no use pretending that this is not novel and revolutionary; it is. + The Endowment of Motherhood implies a new method of social organization, a + rearrangement of the social unit, untried in human experience—as + untried as electric traction was or flying in 1800. Of course, it may work + out to modify men's ideas of marriage profoundly. To me that is a + secondary consideration. I do not believe that particular assertion + myself, because I am convinced that a practical monogamy is a + psychological necessity to the mass of civilised people. But even if I did + believe it I should still keep to my present line, because it is the only + line that will prevent a highly organised civilisation from ending in + biological decay. The public Endowment of Motherhood is the only possible + way which will ensure the permanently developing civilised state at which + all constructive minds are aiming. A point is reached in the life-history + of a civilisation when either this reconstruction must be effected or the + quality and MORALE of the population prove insufficient for the needs of + the developing organisation. It is not so much moral decadence that will + destroy us as moral inadaptability. The old code fails under the new + needs. The only alternative to this profound reconstruction is a decay in + human quality and social collapse. Either this unprecedented rearrangement + must be achieved by our civilisation, or it must presently come upon a + phase of disorder and crumble and perish, as Rome perished, as France + declines, as the strain of the Pilgrim Fathers dwindles out of America. + Whatever hope there may be in the attempt therefore, there is no + alternative to the attempt. + </p> + <p> + 6 + </p> + <p> + I wanted political success now dearly enough, but not at the price of + constructive realities. These questions were no doubt monstrously + dangerous in the political world; there wasn't a politician alive who + didn't look scared at the mention of “The Family,” but if raising these + issues were essential to the social reconstructions on which my life was + set, that did not matter. It only implied that I should take them up with + deliberate caution. There was no release because of risk or difficulty. + </p> + <p> + The question of whether I should commit myself to some open project in + this direction was going on in my mind concurrently with my speculations + about a change of party, like bass and treble in a complex piece of music. + The two drew to a conclusion together. I would not only go over to + Imperialism, but I would attempt to biologise Imperialism. + </p> + <p> + I thought at first that I was undertaking a monstrous uphill task. But as + I came to look into the possibilities of the matter, a strong persuasion + grew up in my mind that this panic fear of legislative proposals affecting + the family basis was excessive, that things were much riper for + development in this direction than old-experienced people out of touch + with the younger generation imagined, that to phrase the thing in a + parliamentary fashion, “something might be done in the constituencies” + with the Endowment of Motherhood forthwith, provided only that it was made + perfectly clear that anything a sane person could possibly intend by + “morality” was left untouched by these proposals. + </p> + <p> + I went to work very carefully. I got Roper of the DAILY TELEPHONE and + Burkett of the DIAL to try over a silly-season discussion of State Help + for Mothers, and I put a series of articles on eugenics, upon the fall in + the birth-rate, and similar topics in the BLUE WEEKLY, leading up to a + tentative and generalised advocacy of the public endowment of the nation's + children. I was more and more struck by the acceptance won by a sober and + restrained presentation of this suggestion. + </p> + <p> + And then, in the fourth year of the BLUE WEEKLY'S career, came the + Handitch election, and I was forced by the clamour of my antagonist, and + very willingly forced, to put my convictions to the test. I returned + triumphantly to Westminster with the Public Endowment of Motherhood as + part of my open profession and with the full approval of the party press. + Applauding benches of Imperialists cheered me on my way to the table + between the whips. + </p> + <p> + That second time I took the oath I was not one of a crowd of new members, + but salient, an event, a symbol of profound changes and new purposes in + the national life. + </p> + <p> + Here it is my political book comes to an end, and in a sense my book ends + altogether. For the rest is but to tell how I was swept out of this great + world of political possibilities. I close this Third Book as I opened it, + with an admission of difficulties and complexities, but now with a pile of + manuscript before me I have to confess them unsurmounted and still + entangled. + </p> + <p> + Yet my aim was a final simplicity. I have sought to show my growing + realisation that the essential quality of all political and social effort + is the development of a great race mind behind the interplay of individual + lives. That is the collective human reality, the basis of morality, the + purpose of devotion. To that our lives must be given, from that will come + the perpetual fresh release and further ennoblement of individual + lives.... + </p> + <p> + I have wanted to make that idea of a collective mind play in this book the + part United Italy plays in Machiavelli's PRINCE. I have called it the + hinterland of reality, shown it accumulating a dominating truth and + rightness which must force men's now sporadic motives more and more into a + disciplined and understanding relation to a plan. And I have tried to + indicate how I sought to serve this great clarification of our + confusions.... + </p> + <p> + Now I come back to personality and the story of my self-betrayal, and how + it is I have had to leave all that far-reaching scheme of mine, a mere + project and beginning for other men to take or leave as it pleases them. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + BOOK THE FOURTH: ISABEL + </h2> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE FIRST ~~ LOVE AND SUCCESS + </h2> + <p> + 1 + </p> + <p> + I come to the most evasive and difficult part of my story, which is to + tell how Isabel and I have made a common wreck of our joint lives. + </p> + <p> + It is not the telling of one simple disastrous accident. There was a vein + in our natures that led to this collapse, gradually and at this point and + that it crept to the surface. One may indeed see our destruction—for + indeed politically we could not be more extinct if we had been shot dead—in + the form of a catastrophe as disconnected and conclusive as a meteoric + stone falling out of heaven upon two friends and crushing them both. But I + do not think that is true to our situation or ourselves. We were not taken + by surprise. The thing was in us and not from without, it was akin to our + way of thinking and our habitual attitudes; it had, for all its impulsive + effect, a certain necessity. We might have escaped no doubt, as two men at + a hundred yards may shoot at each other with pistols for a considerable + time and escape. But it isn't particularly reasonable to talk of the + contrariety of fate if they both get hit. + </p> + <p> + Isabel and I were dangerous to each other for several years of friendship, + and not quite unwittingly so. + </p> + <p> + In writing this, moreover, there is a very great difficulty in steering my + way between two equally undesirable tones in the telling. In the first + place I do not want to seem to confess my sins with a penitence I am very + doubtful if I feel. Now that I have got Isabel we can no doubt count the + cost of it and feel unquenchable regrets, but I am not sure whether, if we + could be put back now into such circumstances as we were in a year ago, or + two years ago, whether with my eyes fully open I should not do over again + very much as I did. And on the other hand I do not want to justify the + things we have done. We are two bad people—if there is to be any + classification of good and bad at all, we have acted badly, and quite + apart from any other considerations we've largely wasted our own very + great possibilities. But it is part of a queer humour that underlies all + this, that I find myself slipping again and again into a sentimental + treatment of our case that is as unpremeditated as it is insincere. When I + am a little tired after a morning's writing I find the faint suggestion + getting into every other sentence that our blunders and misdeeds embodied, + after the fashion of the prophet Hosea, profound moral truths. Indeed, I + feel so little confidence in my ability to keep this altogether out of my + book that I warn the reader here that in spite of anything he may read + elsewhere in the story, intimating however shyly an esoteric and exalted + virtue in our proceedings, the plain truth of this business is that Isabel + and I wanted each other with a want entirely formless, inconsiderate, and + overwhelming. And though I could tell you countless delightful and + beautiful things about Isabel, were this a book in her praise, I cannot + either analyse that want or account for its extreme intensity. + </p> + <p> + I will confess that deep in my mind there is a belief in a sort of wild + rightness about any love that is fraught with beauty, but that eludes me + and vanishes again, and is not, I feel, to be put with the real veracities + and righteousnesses and virtues in the paddocks and menageries of human + reason.... + </p> + <p> + We have already a child, and Margaret was childless, and I find myself + prone to insist upon that, as if it was a justification. But, indeed, when + we became lovers there was small thought of Eugenics between us. Ours was + a mutual and not a philoprogenitive passion. Old Nature behind us may have + had such purposes with us, but it is not for us to annex her intentions by + a moralising afterthought. There isn't, in fact, any decent justification + for us whatever—at that the story must stand. + </p> + <p> + But if there is no justification there is at least a very effective excuse + in the mental confusedness of our time. The evasion of that passionately + thorough exposition of belief and of the grounds of morality, which is the + outcome of the mercenary religious compromises of the late Vatican period, + the stupid suppression of anything but the most timid discussion of sexual + morality in our literature and drama, the pervading cultivated and + protected muddle-headedness, leaves mentally vigorous people with + relatively enormous possibilities of destruction and little effective + help. They find themselves confronted by the habits and prejudices of + manifestly commonplace people, and by that extraordinary patched-up + Christianity, the cult of a “Bromsteadised” deity, diffused, scattered, + and aimless, which hides from examination and any possibility of faith + behind the plea of good taste. A god about whom there is delicacy is far + worse than no god at all. We are FORCED to be laws unto ourselves and to + live experimentally. It is inevitable that a considerable fraction of just + that bolder, more initiatory section of the intellectual community, the + section that can least be spared from the collective life in a period of + trial and change, will drift into such emotional crises and such disaster + as overtook us. Most perhaps will escape, but many will go down, many more + than the world can spare. It is the unwritten law of all our public life, + and the same holds true of America, that an honest open scandal ends a + career. England in the last quarter of a century has wasted half a dozen + statesmen on this score; she would, I believe, reject Nelson now if he + sought to serve her. Is it wonderful that to us fretting here in exile + this should seem the cruellest as well as the most foolish elimination of + a necessary social element? It destroys no vice; for vice hides by nature. + It not only rewards dullness as if it were positive virtue, but sets an + enormous premium upon hypocrisy. That is my case, and that is why I am + telling this side of my story with so much explicitness. + </p> + <p> + 2 + </p> + <p> + Ever since the Kinghamstead election I had maintained what seemed a + desultory friendship with Isabel. At first it was rather Isabel kept it up + than I. Whenever Margaret and I went down to that villa, with its three or + four acres of garden and shrubbery about it, which fulfilled our election + promise to live at Kinghamstead, Isabel would turn up in a state of frank + cheerfulness, rejoicing at us, and talk all she was reading and thinking + to me, and stay for all the rest of the day. In her shameless liking for + me she was as natural as a savage. She would exercise me vigorously at + tennis, while Margaret lay and rested her back in the afternoon, or guide + me for some long ramble that dodged the suburban and congested patches of + the constituency with amazing skill. She took possession of me in that + unabashed, straight-minded way a girl will sometimes adopt with a man, + chose my path or criticised my game with a motherly solicitude for my + welfare that was absurd and delightful. And we talked. We discussed and + criticised the stories of novels, scraps of history, pictures, social + questions, socialism, the policy of the Government. She was young and most + unevenly informed, but she was amazingly sharp and quick and good. Never + before in my life had I known a girl of her age, or a woman of her + quality. I had never dreamt there was such talk in the world. Kinghamstead + became a lightless place when she went to Oxford. Heaven knows how much + that may not have precipitated my abandonment of the seat! + </p> + <p> + She went to Ridout College, Oxford, and that certainly weighed with me + when presently after my breach with the Liberals various little + undergraduate societies began to ask for lectures and discussions. I + favoured Oxford. I declared openly I did so because of her. At that time I + think we neither of us suspected the possibility of passion that lay like + a coiled snake in the path before us. It seemed to us that we had the + quaintest, most delightful friendship in the world; she was my pupil, and + I was her guide, philosopher, and friend. People smiled indulgently—even + Margaret smiled indulgently—at our attraction for one another. + </p> + <p> + Such friendships are not uncommon nowadays—among easy-going, + liberal-minded people. For the most part, there's no sort of harm, as + people say, in them. The two persons concerned are never supposed to think + of the passionate love that hovers so close to the friendship, or if they + do, then they banish the thought. I think we kept the thought as + permanently in exile as any one could do. If it did in odd moments come + into our heads we pretended elaborately it wasn't there. + </p> + <p> + Only we were both very easily jealous of each other's attention, and + tremendously insistent upon each other's preference. + </p> + <p> + I remember once during the Oxford days an intimation that should have set + me thinking, and I suppose discreetly disentangling myself. It was one + Sunday afternoon, and it must have been about May, for the trees and + shrubs of Ridout College were gay with blossom, and fresh with the new + sharp greens of spring. I had walked talking with Isabel and a couple of + other girls through the wide gardens of the place, seen and criticised the + new brick pond, nodded to the daughter of this friend and that in the + hammocks under the trees, and picked a way among the scattered tea-parties + on the lawn to our own circle on the grass under a Siberian crab near the + great bay window. There I sat and ate great quantities of cake, and + discussed the tactics of the Suffragettes. I had made some comments upon + the spirit of the movement in an address to the men in Pembroke, and it + had got abroad, and a group of girls and women dons were now having it out + with me. + </p> + <p> + I forget the drift of the conversation, or what it was made Isabel + interrupt me. She did interrupt me. She had been lying prone on the ground + at my right hand, chin on fists, listening thoughtfully, and I was sitting + beside old Lady Evershead on a garden seat. I turned to Isabel's voice, + and saw her face uplifted, and her dear cheeks and nose and forehead all + splashed and barred with sunlight and the shadows of the twigs of the + trees behind me. And something—an infinite tenderness, stabbed me. + It was a keen physical feeling, like nothing I had ever felt before. It + had a quality of tears in it. For the first time in my narrow and + concentrated life another human being had really thrust into my being and + gripped my very heart. + </p> + <p> + Our eyes met perplexed for an extraordinary moment. Then I turned back and + addressed myself a little stiffly to the substance of her intervention. + For some time I couldn't look at her again. + </p> + <p> + From that time forth I knew I loved Isabel beyond measure. + </p> + <p> + Yet it is curious that it never occurred to me for a year or so that this + was likely to be a matter of passion between us. I have told how + definitely I put my imagination into harness in those matters at my + marriage, and I was living now in a world of big interests, where there is + neither much time nor inclination for deliberate love-making. I suppose + there is a large class of men who never meet a girl or a woman without + thinking of sex, who meet a friend's daughter and decide: “Mustn't get + friendly with her—wouldn't DO,” and set invisible bars between + themselves and all the wives in the world. Perhaps that is the way to + live. Perhaps there is no other method than this effectual annihilation of + half—and the most sympathetic and attractive half—of the human + beings in the world, so far as any frank intercourse is concerned. I am + quite convinced anyhow that such a qualified intimacy as ours, such a + drifting into the sense of possession, such untrammeled conversation with + an invisible, implacable limit set just where the intimacy glows, it is no + kind of tolerable compromise. If men and women are to go so far together, + they must be free to go as far as they may want to go, without the + vindictive destruction that has come upon us. On the basis of the accepted + codes the jealous people are right, and the liberal-minded ones are + playing with fire. If people are not to love, then they must be kept + apart. If they are not to be kept apart, then we must prepare for an + unprecedented toleration of lovers. + </p> + <p> + Isabel was as unforeseeing as I to begin with, but sex marches into the + life of an intelligent girl with demands and challenges far more urgent + than the mere call of curiosity and satiable desire that comes to a young + man. No woman yet has dared to tell the story of that unfolding. She + attracted men, and she encouraged them, and watched them, and tested them, + and dismissed them, and concealed the substance of her thoughts about them + in the way that seems instinctive in a natural-minded girl. There was even + an engagement—amidst the protests and disapproval of the college + authorities. I never saw the man, though she gave me a long history of the + affair, to which I listened with a forced and insincere sympathy. She + struck me oddly as taking the relationship for a thing in itself, and + regardless of its consequences. After a time she became silent about him, + and then threw him over; and by that time, I think, for all that she was + so much my junior, she knew more about herself and me than I was to know + for several years to come. + </p> + <p> + We didn't see each other for some months after my resignation, but we kept + up a frequent correspondence. She said twice over that she wanted to talk + to me, that letters didn't convey what one wanted to say, and I went up to + Oxford pretty definitely to see her—though I combined it with one or + two other engagements—somewhere in February. Insensibly she had + become important enough for me to make journeys for her. + </p> + <p> + But we didn't see very much of one another on that occasion. There was + something in the air between us that made a faint embarrassment; the mere + fact, perhaps, that she had asked me to come up. + </p> + <p> + A year before she would have dashed off with me quite unscrupulously to + talk alone, carried me off to her room for an hour with a minute of + chaperonage to satisfy the rules. Now there was always some one or other + near us that it seemed impossible to exorcise. + </p> + <p> + We went for a walk on the Sunday afternoon with old Fortescue, K. C., + who'd come up to see his two daughters, both great friends of Isabel's, + and some mute inglorious don whose name I forget, but who was in a state + of marked admiration for her. The six of us played a game of + conversational entanglements throughout, and mostly I was impressing the + Fortescue girls with the want of mental concentration possible in a rising + politician. We went down Carfex, I remember, to Folly Bridge, and + inspected the Barges, and then back by way of Merton to the Botanic + Gardens and Magdalen Bridge. And in the Botanic Gardens she got almost her + only chance with me. + </p> + <p> + “Last months at Oxford,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “And then?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “I'm coming to London,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “To write?” + </p> + <p> + She was silent for a moment. Then she said abruptly, with that quick flush + of hers and a sudden boldness in her eyes: “I'm going to work with you. + Why shouldn't I?” + </p> + <p> + 3 + </p> + <p> + Here, again, I suppose I had a fair warning of the drift of things. I seem + to remember myself in the train to Paddington, sitting with a handful of + papers—galley proofs for the BLUE WEEKLY, I suppose—on my lap, + and thinking about her and that last sentence of hers, and all that it + might mean to me. + </p> + <p> + It is very hard to recall even the main outline of anything so elusive as + a meditation. I know that the idea of working with her gripped me, + fascinated me. That my value in her life seemed growing filled me with + pride and a kind of gratitude. I was already in no doubt that her value in + my life was tremendous. It made it none the less, that in those days I was + obsessed by the idea that she was transitory, and bound to go out of my + life again. It is no good trying to set too fine a face upon this complex + business, there is gold and clay and sunlight and savagery in every love + story, and a multitude of elvish elements peeped out beneath the fine rich + curtain of affection that masked our future. I've never properly weighed + how immensely my vanity was gratified by her clear preference for me. Nor + can I for a moment determine how much deliberate intention I hide from + myself in this affair. + </p> + <p> + Certainly I think some part of me must have been saying in the train: + “Leave go of her. Get away from her. End this now.” I can't have been so + stupid as not to have had that in my mind.... + </p> + <p> + If she had been only a beautiful girl in love with me, I think I could + have managed the situation. Once or twice since my marriage and before + Isabel became of any significance in my life, there had been incidents + with other people, flashes of temptation—no telling is possible of + the thing resisted. I think that mere beauty and passion would not have + taken me. But between myself and Isabel things were incurably complicated + by the intellectual sympathy we had, the jolly march of our minds + together. That has always mattered enormously. I should have wanted her + company nearly as badly if she had been some crippled old lady; we would + have hunted shoulder to shoulder, as two men. Only two men would never + have had the patience and readiness for one another we two had. I had + never for years met any one with whom I could be so carelessly sure of + understanding or to whom I could listen so easily and fully. She gave me, + with an extraordinary completeness, that rare, precious effect of always + saying something fresh, and yet saying it so that it filled into and + folded about all the little recesses and corners of my mind with an + infinite, soft familiarity. It is impossible to explain that. It is like + trying to explain why her voice, her voice heard speaking to any one—heard + speaking in another room—pleased my ears. + </p> + <p> + She was the only Oxford woman who took a first that year. She spent the + summer in Scotland and Yorkshire, writing to me continually of all she now + meant to do, and stirring my imagination. She came to London for the + autumn session. For a time she stayed with old Lady Colbeck, but she fell + out with her hostess when it became clear she wanted to write, not novels, + but journalism, and then she set every one talking by taking a flat near + Victoria and installing as her sole protector an elderly German governess + she had engaged through a scholastic agency. She began writing, not in + that copious flood the undisciplined young woman of gifts is apt to + produce, but in exactly the manner of an able young man, experimenting + with forms, developing the phrasing of opinions, taking a definite line. + She was, of course, tremendously discussed. She was disapproved of, but + she was invited out to dinner. She got rather a reputation for the + management of elderly distinguished men. It was an odd experience to + follow Margaret's soft rustle of silk into some big drawing-room and + discover my snub-nosed girl in the blue sack transformed into a shining + creature in the soft splendour of pearls and ivory-white and lace, and + with a silver band about her dusky hair. + </p> + <p> + For a time we did not meet very frequently, though always she professed an + unblushing preference for my company, and talked my views and sought me + out. Then her usefulness upon the BLUE WEEKLY began to link us closelier. + She would come up to the office, and sit by the window, and talk over the + proofs of the next week's articles, going through my intentions with a + keen investigatory scalpel. Her talk always puts me in mind of a steel + blade. Her writing became rapidly very good; she had a wit and a turn of + the phrase that was all her own. We seemed to have forgotten the little + shadow of embarrassment that had fallen over our last meeting at Oxford. + Everything seemed natural and easy between us in those days; a little + unconventional, but that made it all the brighter. + </p> + <p> + We developed something like a custom of walks, about once a week or so, + and letters and notes became frequent. I won't pretend things were not + keenly personal between us, but they had an air of being innocently + mental. She used to call me “Master” in our talks, a monstrous and + engaging flattery, and I was inordinately proud to have her as my pupil. + Who wouldn't have been? And we went on at that distance for a long time—until + within a year of the Handitch election. + </p> + <p> + After Lady Colbeck threw her up as altogether too “intellectual” for + comfortable control, Isabel was taken up by the Balfes in a less formal + and compromising manner, and week-ended with them and their cousin Leonora + Sparling, and spent large portions of her summer with them in + Herefordshire. There was a lover or so in that time, men who came a little + timidly at this brilliant young person with the frank manner and the + Amazonian mind, and, she declared, received her kindly refusals with + manifest relief. And Arnold Shoesmith struck up a sort of friendship that + oddly imitated mine. She took a liking to him because he was clumsy and + shy and inexpressive; she embarked upon the dangerous interest of helping + him to find his soul. I had some twinges of jealousy about that. I didn't + see the necessity of him. He invaded her time, and I thought that might + interfere with her work. If their friendship stole some hours from + Isabel's writing, it did not for a long while interfere with our walks or + our talks, or the close intimacy we had together. + </p> + <p> + 4 + </p> + <p> + Then suddenly Isabel and I found ourselves passionately in love. + </p> + <p> + The change came so entirely without warning or intention that I find it + impossible now to tell the order of its phases. What disturbed pebble + started the avalanche I cannot trace. Perhaps it was simply that the + barriers between us and this masked aspect of life had been wearing down + unperceived. + </p> + <p> + And there came a change in Isabel. It was like some change in the cycle of + nature, like the onset of spring—a sharp brightness, an uneasiness. + She became restless with her work; little encounters with men began to + happen, encounters not quite in the quality of the earlier proposals; and + then came an odd incident of which she told me, but somehow, I felt, + didn't tell me completely. She told me all she was able to tell me. She + had been at a dance at the Ropers', and a man, rather well known in + London, had kissed her. The thing amazed her beyond measure. It was the + sort of thing immediately possible between any man and any woman, that one + never expects to happen until it happens. It had the surprising effect of + a judge generally known to be bald suddenly whipping off his wig in court. + No absolutely unexpected revelation could have quite the same quality of + shock. She went through the whole thing to me with a remarkable + detachment, told me how she had felt—and the odd things it seemed to + open to her. + </p> + <p> + “I WANT to be kissed, and all that sort of thing,” she avowed. “I suppose + every woman does.” + </p> + <p> + She added after a pause: “And I don't want any one to do it.” + </p> + <p> + This struck me as queerly expressive of the woman's attitude to these + things. “Some one presently will—solve that,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “Some one will perhaps.” + </p> + <p> + I was silent. + </p> + <p> + “Some one will,” she said, almost viciously. “And then we'll have to stop + these walks and talks of ours, dear Master.... I'll be sorry to give them + up.” + </p> + <p> + “It's part of the requirements of the situation,” I said, “that he should + be—oh, very interesting! He'll start, no doubt, all sorts of new + topics, and open no end of attractive vistas.... You can't, you know, + always go about in a state of pupillage.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't think I can,” said Isabel. “But it's only just recently I've + begun to doubt about it.” + </p> + <p> + I remember these things being said, but just how much we saw and + understood, and just how far we were really keeping opaque to each other + then, I cannot remember. But it must have been quite soon after this that + we spent nearly a whole day together at Kew Gardens, with the curtains up + and the barriers down, and the thing that had happened plain before our + eyes. I don't remember we ever made any declaration. We just assumed the + new footing.... + </p> + <p> + It was a day early in that year—I think in January, because there + was thin, crisp snow on the grass, and we noted that only two other people + had been to the Pagoda that day. I've a curious impression of greenish + colour, hot, moist air and huge palm fronds about very much of our talk, + as though we were nearly all the time in the Tropical House. But I also + remember very vividly looking at certain orange and red spray-like flowers + from Patagonia, which could not have been there. It is a curious thing + that I do not remember we made any profession of passionate love for one + another; we talked as though the fact of our intense love for each other + had always been patent between us. There was so long and frank an intimacy + between us that we talked far more like brother and sister or husband and + wife than two people engaged in the war of the sexes. We wanted to know + what we were going to do, and whatever we did we meant to do in the most + perfect concert. We both felt an extraordinary accession of friendship and + tenderness then, and, what again is curious, very little passion. But + there was also, in spite of the perplexities we faced, an immense + satisfaction about that day. It was as if we had taken off something that + had hindered our view of each other, like people who unvizored to talk + more easily at a masked ball. + </p> + <p> + I've had since to view our relations from the standpoint of the ordinary + observer. I find that vision in the most preposterous contrast with all + that really went on between us. I suppose there I should figure as a + wicked seducer, while an unprotected girl succumbed to my fascinations. As + a matter of fact, it didn't occur to us that there was any personal + inequality between us. I knew her for my equal mentally; in so many things + she was beyond comparison cleverer than I; her courage outwent mine. The + quick leap of her mind evoked a flash of joy in mine like the response of + an induction wire; her way of thinking was like watching sunlight + reflected from little waves upon the side of a boat, it was so bright, so + mobile, so variously and easily true to its law. In the back of our minds + we both had a very definite belief that making love is full of joyous, + splendid, tender, and exciting possibilities, and we had to discuss why we + shouldn't be to the last degree lovers. + </p> + <p> + Now, what I should like to print here, if it were possible, in all the + screaming emphasis of red ink, is this: that the circumstances of my + upbringing and the circumstances of Isabel's upbringing had left not a + shadow of belief or feeling that the utmost passionate love between us was + in itself intrinsically WRONG. I've told with the fullest particularity + just all that I was taught or found out for myself in these matters, and + Isabel's reading and thinking, and the fierce silences of her governesses + and the breathless warnings of teachers, and all the social and religious + influences that had been brought to bear upon her, had worked out to the + same void of conviction. The code had failed with us altogether. We didn't + for a moment consider anything but the expediency of what we both, for all + our quiet faces and steady eyes, wanted most passionately to do. + </p> + <p> + Well, here you have the state of mind of whole brigades of people, and + particularly of young people, nowadays. The current morality hasn't + gripped them; they don't really believe in it at all. They may render it + lip-service, but that is quite another thing. There are scarcely any + tolerable novels to justify its prohibitions; its prohibitions do, in + fact, remain unjustified amongst these ugly suppressions. You may, if you + choose, silence the admission of this in literature and current + discussion; you will not prevent it working out in lives. People come up + to the great moments of passion crudely unaware, astoundingly unprepared + as no really civilised and intelligently planned community would let any + one be unprepared. They find themselves hedged about with customs that + have no organic hold upon them, and mere discretions all generous spirits + are disposed to despise. + </p> + <p> + Consider the infinite absurdities of it! Multitudes of us are trying to + run this complex modern community on a basis of “Hush” without explaining + to our children or discussing with them anything about love and marriage + at all. Doubt and knowledge creep about in enforced darknesses and + silences. We are living upon an ancient tradition which everybody doubts + and nobody has ever analysed. We affect a tremendous and cultivated + shyness and delicacy about imperatives of the most arbitrary appearance. + What ensues? What did ensue with us, for example? On the one hand was a + great desire, robbed of any appearance of shame and grossness by the power + of love, and on the other hand, the possible jealousy of so and so, the + disapproval of so and so, material risks and dangers. It is only in the + retrospect that we have been able to grasp something of the effectual case + against us. The social prohibition lit by the intense glow of our passion, + presented itself as preposterous, irrational, arbitrary, and ugly, a + monster fit only for mockery. We might be ruined! Well, there is a phase + in every love affair, a sort of heroic hysteria, when death and ruin are + agreeable additions to the prospect. It gives the business a gravity, a + solemnity. Timid people may hesitate and draw back with a vague + instinctive terror of the immensity of the oppositions they challenge, but + neither Isabel nor I are timid people. + </p> + <p> + We weighed what was against us. We decided just exactly as scores of + thousands of people have decided in this very matter, that if it were + possible to keep this thing to ourselves, there was nothing against it. + And so we took our first step. With the hunger of love in us, it was easy + to conclude we might be lovers, and still keep everything to ourselves. + That cleared our minds of the one persistent obstacle that mattered to us—the + haunting presence of Margaret. + </p> + <p> + And then we found, as all those scores of thousands of people scattered + about us have found, that we could not keep it to ourselves. Love will + out. All the rest of this story is the chronicle of that. Love with + sustained secrecy cannot be love. It is just exactly the point people do + not understand. + </p> + <p> + 5 + </p> + <p> + But before things came to that pass, some months and many phases and a + sudden journey to America intervened. + </p> + <p> + “This thing spells disaster,” I said. “You are too big and I am too big to + attempt this secrecy. Think of the intolerable possibility of being found + out! At any cost we have to stop—even at the cost of parting.” + </p> + <p> + “Just because we may be found out!” + </p> + <p> + “Just because we may be found out.” + </p> + <p> + “Master, I shouldn't in the least mind being found out with you. I'm + afraid—I'd be proud.” + </p> + <p> + “Wait till it happens.” + </p> + <p> + There followed a struggle of immense insincerity between us. It is hard to + tell who urged and who resisted. + </p> + <p> + She came to me one night to the editorial room of the BLUE WEEKLY, and + argued and kissed me with wet salt lips, and wept in my arms; she told me + that now passionate longing for me and my intimate life possessed her, so + that she could not work, could not think, could not endure other people + for the love of me.... + </p> + <p> + I fled absurdly. That is the secret of the futile journey to America that + puzzled all my friends. + </p> + <p> + I ran away from Isabel. I took hold of the situation with all my strength, + put in Britten with sketchy, hasty instructions to edit the paper, and + started headlong and with luggage, from which, among other things, my + shaving things were omitted, upon a tour round the world. + </p> + <p> + Preposterous flight that was! I remember as a thing almost farcical my + explanations to Margaret, and how frantically anxious I was to prevent the + remote possibility of her coming with me, and how I crossed in the TUSCAN, + a bad, wet boat, and mixed seasickness with ungovernable sorrow. I wept—tears. + It was inexpressibly queer and ridiculous—and, good God! how I hated + my fellow-passengers! + </p> + <p> + New York inflamed and excited me for a time, and when things slackened, I + whirled westward to Chicago—eating and drinking, I remember, in the + train from shoals of little dishes, with a sort of desperate voracity. I + did the queerest things to distract myself—no novelist would dare to + invent my mental and emotional muddle. Chicago also held me at first, + amazing lapse from civilisation that the place is! and then abruptly, with + hosts expecting me, and everything settled for some days in Denver, I + found myself at the end of my renunciations, and turned and came back + headlong to London. + </p> + <p> + Let me confess it wasn't any sense of perfect and incurable trust and + confidence that brought me back, or any idea that now I had strength to + refrain. It was a sudden realisation that after all the separation might + succeed; some careless phrasing in one of her jealously read letters set + that idea going in my mind—the haunting perception that I might + return to London and find it empty of the Isabel who had pervaded it. + Honour, discretion, the careers of both of us, became nothing at the + thought. I couldn't conceive my life resuming there without Isabel. I + couldn't, in short, stand it. + </p> + <p> + I don't even excuse my return. It is inexcusable. I ought to have kept + upon my way westward—and held out. I couldn't. I wanted Isabel, and + I wanted her so badly now that everything else in the world was + phantom-like until that want was satisfied. Perhaps you have never wanted + anything like that. I went straight to her. + </p> + <p> + But here I come to untellable things. There is no describing the reality + of love. The shapes of things are nothing, the actual happenings are + nothing, except that somehow there falls a light upon them and a wonder. + Of how we met, and the thrill of the adventure, the curious bright sense + of defiance, the joy of having dared, I can't tell—I can but hint of + just one aspect, of what an amazing LARK—it's the only word—it + seemed to us. The beauty which was the essence of it, which justifies it + so far as it will bear justification, eludes statement. + </p> + <p> + What can a record of contrived meetings, of sundering difficulties evaded + and overcome, signify here? Or what can it convey to say that one looked + deep into two dear, steadfast eyes, or felt a heart throb and beat, or + gripped soft hair softly in a trembling hand? Robbed of encompassing love, + these things are of no more value than the taste of good wine or the sight + of good pictures, or the hearing of music,—just sensuality and no + more. No one can tell love—we can only tell the gross facts of love + and its consequences. Given love—given mutuality, and one has + effected a supreme synthesis and come to a new level of life—but + only those who know can know. This business has brought me more bitterness + and sorrow than I had ever expected to bear, but even now I will not say + that I regret that wilful home-coming altogether. We loved—to the + uttermost. Neither of us could have loved any one else as we did and do + love one another. It was ours, that beauty; it existed only between us + when we were close together, for no one in the world ever to know save + ourselves. + </p> + <p> + My return to the office sticks out in my memory with an extreme vividness, + because of the wild eagle of pride that screamed within me. It was Tuesday + morning, and though not a soul in London knew of it yet except Isabel, I + had been back in England a week. I came in upon Britten and stood in the + doorway. + </p> + <p> + “GOD!” he said at the sight of me. + </p> + <p> + “I'm back,” I said. + </p> + <p> + He looked at my excited face with those red-brown eyes of his. Silently I + defied him to speak his mind. + </p> + <p> + “Where did you turn back?” he said at last. + </p> + <p> + 6 + </p> + <p> + I had to tell what were, so far as I can remember my first positive lies + to Margaret in explaining that return. I had written to her from Chicago + and again from New York, saying that I felt I ought to be on the spot in + England for the new session, and that I was coming back—presently. I + concealed the name of my boat from her, and made a calculated + prevarication when I announced my presence in London. I telephoned before + I went back for my rooms to be prepared. She was, I knew, with the Bunting + Harblows in Durham, and when she came back to Radnor Square I had been at + home a day. + </p> + <p> + I remember her return so well. + </p> + <p> + My going away and the vivid secret of the present had wiped out from my + mind much of our long estrangement. Something, too, had changed in her. I + had had some hint of it in her letters, but now I saw it plainly. I came + out of my study upon the landing when I heard the turmoil of her arrival + below, and she came upstairs with a quickened gladness. It was a cold + March, and she was dressed in unfamiliar dark furs that suited her + extremely and reinforced the delicate flush of her sweet face. She held + out both her hands to me, and drew me to her unhesitatingly and kissed me. + </p> + <p> + “So glad you are back, dear,” she said. “Oh! so very glad you are back.” + </p> + <p> + I returned her kiss with a queer feeling at my heart, too undifferentiated + to be even a definite sense of guilt or meanness. I think it was chiefly + amazement—at the universe—at myself. + </p> + <p> + “I never knew what it was to be away from you,” she said. + </p> + <p> + I perceived suddenly that she had resolved to end our estrangement. She + put herself so that my arm came caressingly about her. + </p> + <p> + “These are jolly furs,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “I got them for you.” + </p> + <p> + The parlourmaid appeared below dealing with the maid and the luggage cab. + </p> + <p> + “Tell me all about America,” said Margaret. “I feel as though you'd been + away six year's.” + </p> + <p> + We went arm in arm into our little sitting-room, and I took off the fur's + for her and sat down upon the chintz-covered sofa by the fire. She had + ordered tea, and came and sat by me. I don't know what I had expected, but + of all things I had certainly not expected this sudden abolition of our + distances. + </p> + <p> + “I want to know all about America,” she repeated, with her eyes + scrutinising me. “Why did you come back?” + </p> + <p> + I repeated the substance of my letters rather lamely, and she sat + listening. + </p> + <p> + “But why did you turn back—without going to Denver?” + </p> + <p> + “I wanted to come back. I was restless.” + </p> + <p> + “Restlessness,” she said, and thought. “You were restless in Venice. You + said it was restlessness took you to America.” + </p> + <p> + Again she studied me. She turned a little awkwardly to her tea things, and + poured needless water from the silver kettle into the teapot. Then she sat + still for some moments looking at the equipage with expressionless eyes. I + saw her hand upon the edge of the table tremble slightly. I watched her + closely. A vague uneasiness possessed me. What might she not know or + guess? + </p> + <p> + She spoke at last with an effort. “I wish you were in Parliament again,” + she said. “Life doesn't give you events enough.” + </p> + <p> + “If I was in Parliament again, I should be on the Conservative side.” + </p> + <p> + “I know,” she said, and was still more thoughtful. + </p> + <p> + “Lately,” she began, and paused. “Lately I've been reading—you.” + </p> + <p> + I didn't help her out with what she had to say. I waited. + </p> + <p> + “I didn't understand what you were after. I had misjudged. I didn't know. + I think perhaps I was rather stupid.” Her eyes were suddenly shining with + tears. “You didn't give me much chance to understand.” + </p> + <p> + She turned upon me suddenly with a voice full of tears. + </p> + <p> + “Husband,” she said abruptly, holding her two hands out to me, “I want to + begin over again!” + </p> + <p> + I took her hands, perplexed beyond measure. “My dear!” I said. + </p> + <p> + “I want to begin over again.” + </p> + <p> + I bowed my head to hide my face, and found her hand in mine and kissed it. + </p> + <p> + “Ah!” she said, and slowly withdrew her hand. She leant forward with her + arm on the sofa-back, and looked very intently into my face. I felt the + most damnable scoundrel in the world as I returned her gaze. The thought + of Isabel's darkly shining eyes seemed like a physical presence between + us.... + </p> + <p> + “Tell me,” I said presently, to break the intolerable tension, “tell me + plainly what you mean by this.” + </p> + <p> + I sat a little away from her, and then took my teacup in hand, with an odd + effect of defending myself. “Have you been reading that old book of mine?” + I asked. + </p> + <p> + “That and the paper. I took a complete set from the beginning down to + Durham with me. I have read it over, thought it over. I didn't understand—what + you were teaching.” + </p> + <p> + There was a little pause. + </p> + <p> + “It all seems so plain to me now,” she said, “and so true.” + </p> + <p> + I was profoundly disconcerted. I put down my teacup, stood up in the + middle of the hearthrug, and began talking. “I'm tremendously glad, + Margaret, that you've come to see I'm not altogether perverse,” I began. I + launched out into a rather trite and windy exposition of my views, and she + sat close to me on the sofa, looking up into my face, hanging on my words, + a deliberate and invincible convert. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” she said, “yes.”... + </p> + <p> + I had never doubted my new conceptions before; now I doubted them + profoundly. But I went on talking. It's the grim irony in the lives of all + politicians, writers, public teachers, that once the audience is at their + feet, a new loyalty has gripped them. It isn't their business to admit + doubt and imperfections. They have to go on talking. And I was now so + accustomed to Isabel's vivid interruptions, qualifications, restatements, + and confirmations.... + </p> + <p> + Margaret and I dined together at home. She made me open out my political + projects to her. “I have been foolish,” she said. “I want to help.” + </p> + <p> + And by some excuse I have forgotten she made me come to her room. I think + it was some book I had to take her, some American book I had brought back + with me, and mentioned in our talk. I walked in with it, and put it down + on the table and turned to go. + </p> + <p> + “Husband!” she cried, and held out her slender arms to me. I was compelled + to go to her and kiss her, and she twined them softly about my neck and + drew me to her and kissed me. I disentangled them very gently, and took + each wrist and kissed it, and the backs of her hands. + </p> + <p> + “Good-night,” I said. There came a little pause. “Good-night, Margaret,” I + repeated, and walked very deliberately and with a kind of sham + preoccupation to the door. + </p> + <p> + I did not look at her, but I could feel her standing, watching me. If I + had looked up, she would, I knew, have held out her arms to me.... + </p> + <p> + At the very outset that secret, which was to touch no one but Isabel and + myself, had reached out to stab another human being. + </p> + <p> + 7 + </p> + <p> + The whole world had changed for Isabel and me; and we tried to pretend + that nothing had changed except a small matter between us. We believed + quite honestly at that time that it was possible to keep this thing that + had happened from any reaction at all, save perhaps through some magically + enhanced vigour in our work, upon the world about us! Seen in retrospect, + one can realise the absurdity of this belief; within a week I realised it; + but that does not alter the fact that we did believe as much, and that + people who are deeply in love and unable to marry will continue to believe + so to the very end of time. They will continue to believe out of existence + every consideration that separates them until they have come together. + Then they will count the cost, as we two had to do. + </p> + <p> + I am telling a story, and not propounding theories in this book; and + chiefly I am telling of the ideas and influences and emotions that have + happened to me—me as a sort of sounding board for my world. The + moralist is at liberty to go over my conduct with his measure and say, “At + this point or at that you went wrong, and you ought to have done”—so-and-so. + The point of interest to the statesman is that it didn't for a moment + occur to us to do so-and-so when the time for doing it came. It amazes me + now to think how little either of us troubled about the established rights + or wrongs of the situation. We hadn't an atom of respect for them, innate + or acquired. The guardians of public morals will say we were very bad + people; I submit in defence that they are very bad guardians—provocative + guardians.... And when at last there came a claim against us that had an + effective validity for us, we were in the full tide of passionate + intimacy. + </p> + <p> + I had a night of nearly sleepless perplexity after Margaret's return. She + had suddenly presented herself to me like something dramatically recalled, + fine, generous, infinitely capable of feeling. I was amazed how much I had + forgotten her. In my contempt for vulgarised and conventionalised honour I + had forgotten that for me there was such a reality as honour. And here it + was, warm and near to me, living, breathing, unsuspecting. Margaret's + pride was my honour, that I had had no right even to imperil. + </p> + <p> + I do not now remember if I thought at that time of going to Isabel and + putting this new aspect of the case before her. Perhaps I did. Perhaps I + may have considered even then the possibility of ending what had so + freshly and passionately begun. If I did, it vanished next day at the + sight of her. Whatever regrets came in the darkness, the daylight brought + an obstinate confidence in our resolution again. We would, we declared, + “pull the thing off.” Margaret must not know. Margaret should not know. If + Margaret did not know, then no harm whatever would be done. We tried to + sustain that.... + </p> + <p> + For a brief time we had been like two people in a magic cell, magically + cut off from the world and full of a light of its own, and then we began + to realise that we were not in the least cut off, that the world was all + about us and pressing in upon us, limiting us, threatening us, resuming + possession of us. I tried to ignore the injury to Margaret of her + unreciprocated advances. I tried to maintain to myself that this hidden + love made no difference to the now irreparable breach between husband and + wife. But I never spoke of it to Isabel or let her see that aspect of our + case. How could I? The time for that had gone.... + </p> + <p> + Then in new shapes and relations came trouble. Distressful elements crept + in by reason of our unavoidable furtiveness; we ignored them, hid them + from each other, and attempted to hide them from ourselves. Successful + love is a thing of abounding pride, and we had to be secret. It was + delightful at first to be secret, a whispering, warm conspiracy; then + presently it became irksome and a little shameful. Her essential frankness + of soul was all against the masks and falsehoods that many women would + have enjoyed. Together in our secrecy we relaxed, then in the presence of + other people again it was tiresome to have to watch for the careless, too + easy phrase, to snatch back one's hand from the limitless betrayal of a + light, familiar touch. + </p> + <p> + Love becomes a poor thing, at best a poor beautiful thing, if it develops + no continuing and habitual intimacy. We were always meeting, and most + gloriously loving and beginning—and then we had to snatch at + remorseless ticking watches, hurry to catch trains, and go back to this or + that. That is all very well for the intrigues of idle people perhaps, but + not for an intense personal relationship. It is like lighting a candle for + the sake of lighting it, over and over again, and each time blowing it + out. That, no doubt, must be very amusing to children playing with the + matches, but not to people who love warm light, and want it in order to do + fine and honourable things together. We had achieved—I give the ugly + phrase that expresses the increasing discolouration in my mind—“illicit + intercourse.” To end at that, we now perceived, wasn't in our style. But + where were we to end?... + </p> + <p> + Perhaps we might at this stage have given it up. I think if we could have + seen ahead and around us we might have done so. But the glow of our cell + blinded us.... I wonder what might have happened if at that time we had + given it up.... We propounded it, we met again in secret to discuss it, + and our overpowering passion for one another reduced that meeting to + absurdity.... + </p> + <p> + Presently the idea of children crept between us. It came in from all our + conceptions of life and public service; it was, we found, in the quality + of our minds that physical love without children is a little weak, + timorous, more than a little shameful. With imaginative people there very + speedily comes a time when that realisation is inevitable. We hadn't + thought of that before—it isn't natural to think of that before. We + hadn't known. There is no literature in English dealing with such things. + </p> + <p> + There is a necessary sequence of phases in love. These came in their + order, and with them, unanticipated tarnishings on the first bright + perfection of our relations. For a time these developing phases were no + more than a secret and private trouble between us, little shadows + spreading by imperceptible degrees across that vivid and luminous cell. + </p> + <p> + 8 + </p> + <p> + The Handitch election flung me suddenly into prominence. + </p> + <p> + It is still only two years since that struggle, and I will not trouble the + reader with a detailed history of events that must be quite sufficiently + present in his mind for my purpose already. Huge stacks of journalism have + dealt with Handitch and its significance. For the reader very probably, as + for most people outside a comparatively small circle, it meant my + emergence from obscurity. We obtruded no editor's name in the BLUE WEEKLY; + I had never as yet been on the London hoardings. Before Handitch I was a + journalist and writer of no great public standing; after Handitch, I was + definitely a person, in the little group of persons who stood for the + Young Imperialist movement. Handitch was, to a very large extent, my + affair. I realised then, as a man comes to do, how much one can still grow + after seven and twenty. In the second election I was a man taking hold of + things; at Kinghamstead I had been simply a young candidate, a party unit, + led about the constituency, told to do this and that, and finally washed + in by the great Anti-Imperialist flood, like a starfish rolling up a + beach. + </p> + <p> + My feminist views had earnt the mistrust of the party, and I do not think + I should have got the chance of Handitch or indeed any chance at all of + Parliament for a long time, if it had not been that the seat with its long + record of Liberal victories and its Liberal majority of 3642 at the last + election, offered a hopeless contest. The Liberal dissensions and the + belated but by no means contemptible Socialist candidate were providential + interpositions. I think, however, the conduct of Gane, Crupp, and + Tarvrille in coming down to fight for me, did count tremendously in my + favour. “We aren't going to win, perhaps,” said Crupp, “but we are going + to talk.” And until the very eve of victory, we treated Handitch not so + much as a battlefield as a hoarding. And so it was the Endowment of + Motherhood as a practical form of Eugenics got into English politics. + </p> + <p> + Plutus, our agent, was scared out of his wits when the thing began. + </p> + <p> + “They're ascribing all sorts of queer ideas to you about the Family,” he + said. + </p> + <p> + “I think the Family exists for the good of the children,” I said; “is that + queer?” + </p> + <p> + “Not when you explain it—but they won't let you explain it. And + about marriage—?” + </p> + <p> + “I'm all right about marriage—trust me.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course, if YOU had children,” said Plutus, rather inconsiderately.... + </p> + <p> + They opened fire upon me in a little electioneering rag call the HANDITCH + SENTINEL, with a string of garbled quotations and misrepresentations that + gave me an admirable text for a speech. I spoke for an hour and ten + minutes with a more and more crumpled copy of the SENTINEL in my hand, and + I made the fullest and completest exposition of the idea of endowing + motherhood that I think had ever been made up to that time in England. Its + effect on the press was extraordinary. The Liberal papers gave me quite + unprecedented space under the impression that I had only to be given rope + to hang myself; the Conservatives cut me down or tried to justify me; the + whole country was talking. I had had a pamphlet in type upon the subject, + and I revised this carefully and put it on the book-stalls within three + days. It sold enormously and brought me bushels of letters. We issued over + three thousand in Handitch alone. At meeting after meeting I was heckled + upon nothing else. Long before polling day Plutus was converted. + </p> + <p> + “It's catching on like old age pensions,” he said. “We've dished the + Liberals! To think that such a project should come from our side!” + </p> + <p> + But it was only with the declaration of the poll that my battle was won. + No one expected more than a snatch victory, and I was in by over fifteen + hundred. At one bound Cossington's papers passed from apologetics varied + by repudiation to triumphant praise. “A renascent England, breeding men,” + said the leader in his chief daily on the morning after the polling, and + claimed that the Conservatives had been ever the pioneers in sanely bold + constructive projects. + </p> + <p> + I came up to London with a weary but rejoicing Margaret by the night + train. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE SECOND ~~ THE IMPOSSIBLE POSITION + </h2> + <p> + 1 + </p> + <p> + To any one who did not know of that glowing secret between Isabel and + myself, I might well have appeared at that time the most successful and + enviable of men. I had recovered rapidly from an uncongenial start in + political life; I had become a considerable force through the BLUE WEEKLY, + and was shaping an increasingly influential body of opinion; I had + re-entered Parliament with quite dramatic distinction, and in spite of a + certain faltering on the part of the orthodox Conservatives towards the + bolder elements in our propaganda, I had loyal and unenvious associates + who were making me a power in the party. People were coming to our group, + understandings were developing. It was clear we should play a prominent + part in the next general election, and that, given a Conservative victory, + I should be assured of office. The world opened out to me brightly and + invitingly. Great schemes took shape in my mind, always more concrete, + always more practicable; the years ahead seemed falling into order, + shining with the credible promise of immense achievement. + </p> + <p> + And at the heart of it all, unseen and unsuspected, was the secret of my + relations with Isabel—like a seed that germinates and thrusts, + thrusts relentlessly. + </p> + <p> + From the onset of the Handitch contest onward, my meetings with her had + been more and more pervaded by the discussion of our situation. It had + innumerable aspects. It was very present to us that we wanted to be + together as much as possible—we were beginning to long very much for + actual living together in the same house, so that one could come as it + were carelessly—unawares—upon the other, busy perhaps about + some trivial thing. We wanted to feel each other in the daily atmosphere. + Preceding our imperatively sterile passion, you must remember, outside it, + altogether greater than it so far as our individual lives were concerned, + there had grown and still grew an enormous affection and intellectual + sympathy between us. We brought all our impressions and all our ideas to + each other, to see them in each other's light. It is hard to convey that + quality of intellectual unison to any one who has not experienced it. I + thought more and more in terms of conversation with Isabel; her possible + comments upon things would flash into my mind, oh!—with the very + sound of her voice. + </p> + <p> + I remember, too, the odd effect of seeing her in the distance going about + Handitch, like any stranger canvasser; the queer emotion of her approach + along the street, the greeting as she passed. The morning of the polling + she vanished from the constituency. I saw her for an instant in the + passage behind our Committee rooms. + </p> + <p> + “Going?” said I. + </p> + <p> + She nodded. + </p> + <p> + “Stay it out. I want you to see the fun. I remember—the other time.” + </p> + <p> + She didn't answer for a moment or so, and stood with face averted. + </p> + <p> + “It's Margaret's show,” she said abruptly. “If I see her smiling there + like a queen by your side—! She did—last time. I remember.” + She caught at a sob and dashed her hand across her face impatiently. + “Jealous fool, mean and petty, jealous fool!... Good luck, old man, to + you! You're going to win. But I don't want to see the end of it all the + same....” + </p> + <p> + “Good-bye!” said I, clasping her hand as some supporter appeared in the + passage.... + </p> + <p> + I came back to London victorious, and a little flushed and coarse with + victory; and so soon as I could break away I went to Isabel's flat and + found her white and worn, with the stain of secret weeping about her eyes. + I came into the room to her and shut the door. + </p> + <p> + “You said I'd win,” I said, and held out my arms. + </p> + <p> + She hugged me closely for a moment. + </p> + <p> + “My dear,” I whispered, “it's nothing—without you—nothing!” + </p> + <p> + We didn't speak for some seconds. Then she slipped from my hold. “Look!” + she said, smiling like winter sunshine. “I've had in all the morning + papers—the pile of them, and you—resounding.” + </p> + <p> + “It's more than I dared hope.” + </p> + <p> + “Or I.” + </p> + <p> + She stood for a moment still smiling bravely, and then she was sobbing in + my arms. “The bigger you are—the more you show,” she said—“the + more we are parted. I know, I know—” + </p> + <p> + I held her close to me, making no answer. + </p> + <p> + Presently she became still. “Oh, well,” she said, and wiped her eyes and + sat down on the little sofa by the fire; and I sat down beside her. + </p> + <p> + “I didn't know all there was in love,” she said, staring at the coals, + “when we went love-making.” + </p> + <p> + I put my arm behind her and took a handful of her dear soft hair in my + hand and kissed it. + </p> + <p> + “You've done a great thing this time,” she said. “Handitch will make you.” + </p> + <p> + “It opens big chances,” I said. “But why are you weeping, dear one?” + </p> + <p> + “Envy,” she said, “and love.” + </p> + <p> + “You're not lonely?” + </p> + <p> + “I've plenty to do—and lots of people.” + </p> + <p> + “Well?” + </p> + <p> + “I want you.” + </p> + <p> + “You've got me.” + </p> + <p> + She put her arm about me and kissed me. “I want you,” she said, “just as + if I had nothing of you. You don't understand—how a woman wants a + man. I thought once if I just gave myself to you it would be enough. It + was nothing—it was just a step across the threshold. My dear, every + moment you are away I ache for you—ache! I want to be about when it + isn't love-making or talk. I want to be doing things for you, and watching + you when you're not thinking of me. All those safe, careless, intimate + things. And something else—” She stopped. “Dear, I don't want to + bother you. I just want you to know I love you....” + </p> + <p> + She caught my head in her hands and kissed it, then stood up abruptly. + </p> + <p> + I looked up at her, a little perplexed. + </p> + <p> + “Dear heart,” said I, “isn't this enough? You're my councillor, my + colleague, my right hand, the secret soul of my life—” + </p> + <p> + “And I want to darn your socks,” she said, smiling back at me. + </p> + <p> + “You're insatiable.” + </p> + <p> + She smiled “No,” she said. “I'm not insatiable, Master. But I'm a woman in + love. And I'm finding out what I want, and what is necessary to me—and + what I can't have. That's all.” + </p> + <p> + “We get a lot.” + </p> + <p> + “We want a lot. You and I are greedy people for the things we like, + Master. It's very evident we've got nearly all we can ever have of one + another—and I'm not satisfied.” + </p> + <p> + “What more is there? + </p> + <p> + “For you—very little. I wonder. For me—every thing. Yes—everything. + You didn't mean it, Master; you didn't know any more than I did when I + began, but love between a man and a woman is sometimes very one-sided. + Fearfully one-sided! That's all....” + </p> + <p> + “Don't YOU ever want children?” she said abruptly. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose I do.” + </p> + <p> + “You don't!” + </p> + <p> + “I haven't thought of them.” + </p> + <p> + “A man doesn't, perhaps. But I have.... I want them—like hunger. + YOUR children, and home with you. Really, continually you! That's the + trouble.... I can't have 'em, Master, and I can't have you.” + </p> + <p> + She was crying, and through her tears she laughed. + </p> + <p> + “I'm going to make a scene,” she said, “and get this over. I'm so + discontented and miserable; I've got to tell you. It would come between us + if I didn't. I'm in love with you, with everything—with all my + brains. I'll pull through all right. I'll be good, Master, never you fear. + But to-day I'm crying out with all my being. This election—You're + going up; you're going on. In these papers—you're a great big fact. + It's suddenly come home to me. At the back of my mind I've always had the + idea I was going to have you somehow presently for myself—I mean to + have you to go long tramps with, to keep house for, to get meals for, to + watch for of an evening. It's a sort of habitual background to my thought + of you. And it's nonsense—utter nonsense!” She stopped. She was + crying and choking. “And the child, you know—the child!” + </p> + <p> + I was troubled beyond measure, but Handitch and its intimations were clear + and strong. + </p> + <p> + “We can't have that,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “No,” she said, “we can't have that.” + </p> + <p> + “We've got our own things to do.” + </p> + <p> + “YOUR things,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “Aren't they yours too?” + </p> + <p> + “Because of you,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “Aren't they your very own things?” + </p> + <p> + “Women don't have that sort of very own thing. Indeed, it's true! And + think! You've been down there preaching the goodness of children, telling + them the only good thing in a state is happy, hopeful children, working to + free mothers and children—” + </p> + <p> + “And we give our own children to do it?” I said. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” she said. “And sometimes I think it's too much to give—too + much altogether.... Children get into a woman's brain—when she + mustn't have them, especially when she must never hope for them. Think of + the child we might have now!—the little creature with soft, tender + skin, and little hands and little feet! At times it haunts me. It comes + and says, Why wasn't I given life? I can hear it in the night.... The + world is full of such little ghosts, dear lover—little things that + asked for life and were refused. They clamour to me. It's like a little + fist beating at my heart. Love children, beautiful children. Little cold + hands that tear at my heart! Oh, my heart and my lord!” She was holding my + arm with both her hands and weeping against it, and now she drew herself + to my shoulder and wept and sobbed in my embrace. “I shall never sit with + your child on my knee and you beside me-never, and I am a woman and your + lover!...” + </p> + <p> + 2 + </p> + <p> + But the profound impossibility of our relation was now becoming more and + more apparent to us. We found ourselves seeking justification, clinging + passionately to a situation that was coldly, pitilessly, impossible and + fated. We wanted quite intensely to live together and have a child, but + also we wanted very many other things that were incompatible with these + desires. It was extraordinarily difficult to weigh our political and + intellectual ambitions against those intimate wishes. The weights kept + altering according as one found oneself grasping this valued thing or + that. It wasn't as if we could throw everything aside for our love, and + have that as we wanted it. Love such as we bore one another isn't + altogether, or even chiefly, a thing in itself—it is for the most + part a value set upon things. Our love was interwoven with all our other + interests; to go out of the world and live in isolation seemed to us like + killing the best parts of each other; we loved the sight of each other + engaged finely and characteristically, we knew each other best as + activities. We had no delusions about material facts; we didn't want each + other alive or dead, we wanted each other fully alive. We wanted to do big + things together, and for us to take each other openly and desperately + would leave us nothing in the world to do. We wanted children indeed + passionately, but children with every helpful chance in the world, and + children born in scandal would be handicapped at every turn. We wanted to + share a home, and not a solitude. + </p> + <p> + And when we were at this stage of realisation, began the intimations that + we were found out, and that scandal was afoot against us.... + </p> + <p> + I heard of it first from Esmeer, who deliberately mentioned it, with that + steady grey eye of his watching me, as an instance of the preposterous + falsehoods people will circulate. It came to Isabel almost simultaneously + through a married college friend, who made it her business to demand + either confirmation or denial. It filled us both with consternation. In + the surprise of the moment Isabel admitted her secret, and her friend went + off “reserving her freedom of action.” + </p> + <p> + Discovery broke out in every direction. Friends with grave faces and an + atmosphere of infinite tact invaded us both. Other friends ceased to + invade either of us. It was manifest we had become—we knew not how—a + private scandal, a subject for duologues, an amazement, a perplexity, a + vivid interest. In a few brief weeks it seemed London passed from absolute + unsuspiciousness to a chattering exaggeration of its knowledge of our + relations. + </p> + <p> + It was just the most inappropriate time for that disclosure. The long + smouldering antagonism to my endowment of motherhood ideas had flared up + into an active campaign in the EXPURGATOR, and it would be altogether + disastrous to us if I should be convicted of any personal irregularity. It + was just because of the manifest and challenging respectability of my + position that I had been able to carry the thing as far as I had done. Now + suddenly my fortunes had sprung a leak, and scandal was pouring in.... It + chanced, too, that a wave of moral intolerance was sweeping through + London, one of those waves in which the bitterness of the consciously just + finds an ally in the panic of the undiscovered. A certain Father Blodgett + had been preaching against social corruption with extraordinary force, and + had roused the Church of England people to a kind of competition in + denunciation. The old methods of the Anti-Socialist campaign had been + renewed, and had offered far too wide a scope and too tempting an + opportunity for private animosity, to be restricted to the private affairs + of the Socialists. I had intimations of an extensive circulation of + “private and confidential” letters.... + </p> + <p> + I think there can be nothing else in life quite like the unnerving + realisation that rumour and scandal are afoot about one. Abruptly one's + confidence in the solidity of the universe disappears. One walks silenced + through a world that one feels to be full of inaudible accusations. One + cannot challenge the assault, get it out into the open, separate truth and + falsehood. It slinks from you, turns aside its face. Old acquaintances + suddenly evaded me, made extraordinary excuses; men who had presumed on + the verge of my world and pestered me with an intrusive enterprise, now + took the bold step of flat repudiation. I became doubtful about the return + of a nod, retracted all those tentacles of easy civility that I had + hitherto spread to the world. I still grow warm with amazed indignation + when I recall that Edward Crampton, meeting me full on the steps of the + Climax Club, cut me dead. “By God!” I cried, and came near catching him by + the throat and wringing out of him what of all good deeds and bad, could + hearten him, a younger man than I and empty beyond comparison, to dare to + play the judge to me. And then I had an open slight from Mrs. Millingham, + whom I had counted on as one counts upon the sunrise. I had not expected + things of that sort; they were disconcerting beyond measure; it was as if + the world were giving way beneath my feet, as though something failed in + the essential confidence of life, as though a hand of wet ice had touched + my heart. Similar things were happening to Isabel. Yet we went on working, + visiting, meeting, trying to ignore this gathering of implacable forces + against us. + </p> + <p> + For a time I was perplexed beyond measure to account for this campaign. + Then I got a clue. The centre of diffusion was the Bailey household. The + Baileys had never forgiven me my abandonment of the young Liberal group + they had done so much to inspire and organise; their dinner-table had long + been a scene of hostile depreciation of the BLUE WEEKLY and all its + allies; week after week Altiora proclaimed that I was “doing nothing,” and + found other causes for our bye-election triumphs; I counted Chambers + Street a dangerous place for me. Yet, nevertheless, I was astonished to + find them using a private scandal against me. They did. I think Handitch + had filled up the measure of their bitterness, for I had not only + abandoned them, but I was succeeding beyond even their power of + misrepresentation. Always I had been a wasp in their spider's web, + difficult to claim as a tool, uncritical, antagonistic. I admired their + work and devotion enormously, but I had never concealed my contempt for a + certain childish vanity they displayed, and for the frequent puerility of + their political intrigues. I suppose contempt galls more than injuries, + and anyhow they had me now. They had me. Bailey, I found, was warning + fathers of girls against me as a “reckless libertine,” and Altiora, + flushed, roguish, and dishevelled, was sitting on her fender curb after + dinner, and pledging little parties of five or six women at a time with + infinite gusto not to let the matter go further. Our cell was open to the + world, and a bleak, distressful daylight streaming in. + </p> + <p> + I had a gleam of a more intimate motive in Altiora from the reports that + came to me. Isabel had been doing a series of five or six articles in the + POLITICAL REVIEW in support of our campaign, the POLITICAL REVIEW which + had hitherto been loyally Baileyite. Quite her best writing up to the + present, at any rate, is in those papers, and no doubt Altiora had had not + only to read her in those invaded columns, but listen to her praises in + the mouths of the tactless influential. Altiora, like so many people who + rely on gesture and vocal insistence in conversation, writes a poor and + slovenly prose and handles an argument badly; Isabel has her University + training behind her and wrote from the first with the stark power of a + clear-headed man. “Now we know,” said Altiora, with just a gleam of malice + showing through her brightness, “now we know who helps with the writing!” + </p> + <p> + She revealed astonishing knowledge. + </p> + <p> + For a time I couldn't for the life of me discover her sources. I had, + indeed, a desperate intention of challenging her, and then I bethought me + of a youngster named Curmain, who had been my supplemental typist and + secretary for a time, and whom I had sent on to her before the days of our + breach. “Of course!” said I, “Curmain!” He was a tall, drooping, sidelong + youth with sandy hair, a little forward head, and a long thin neck. He + stole stamps, and, I suspected, rifled my private letter drawer, and I + found him one day on a turn of the stairs looking guilty and ruffled with + a pretty Irish housemaid of Margaret's manifestly in a state of hot + indignation. I saw nothing, but I felt everything in the air between them. + I hate this pestering of servants, but at the same time I didn't want + Curmain wiped out of existence, so I had packed him off without + unnecessary discussion to Altiora. He was quick and cheap anyhow, and I + thought her general austerity ought to redeem him if anything could; the + Chambers Street housemaid wasn't for any man's kissing and showed it, and + the stamps and private letters were looked after with an efficiency + altogether surpassing mine. And Altiora, I've no doubt left now whatever, + pumped this young undesirable about me, and scenting a story, had him to + dinner alone one evening to get to the bottom of the matter. She got quite + to the bottom of it,—it must have been a queer duologue. She read + Isabel's careless, intimate letters to me, so to speak, by this proxy, and + she wasn't ashamed to use this information in the service of the + bitterness that had sprung up in her since our political breach. It was + essentially a personal bitterness; it helped no public purpose of theirs + to get rid of me. My downfall in any public sense was sheer waste,—the + loss of a man. She knew she was behaving badly, and so, when it came to + remonstrance, she behaved worse. She'd got names and dates and places; the + efficiency of her information was irresistible. And she set to work at it + marvellously. Never before, in all her pursuit of efficient ideals, had + Altiora achieved such levels of efficiency. I wrote a protest that was + perhaps ill-advised and angry, I went to her and tried to stop her. She + wouldn't listen, she wouldn't think, she denied and lied, she behaved like + a naughty child of six years old which has made up its mind to be hurtful. + It wasn't only, I think, that she couldn't bear our political and social + influence; she also—I realised at that interview couldn't bear our + loving. It seemed to her the sickliest thing,—a thing quite + unendurable. While such things were, the virtue had gone out of her world. + </p> + <p> + I've the vividest memory of that call of mine. She'd just come in and + taken off her hat, and she was grey and dishevelled and tired, and in a + business-like dress of black and crimson that didn't suit her and was + muddy about the skirts; she'd a cold in her head and sniffed + penetratingly, she avoided my eye as she talked and interrupted everything + I had to say; she kept stabbing fiercely at the cushions of her sofa with + a long hat-pin and pretending she was overwhelmed with grief at the + DEBACLE she was deliberately organising. + </p> + <p> + “Then part,” she cried, “part. If you don't want a smashing up,—part! + You two have got to be parted. You've got never to see each other ever, + never to speak.” There was a zest in her voice. “We're not circulating + stories,” she denied. “No! And Curmain never told us anything—Curmain + is an EXCELLENT young man; oh! a quite excellent young man. You misjudged + him altogether.”... + </p> + <p> + I was equally unsuccessful with Bailey. I caught the little wretch in the + League Club, and he wriggled and lied. He wouldn't say where he had got + his facts, he wouldn't admit he had told any one. When I gave him the + names of two men who had come to me astonished and incredulous, he + attempted absurdly to make me think they had told HIM. He did his horrible + little best to suggest that honest old Quackett, who had just left England + for the Cape, was the real scandalmonger. That struck me as mean, even for + Bailey. I've still the odd vivid impression of his fluting voice, excusing + the inexcusable, his big, shifty face evading me, his perspiration-beaded + forehead, the shrugging shoulders, and the would-be exculpatory gestures—Houndsditch + gestures—of his enormous ugly hands. + </p> + <p> + “I can assure you, my dear fellow,” he said; “I can assure you we've done + everything to shield you—everything.”... + </p> + <p> + 3 + </p> + <p> + Isabel came after dinner one evening and talked in the office. She made a + white-robed, dusky figure against the deep blues of my big window. I sat + at my desk and tore a quill pen to pieces as I talked. + </p> + <p> + “The Baileys don't intend to let this drop,” I said. “They mean that every + one in London is to know about it.” + </p> + <p> + “I know.” + </p> + <p> + “Well!” I said. + </p> + <p> + “Dear heart,” said Isabel, facing it, “it's no good waiting for things to + overtake us; we're at the parting of the ways.” + </p> + <p> + “What are we to do?” + </p> + <p> + “They won't let us go on.” + </p> + <p> + “Damn them!” + </p> + <p> + “They are ORGANISING scandal.” + </p> + <p> + “It's no good waiting for things to overtake us,” I echoed; “they have + overtaken us.” I turned on her. “What do you want to do?” + </p> + <p> + “Everything,” she said. “Keep you and have our work. Aren't we Mates?” + </p> + <p> + “We can't.” + </p> + <p> + “And we can't!” + </p> + <p> + “I've got to tell Margaret,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “Margaret!” + </p> + <p> + “I can't bear the idea of any one else getting in front with it. I've been + wincing about Margaret secretly—” + </p> + <p> + “I know. You'll have to tell her—and make your peace with her.” + </p> + <p> + She leant back against the bookcases under the window. + </p> + <p> + “We've had some good times, Master;” she said, with a sigh in her voice. + </p> + <p> + And then for a long time we stared at one another in silence. + </p> + <p> + “We haven't much time left,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “Shall we bolt?” I said. + </p> + <p> + “And leave all this?” she asked, with her eyes going round the room. “And + that?” And her head indicated Westminster. “No!” + </p> + <p> + I said no more of bolting. + </p> + <p> + “We've got to screw ourselves up to surrender,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “Something.” + </p> + <p> + “A lot.” + </p> + <p> + “Master,” she said, “it isn't all sex and stuff between us?” + </p> + <p> + “No!” + </p> + <p> + “I can't give up the work. Our work's my life.” + </p> + <p> + We came upon another long pause. + </p> + <p> + “No one will believe we've ceased to be lovers—if we simply do,” she + said. + </p> + <p> + “We shouldn't.” + </p> + <p> + “We've got to do something more parting than that.” + </p> + <p> + I nodded, and again we paused. She was coming to something. + </p> + <p> + “I could marry Shoesmith,” she said abruptly. + </p> + <p> + “But—” I objected. + </p> + <p> + “He knows. It wasn't fair. I told him.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, that explains,” I said. “There's been a kind of sulkiness—But—you + told him?” + </p> + <p> + She nodded. “He's rather badly hurt,” she said. “He's been a good friend + to me. He's curiously loyal. But something, something he said one day—forced + me to let him know.... That's been the beastliness of all this secrecy. + That's the beastliness of all secrecy. You have to spring surprises on + people. But he keeps on. He's steadfast. He'd already suspected. He wants + me very badly to marry him....” + </p> + <p> + “But you don't want to marry him?” + </p> + <p> + “I'm forced to think of it.” + </p> + <p> + “But does he want to marry you at that? Take you as a present from the + world at large?—against your will and desire?... I don't understand + him.” + </p> + <p> + “He cares for me.” + </p> + <p> + “How?” + </p> + <p> + “He thinks this is a fearful mess for me. He wants to pull it straight.” + </p> + <p> + We sat for a time in silence, with imaginations that obstinately refused + to take up the realities of this proposition. + </p> + <p> + “I don't want you to marry Shoesmith,” I said at last. + </p> + <p> + “Don't you like him?” + </p> + <p> + “Not as your husband.” + </p> + <p> + “He's a very clever and sturdy person—and very generous and devoted + to me.” + </p> + <p> + “And me?” + </p> + <p> + “You can't expect that. He thinks you are wonderful—and, naturally, + that you ought not to have started this.” + </p> + <p> + “I've a curious dislike to any one thinking that but myself. I'm quite + ready to think it myself.” + </p> + <p> + “He'd let us be friends—and meet.” + </p> + <p> + “Let us be friends!” I cried, after a long pause. “You and me!” + </p> + <p> + “He wants me to be engaged soon. Then, he says, he can go round fighting + these rumours, defending us both—and force a quarrel on the + Baileys.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't understand him,” I said, and added, “I don't understand you.” + </p> + <p> + I was staring at her face. It seemed white and set in the dimness. + </p> + <p> + “Do you really mean this, Isabel?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “What else is there to do, my dear?—what else is there to do at all? + I've been thinking day and night. You can't go away with me. You can't + smash yourself suddenly in the sight of all men. I'd rather die than that + should happen. Look what you are becoming in the country! Look at all + you've built up!—me helping. I wouldn't let you do it if you could. + I wouldn't let you—if it were only for Margaret's sake. THIS... + closes the scandal, closes everything.” + </p> + <p> + “It closes all our life together,” I cried. + </p> + <p> + She was silent. + </p> + <p> + “It never ought to have begun,” I said. + </p> + <p> + She winced. Then abruptly she was on her knees before me, with her hands + upon my shoulder and her eyes meeting mine. + </p> + <p> + “My dear,” she said very earnestly, “don't misunderstand me! Don't think + I'm retreating from the things we've done! Our love is the best thing I + could ever have had from life. Nothing can ever equal it; nothing could + ever equal the beauty and delight you and I have had together. Never! You + have loved me; you do love me....” + </p> + <p> + No one could ever know how to love you as I have loved you; no one could + ever love me as you have loved me, my king. And it's just because it's + been so splendid, dear; it's just because I'd die rather than have a tithe + of all this wiped out of my life again—for it's made me, it's all I + am—dear, it's years since I began loving you—it's just because + of its goodness that I want not to end in wreckage now, not to end in the + smashing up of all the big things I understand in you and love in you.... + </p> + <p> + “What is there for us if we keep on and go away?” she went on. “All the + big interests in our lives will vanish—everything. We shall become + specialised people—people overshadowed by a situation. We shall be + an elopement, a romance—all our breadth and meaning gone! People + will always think of it first when they think of us; all our work and aims + will be warped by it and subordinated to it. Is it good enough, dear? Just + to specialise.... I think of you. We've got a case, a passionate case, the + best of cases, but do we want to spend all our lives defending it and + justifying it? And there's that other life. I know now you care for + Margaret—you care more than you think you do. You have said fine + things of her. I've watched you about her. Little things have dropped from + you. She's given her life for you; she's nothing without you. You feel + that to your marrow all the time you are thinking about these things. Oh, + I'm not jealous, dear. I love you for loving her. I love you in relation + to her. But there it is, an added weight against us, another thing worth + saving.” + </p> + <p> + Presently, I remember, she sat back on her heels and looked up into my + face. “We've done wrong—and parting's paying. It's time to pay. We + needn't have paid, if we'd kept to the track.... You and I, Master, we've + got to be men.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” I said; “we've got to be men.” + </p> + <p> + 4 + </p> + <p> + I was driven to tell Margaret about our situation by my intolerable dread + that otherwise the thing might come to her through some stupid and clumsy + informant. She might even meet Altiora, and have it from her. + </p> + <p> + I can still recall the feeling of sitting at my desk that night in that + large study of mine in Radnor Square, waiting for Margaret to come home. + It was oddly like the feeling of a dentist's reception-room; only it was + for me to do the dentistry with clumsy, cruel hands. I had left the door + open so that she would come in to me. + </p> + <p> + I heard her silken rustle on the stairs at last, and then she was in the + doorway. “May I come in?” she said. + </p> + <p> + “Do,” I said, and turned round to her. + </p> + <p> + “Working?” she said. + </p> + <p> + “Hard,” I answered. “Where have YOU been?” + </p> + <p> + “At the Vallerys'. Mr. Evesham was talking about you. They were all + talking. I don't think everybody knew who I was. Just Mrs. Mumble I'd been + to them. Lord Wardenham doesn't like you.” + </p> + <p> + “He doesn't.” + </p> + <p> + “But they all feel you're rather big, anyhow. Then I went on to Park Lane + to hear a new pianist and some other music at Eva's.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Then I looked in at the Brabants' for some midnight tea before I came on + here. They'd got some writers—and Grant was there.” + </p> + <p> + “You HAVE been flying round....” + </p> + <p> + There was a little pause between us. + </p> + <p> + I looked at her pretty, unsuspecting face, and at the slender grace of her + golden-robed body. What gulfs there were between us! “You've been amused,” + I said. + </p> + <p> + “It's been amusing. You've been at the House?” + </p> + <p> + “The Medical Education Bill kept me.”... + </p> + <p> + After all, why should I tell her? She'd got to a way of living that + fulfilled her requirements. Perhaps she'd never hear. But all that day and + the day before I'd been making up my mind to do the thing. + </p> + <p> + “I want to tell you something,” I said. “I wish you'd sit down for a + moment or so.”... + </p> + <p> + Once I had begun, it seemed to me I had to go through with it. + </p> + <p> + Something in the quality of my voice gave her an intimation of unusual + gravity. She looked at me steadily for a moment and sat down slowly in my + armchair. + </p> + <p> + “What is it?” she said. + </p> + <p> + I went on awkwardly. “I've got to tell you—something extraordinarily + distressing,” I said. + </p> + <p> + She was manifestly altogether unaware. + </p> + <p> + “There seems to be a good deal of scandal abroad—I've only recently + heard of it—about myself—and Isabel.” + </p> + <p> + “Isabel!” + </p> + <p> + I nodded. + </p> + <p> + “What do they say?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + It was difficult, I found, to speak. + </p> + <p> + “They say she's my mistress.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! How abominable!” + </p> + <p> + She spoke with the most natural indignation. Our eyes met. + </p> + <p> + “We've been great friends,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “Yes. And to make THAT of it. My poor dear! But how can they?” She paused + and looked at me. “It's so incredible. How can any one believe it? I + couldn't.” + </p> + <p> + She stopped, with her distressed eyes regarding me. Her expression changed + to dread. There was a tense stillness for a second, perhaps. + </p> + <p> + I turned my face towards the desk, and took up and dropped a handful of + paper fasteners. + </p> + <p> + “Margaret,” I said, “I'm afraid you'll have to believe it.” + </p> + <p> + 5 + </p> + <p> + Margaret sat very still. When I looked at her again, her face was very + white, and her distressed eyes scrutinised me. Her lips quivered as she + spoke. “You really mean—THAT?” she said. + </p> + <p> + I nodded. + </p> + <p> + “I never dreamt.” + </p> + <p> + “I never meant you to dream.” + </p> + <p> + “And that is why—we've been apart?” + </p> + <p> + I thought. “I suppose it is.” + </p> + <p> + “Why have you told me now?” + </p> + <p> + “Those rumours. I didn't want any one else to tell you.” + </p> + <p> + “Or else it wouldn't have mattered?” + </p> + <p> + “No.” + </p> + <p> + She turned her eyes from me to the fire. Then for a moment she looked + about the room she had made for me, and then quite silently, with a + childish quivering of her lips, with a sort of dismayed distress upon her + face, she was weeping. She sat weeping in her dress of cloth of gold, with + her bare slender arms dropped limp over the arms of her chair, and her + eyes averted from me, making no effort to stay or staunch her tears. “I am + sorry, Margaret,” I said. “I was in love.... I did not understand....” + </p> + <p> + Presently she asked: “What are you going to do?” + </p> + <p> + “You see, Margaret, now it's come to be your affair—I want to know + what you—what you want.” + </p> + <p> + “You want to leave me?” + </p> + <p> + “If you want me to, I must.” + </p> + <p> + “Leave Parliament—leave all the things you are doing,—all this + fine movement of yours?” + </p> + <p> + “No.” I spoke sullenly. “I don't want to leave anything. I want to stay + on. I've told you, because I think we—Isabel and I, I mean—have + got to drive through a storm of scandal anyhow. I don't know how far + things may go, how much people may feel, and I can't, I can't have you + unconscious, unarmed, open to any revelation—” + </p> + <p> + She made no answer. + </p> + <p> + “When the thing began—I knew it was stupid but I thought it was a + thing that wouldn't change, wouldn't be anything but itself, wouldn't + unfold—consequences.... People have got hold of these vague + rumours.... Directly it reached any one else but—but us two—I + saw it had to come to you.” + </p> + <p> + I stopped. I had that distressful feeling I have always had with Margaret, + of not being altogether sure she heard, of being doubtful if she + understood. I perceived that once again I had struck at her and shattered + a thousand unsubstantial pinnacles. And I couldn't get at her, to help + her, or touch her mind! I stood up, and at my movement she moved. She + produced a dainty little handkerchief, and made an effort to wipe her face + with it, and held it to her eyes. “Oh, my Husband!” she sobbed. + </p> + <p> + “What do you mean to do?” she said, with her voice muffled by her + handkerchief. + </p> + <p> + “We're going to end it,” I said. + </p> + <p> + Something gripped me tormentingly as I said that. I drew a chair beside + her and sat down. “You and I, Margaret, have been partners,” I began. + “We've built up this life of ours together; I couldn't have done it + without you. We've made a position, created a work—” + </p> + <p> + She shook her head. “You,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “You helping. I don't want to shatter it—if you don't want it + shattered. I can't leave my work. I can't leave you. I want you to have—all + that you have ever had. I've never meant to rob you. I've made an immense + and tragic blunder. You don't know how things took us, how different they + seemed! My character and accident have conspired—We'll pay—in + ourselves, not in our public service.” + </p> + <p> + I halted again. Margaret remained very still. + </p> + <p> + “I want you to understand that the thing is at an end. It is definitely at + an end. We—we talked—yesterday. We mean to end it altogether.” + I clenched my hands. “She's—she's going to marry Arnold Shoesmith.” + </p> + <p> + I wasn't looking now at Margaret any more, but I heard the rustle of her + movement as she turned on me. + </p> + <p> + “It's all right,” I said, clinging to my explanation. “We're doing nothing + shabby. He knows. He will. It's all as right—as things can be now. + We're not cheating any one, Margaret. We're doing things straight—now. + Of course, you know.... We shall—we shall have to make sacrifices. + Give things up pretty completely. Very completely.... We shall have not to + see each other for a time, you know. Perhaps not a long time. Two or three + years. Or write—or just any of that sort of thing ever—” + </p> + <p> + Some subconscious barrier gave way in me. I found myself crying + uncontrollably—as I have never cried since I was a little child. I + was amazed and horrified at myself. And wonderfully, Margaret was on her + knees beside me, with her arms about me, mingling her weeping with mine. + “Oh, my Husband!” she cried, “my poor Husband! Does it hurt you so? I + would do anything! Oh, the fool I am! Dear, I love you. I love you over + and away and above all these jealous little things!” + </p> + <p> + She drew down my head to her as a mother might draw down the head of a + son. She caressed me, weeping bitterly with me. “Oh! my dear,” she sobbed, + “my dear! I've never seen you cry! I've never seen you cry. Ever! I didn't + know you could. Oh! my dear! Can't you have her, my dear, if you want her? + I can't bear it! Let me help you, dear. Oh! my Husband! My Man! I can't + bear to have you cry!” For a time she held me in silence. + </p> + <p> + “I've thought this might happen, I dreamt it might happen. You two, I + mean. It was dreaming put it into my head. When I've seen you together, so + glad with each other.... Oh! Husband mine, believe me! believe me! I'm + stupid, I'm cold, I'm only beginning to realise how stupid and cold, but + all I want in all the world is to give my life to you.”... + </p> + <p> + 6 + </p> + <p> + “We can't part in a room,” said Isabel. + </p> + <p> + “We'll have one last talk together,” I said, and planned that we should + meet for a half a day between Dover and Walmer and talk ourselves out. I + still recall that day very well, recall even the curious exaltation of + grief that made our mental atmosphere distinctive and memorable. We had + seen so much of one another, had become so intimate, that we talked of + parting even as we parted with a sense of incredible remoteness. We went + together up over the cliffs, and to a place where they fall towards the + sea, past the white, quaint-lanterned lighthouses of the South Foreland. + There, in a kind of niche below the crest, we sat talking. It was a + spacious day, serenely blue and warm, and on the wrinkled water remotely + below a black tender and six hooded submarines came presently, and engaged + in mysterious manoeuvers. Shrieking gulls and chattering jackdaws circled + over us and below us, and dived and swooped; and a skerry of weedy, fallen + chalk appeared, and gradually disappeared again, as the tide fell and + rose. + </p> + <p> + We talked and thought that afternoon on every aspect of our relations. It + seems to me now we talked so wide and far that scarcely an issue in the + life between man and woman can arise that we did not at least touch upon. + Lying there at Isabel's feet, I have become for myself a symbol of all + this world-wide problem between duty and conscious, passionate love the + world has still to solve. Because it isn't solved; there's a wrong in it + either way.. .. The sky, the wide horizon, seemed to lift us out of + ourselves until we were something representative and general. She was + womanhood become articulate, talking to her lover. + </p> + <p> + “I ought,” I said, “never to have loved you.” + </p> + <p> + “It wasn't a thing planned,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “I ought never to have let our talk slip to that, never to have turned + back from America.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm glad we did it,” she said. “Don't think I repent.” + </p> + <p> + I looked at her. + </p> + <p> + “I will never repent,” she said. “Never!” as though she clung to her life + in saying it. + </p> + <p> + I remember we talked for a long time of divorce. It seemed to us then, and + it seems to us still, that it ought to have been possible for Margaret to + divorce me, and for me to marry without the scandalous and ugly publicity, + the taint and ostracism that follow such a readjustment. We went on to the + whole perplexing riddle of marriage. We criticised the current code, how + muddled and conventionalised it had become, how modified by subterfuges + and concealments and new necessities, and the increasing freedom of women. + “It's all like Bromstead when the building came,” I said; for I had often + talked to her of that early impression of purpose dissolving again into + chaotic forces. “There is no clear right in the world any more. The world + is Byzantine. The justest man to-day must practise a tainted goodness.” + </p> + <p> + These questions need discussion—a magnificent frankness of + discussion—if any standards are again to establish an effective hold + upon educated people. Discretions, as I have said already, will never hold + any one worth holding—longer than they held us. Against every “shalt + not” there must be a “why not” plainly put,—the “why not” largest + and plainest, the law deduced from its purpose. “You and I, Isabel,” I + said, “have always been a little disregardful of duty, partly at least + because the idea of duty comes to us so ill-clad. Oh! I know there's an + extravagant insubordinate strain in us, but that wasn't all. I wish + humbugs would leave duty alone. I wish all duty wasn't covered with slime. + That's where the real mischief comes in. Passion can always contrive to + clothe itself in beauty, strips itself splendid. That carried us. But for + all its mean associations there is this duty.... + </p> + <p> + “Don't we come rather late to it?” + </p> + <p> + “Not so late that it won't be atrociously hard to do.” + </p> + <p> + “It's queer to think of now,” said Isabel. “Who could believe we did all + we have done honestly? Well, in a manner honestly. Who could believe we + thought this might be hidden? Who could trace it all step by step from the + time when we found that a certain boldness in our talk was pleasing? We + talked of love.... Master, there's not much for us to do in the way of + Apologia that any one will credit. And yet if it were possible to tell the + very heart of our story.... + </p> + <p> + “Does Margaret really want to go on with you?” she asked—“shield you—knowing + of... THIS?” + </p> + <p> + “I'm certain. I don't understand—just as I don't understand + Shoesmith, but she does. These people walk on solid ground which is just + thin air to us. They've got something we haven't got. Assurances? I + wonder.”... + </p> + <p> + Then it was, or later, we talked of Shoesmith, and what her life might be + with him. + </p> + <p> + “He's good,” she said; “he's kindly. He's everything but magic. He's the + very image of the decent, sober, honourable life. You can't say a thing + against him or I—except that something—something in his + imagination, something in the tone of his voice—fails for me. Why + don't I love him?—he's a better man than you! Why don't you? IS he a + better man than you? He's usage, he's honour, he's the right thing, he's + the breed and the tradition,—a gentleman. You're your erring, + incalculable self. I suppose we women will trust this sort and love your + sort to the very end of time....” + </p> + <p> + We lay side by side and nibbled at grass stalks as we talked. It seemed + enormously unreasonable to us that two people who had come to the pitch of + easy and confident affection and happiness that held between us should be + obliged to part and shun one another, or murder half the substance of + their lives. We felt ourselves crushed and beaten by an indiscriminating + machine which destroys happiness in the service of jealousy. “The mass of + people don't feel these things in quite the same manner as we feel them,” + she said. “Is it because they're different in grain, or educated out of + some primitive instinct?” + </p> + <p> + “It's because we've explored love a little, and they know no more than the + gateway,” I said. “Lust and then jealousy; their simple conception—and + we have gone past all that and wandered hand in hand....” + </p> + <p> + I remember that for a time we watched two of that larger sort of gull, + whose wings are brownish-white, circle and hover against the blue. And + then we lay and looked at a band of water mirror clear far out to sea, and + wondered why the breeze that rippled all the rest should leave it so + serene. + </p> + <p> + “And in this State of ours,” I resumed. + </p> + <p> + “Eh!” said Isabel, rolling over into a sitting posture and looking out at + the horizon. “Let's talk no more of things we can never see. Talk to me of + the work you are doing and all we shall do—after we have parted. + We've said too little of that. We've had our red life, and it's over. + Thank Heaven!—though we stole it! Talk about your work, dear, and + the things we'll go on doing—just as though we were still together. + We'll still be together in a sense—through all these things we have + in common.” + </p> + <p> + And so we talked of politics and our outlook. We were interested to the + pitch of self-forgetfulness. We weighed persons and forces, discussed the + probabilities of the next general election, the steady drift of public + opinion in the north and west away from Liberalism towards us. It was very + manifest that in spite of Wardenham and the EXPURGATOR, we should come + into the new Government strongly. The party had no one else, all the young + men were formally or informally with us; Esmeer would have office, Lord + Tarvrille, I... and very probably there would be something for Shoesmith. + “And for my own part,” I said, “I count on backing on the Liberal side. + For the last two years we've been forcing competition in constructive + legislation between the parties. The Liberals have not been long in + following up our Endowment of Motherhood lead. They'll have to give votes + and lip service anyhow. Half the readers of the BLUE WEEKLY, they say, are + Liberals.... + </p> + <p> + “I remember talking about things of this sort with old Willersley,” I + said, “ever so many years ago. It was some place near Locarno, and we + looked down the lake that shone weltering—just as now we look over + the sea. And then we dreamt in an indistinct featureless way of all that + you and I are doing now.” + </p> + <p> + “I!” said Isabel, and laughed. + </p> + <p> + “Well, of some such thing,” I said, and remained for awhile silent, + thinking of Locarno. + </p> + <p> + I recalled once more the largeness, the release from small personal things + that I had felt in my youth; statecraft became real and wonderful again + with the memory, the gigantic handling of gigantic problems. I began to + talk out my thoughts, sitting up beside her, as I could never talk of them + to any one but Isabel; began to recover again the purpose that lay under + all my political ambitions and adjustments and anticipations. I saw the + State, splendid and wide as I had seen it in that first travel of mine, + but now it was no mere distant prospect of spires and pinnacles, but + populous with fine-trained, bold-thinking, bold-doing people. It was as if + I had forgotten for a long time and now remembered with amazement. + </p> + <p> + At first, I told her, I had been altogether at a loss how I could do + anything to battle against the aimless muddle of our world; I had wanted a + clue—until she had come into my life questioning, suggesting, + unconsciously illuminating. “But I have done nothing,” she protested. I + declared she had done everything in growing to education under my eyes, in + reflecting again upon all the processes that had made myself, so that + instead of abstractions and blue-books and bills and devices, I had + realised the world of mankind as a crowd needing before all things fine + women and men. We'd spoilt ourselves in learning that, but anyhow we had + our lesson. Before her I was in a nineteenth-century darkness, dealing + with the nation as if it were a crowd of selfish men, forgetful of women + and children and that shy wild thing in the hearts of men, love, which + must be drawn upon as it has never been drawn upon before, if the State is + to live. I saw now how it is possible to bring the loose factors of a + great realm together, to create a mind of literature and thought in it, + and the expression of a purpose to make it self-conscious and fine. I had + it all clear before me, so that at a score of points I could presently + begin. The BLUE WEEKLY was a centre of force. Already we had given + Imperialism a criticism, and leavened half the press from our columns. Our + movement consolidated and spread. We should presently come into power. + Everything moved towards our hands. We should be able to get at the + schools, the services, the universities, the church; enormously increase + the endowment of research, and organise what was sorely wanted, a + criticism of research; contrive a closer contact between the press and + creative intellectual life; foster literature, clarify, strengthen the + public consciousness, develop social organisation and a sense of the + State. Men were coming to us every day, brilliant young peers like Lord + Dentonhill, writers like Carnot and Cresswell. It filled me with pride to + win such men. “We stand for so much more than we seem to stand for,” I + said. I opened my heart to her, so freely that I hesitate to open my heart + even to the reader, telling of projects and ambitions I cherished, of my + consciousness of great powers and widening opportunities.... + </p> + <p> + Isabel watched me as I talked. + </p> + <p> + She too, I think, had forgotten these things for a while. For it is + curious and I think a very significant thing that since we had become + lovers, we had talked very little of the broader things that had once so + strongly gripped our imaginations. + </p> + <p> + “It's good,” I said, “to talk like this to you, to get back to youth and + great ambitions with you. There have been times lately when politics has + seemed the pettiest game played with mean tools for mean ends—and + none the less so that the happiness of three hundred million people might + be touched by our follies. I talk to no one else like this.... And now I + think of parting, I think but of how much more I might have talked to + you.”... + </p> + <p> + Things drew to an end at last, but after we had spoken of a thousand + things. + </p> + <p> + “We've talked away our last half day,” I said, staring over my shoulder at + the blazing sunset sky behind us. “Dear, it's been the last day of our + lives for us.... It doesn't seem like the last day of our lives. Or any + day.” + </p> + <p> + “I wonder how it will feel?” said Isabel. + </p> + <p> + “It will be very strange at first—not to be able to tell you + things.” + </p> + <p> + “I've a superstition that after—after we've parted—if ever I + go into my room and talk, you'll hear. You'll be—somewhere.” + </p> + <p> + “I shall be in the world—yes.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't feel as though these days ahead were real. Here we are, here we + remain.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I feel that. As though you and I were two immortals, who didn't live + in time and space at all, who never met, who couldn't part, and here we + lie on Olympus. And those two poor creatures who did meet, poor little + Richard Remington and Isabel Rivers, who met and loved too much and had to + part, they part and go their ways, and we lie here and watch them, you and + I. She'll cry, poor dear.” + </p> + <p> + “She'll cry. She's crying now!” + </p> + <p> + “Poor little beasts! I think he'll cry too. He winces. He could—for + tuppence. I didn't know he had lachrymal glands at all until a little + while ago. I suppose all love is hysterical—and a little foolish. + Poor mites! Silly little pitiful creatures! How we have blundered! Think + how we must look to God! Well, we'll pity them, and then we'll inspire him + to stiffen up again—and do as we've determined he shall do. We'll + see it through,—we who lie here on the cliff. They'll be mean at + times, and horrid at times; we know them! Do you see her, a poor little + fine lady in a great house,—she sometimes goes to her room and + writes.” + </p> + <p> + “She writes for his BLUE WEEKLY still.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. Sometimes—I hope. And he's there in the office with a bit of + her copy in his hand.” + </p> + <p> + “Is it as good as if she still talked it over with him before she wrote + it? Is it?” + </p> + <p> + “Better, I think. Let's play it's better—anyhow. It may be that + talking over was rather mixed with love-making. After all, love-making is + joy rather than magic. Don't let's pretend about that even.... Let's go on + watching him. (I don't see why her writing shouldn't be better. Indeed I + don't.) See! There he goes down along the Embankment to Westminster just + like a real man, for all that he's smaller than a grain of dust. What is + running round inside that speck of a head of his? Look at him going past + the Policemen, specks too—selected large ones from the country. I + think he's going to dinner with the Speaker—some old thing like + that. Is his face harder or commoner or stronger?—I can't quite + see.... And now he's up and speaking in the House. Hope he'll hold on to + the thread. He'll have to plan his speeches to the very end of his days—and + learn the headings.” + </p> + <p> + “Isn't she up in the women's gallery to hear him?” + </p> + <p> + “No. Unless it's by accident.” + </p> + <p> + “She's there,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “Well, by accident it happens. Not too many accidents, Isabel. Never any + more adventures for us, dear, now. No!... They play the game, you know. + They've begun late, but now they've got to. You see it's not so very hard + for them since you and I, my dear, are here always, always faithfully here + on this warm cliff of love accomplished, watching and helping them under + high heaven. It isn't so VERY hard. Rather good in some ways. Some people + HAVE to be broken a little. Can you see Altiora down there, by any + chance?” + </p> + <p> + “She's too little to be seen,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “Can you see the sins they once committed?” + </p> + <p> + “I can only see you here beside me, dear—for ever. For all my life, + dear, till I die. Was that—the sin?”... + </p> + <p> + I took her to the station, and after she had gone I was to drive to Dover, + and cross to Calais by the night boat. I couldn't, I felt, return to + London. We walked over the crest and down to the little station of Martin + Mill side by side, talking at first in broken fragments, for the most part + of unimportant things. + </p> + <p> + “None of this,” she said abruptly, “seems in the slightest degree real to + me. I've got no sense of things ending.” + </p> + <p> + “We're parting,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “We're parting—as people part in a play. It's distressing. But I + don't feel as though you and I were really never to see each other again + for years. Do you?” + </p> + <p> + I thought. “No,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “After we've parted I shall look to talk it over with you.” + </p> + <p> + “So shall I.” + </p> + <p> + “That's absurd.” + </p> + <p> + “Absurd.” + </p> + <p> + “I feel as if you'd always be there, just about where you are now. + Invisible perhaps, but there. We've spent so much of our lives joggling + elbows.”... + </p> + <p> + “Yes. Yes. I don't in the least realise it. I suppose I shall begin to + when the train goes out of the station. Are we wanting in imagination, + Isabel?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know. We've always assumed it was the other way about.” + </p> + <p> + “Even when the train goes out of the station—! I've seen you into so + many trains.” + </p> + <p> + “I shall go on thinking of things to say to you—things to put in + your letters. For years to come. How can I ever stop thinking in that way + now? We've got into each other's brains.” + </p> + <p> + “It isn't real,” I said; “nothing is real. The world's no more than a + fantastic dream. Why are we parting, Isabel?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know. It seems now supremely silly. I suppose we have to. Can't + we meet?—don't you think we shall meet even in dreams?” + </p> + <p> + “We'll meet a thousand times in dreams,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “I wish we could dream at the same time,” said Isabel.... “Dream walks. I + can't believe, dear, I shall never have a walk with you again.” + </p> + <p> + “If I'd stayed six months in America,” I said, “we might have walked long + walks and talked long talks for all our lives.” + </p> + <p> + “Not in a world of Baileys,” said Isabel. “And anyhow—” + </p> + <p> + She stopped short. I looked interrogation. + </p> + <p> + “We've loved,” she said. + </p> + <p> + I took her ticket, saw to her luggage, and stood by the door of the + compartment. “Good-bye,” I said a little stiffly, conscious of the people + upon the platform. She bent above me, white and dusky, looking at me very + steadfastly. + </p> + <p> + “Come here,” she whispered. “Never mind the porters. What can they know? + Just one time more—I must.” + </p> + <p> + She rested her hand against the door of the carriage and bent down upon + me, and put her cold, moist lips to mine. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE THIRD ~~ THE BREAKING POINT + </h2> + <p> + 1 + </p> + <p> + And then we broke down. We broke our faith with both Margaret and + Shoesmith, flung career and duty out of our lives, and went away together. + </p> + <p> + It is only now, almost a year after these events, that I can begin to see + what happened to me. At the time it seemed to me I was a rational, + responsible creature, but indeed I had not parted from her two days before + I became a monomaniac to whom nothing could matter but Isabel. Every truth + had to be squared to that obsession, every duty. It astounds me to think + how I forgot Margaret, forgot my work, forgot everything but that we two + were parted. I still believe that with better chances we might have + escaped the consequences of the emotional storm that presently seized us + both. But we had no foresight of that, and no preparation for it, and our + circumstances betrayed us. It was partly Shoesmith's unwisdom in delaying + his marriage until after the end of the session—partly my own + amazing folly in returning within four days to Westminster. But we were + all of us intent upon the defeat of scandal and the complete restoration + of appearances. It seemed necessary that Shoesmith's marriage should not + seem to be hurried, still more necessary that I should not vanish + inexplicably. I had to be visible with Margaret in London just as much as + possible; we went to restaurants, we visited the theatre; we could even + contemplate the possibility of my presence at the wedding. For that, + however, we had schemed a weekend visit to Wales, and a fictitious + sprained ankle at the last moment which would justify my absence.... + </p> + <p> + I cannot convey to you the intolerable wretchedness and rebellion of my + separation from Isabel. It seemed that in the past two years all my + thoughts had spun commisures to Isabel's brain and I could think of + nothing that did not lead me surely to the need of the one intimate I had + found in the world. I came back to the House and the office and my home, I + filled all my days with appointments and duty, and it did not save me in + the least from a lonely emptiness such as I had never felt before in all + my life. I had little sleep. In the daytime I did a hundred things, I even + spoke in the House on two occasions, and by my own low standards spoke + well, and it seemed to me that I was going about in my own brain like a + hushed survivor in a house whose owner lies dead upstairs. + </p> + <p> + I came to a crisis after that wild dinner of Tarvrille's. Something in + that stripped my soul bare. + </p> + <p> + It was an occasion made absurd and strange by the odd accident that the + house caught fire upstairs while we were dining below. It was a men's + dinner—“A dinner of all sorts,” said Tarvrille, when he invited me; + “everything from Evesham and Gane to Wilkins the author, and Heaven knows + what will happen!” I remember that afterwards Tarvrille was accused of + having planned the fire to make his dinner a marvel and a memory. It was + indeed a wonderful occasion, and I suppose if I had not been altogether + drenched in misery, I should have found the same wild amusement in it that + glowed in all the others. There were one or two university dons, Lord + George Fester, the racing man, Panmure, the artist, two or three big City + men, Weston Massinghay and another prominent Liberal whose name I can't + remember, the three men Tarvrille had promised and Esmeer, Lord + Wrassleton, Waulsort, the member for Monckton, Neal and several others. We + began a little coldly, with duologues, but the conversation was already + becoming general—so far as such a long table permitted—when + the fire asserted itself. + </p> + <p> + It asserted itself first as a penetrating and emphatic smell of burning + rubber,—it was caused by the fusing of an electric wire. The reek + forced its way into the discussion of the Pekin massacres that had sprung + up between Evesham, Waulsort, and the others at the end of the table. + “Something burning,” said the man next to me. + </p> + <p> + “Something must be burning,” said Panmure. + </p> + <p> + Tarvrille hated undignified interruptions. He had a particularly + imperturbable butler with a cadaverous sad face and an eye of rigid + disapproval. He spoke to this individual over his shoulder. “Just see, + will you,” he said, and caught up the pause in the talk to his left. + </p> + <p> + Wilkins was asking questions, and I, too, was curious. The story of the + siege of the Legations in China in the year 1900 and all that followed + upon that, is just one of those disturbing interludes in history that + refuse to join on to that general scheme of protestation by which + civilisation is maintained. It is a break in the general flow of + experience as disconcerting to statecraft as the robbery of my knife and + the scuffle that followed it had been to me when I was a boy at Penge. It + is like a tear in a curtain revealing quite unexpected backgrounds. I had + never given the business a thought for years; now this talk brought back a + string of pictures to my mind; how the reliefs arrived and the plundering + began, how section after section of the International Army was drawn into + murder and pillage, how the infection spread upward until the wives of + Ministers were busy looting, and the very sentinels stripped and crawled + like snakes into the Palace they were set to guard. It did not stop at + robbery, men were murdered, women, being plundered, were outraged, + children were butchered, strong men had found themselves with arms in a + lawless, defenceless city, and this had followed. Now it was all recalled. + </p> + <p> + “Respectable ladies addicted to district visiting at home were as bad as + any one,” said Panmure. “Glazebrook told me of one—flushed like a + woman at a bargain sale, he said—and when he pointed out to her that + the silk she'd got was bloodstained, she just said, 'Oh, bother!' and + threw it aside and went back....” + </p> + <p> + We became aware that Tarvrille's butler had returned. We tried not to seem + to listen. + </p> + <p> + “Beg pardon, m'lord,” he said. “The house IS on fire, m'lord.” + </p> + <p> + “Upstairs, m'lord.” + </p> + <p> + “Just overhead, m'lord.” + </p> + <p> + “The maids are throwing water, m'lord, and I've telephoned FIRE.” + </p> + <p> + “No, m'lord, no immediate danger.” + </p> + <p> + “It's all right,” said Tarvrille to the table generally. “Go on! It's not + a general conflagration, and the fire brigade won't be five minutes. Don't + see that it's our affair. The stuff's insured. They say old Lady + Paskershortly was dreadful. Like a harpy. The Dowager Empress had shown + her some little things of hers. Pet things—hidden away. Susan went + straight for them—used to take an umbrella for the silks. Born + shoplifter.” + </p> + <p> + It was evident he didn't want his dinner spoilt, and we played up loyally. + </p> + <p> + “This is recorded history,” said Wilkins,—“practically. It makes one + wonder about unrecorded history. In India, for example.” + </p> + <p> + But nobody touched that. + </p> + <p> + “Thompson,” said Tarvrille to the imperturbable butler, and indicating the + table generally, “champagne. Champagne. Keep it going.” + </p> + <p> + “M'lord,” and Thompson marshalled his assistants. + </p> + <p> + Some man I didn't know began to remember things about Mandalay. “It's + queer,” he said, “how people break out at times;” and told his story of an + army doctor, brave, public-spirited, and, as it happened, deeply + religious, who was caught one evening by the excitement of plundering—and + stole and hid, twisted the wrist of a boy until it broke, and was + afterwards overcome by wild remorse. + </p> + <p> + I watched Evesham listening intently. “Strange,” he said, “very strange. + We are such stuff as thieves are made of. And in China, too, they murdered + people—for the sake of murdering. Apart, so to speak, from mercenary + considerations. I'm afraid there's no doubt of it in certain cases. No + doubt at all. Young soldiers fresh from German high schools and English + homes!” + </p> + <p> + “Did OUR people?” asked some patriot. + </p> + <p> + “Not so much. But I'm afraid there were cases.... Some of the Indian + troops were pretty bad.” + </p> + <p> + Gane picked up the tale with confirmations. + </p> + <p> + It is all printed in the vividest way as a picture upon my memory, so that + were I a painter I think I could give the deep rich browns and warm greys + beyond the brightly lit table, the various distinguished faces, strongly + illuminated, interested and keen, above the black and white of evening + dress, the alert menservants with their heavier, clean-shaved faces + indistinctly seen in the dimness behind. Then this was coloured + emotionally for me by my aching sense of loss and sacrifice, and by the + chance trend of our talk to the breaches and unrealities of the civilised + scheme. We seemed a little transitory circle of light in a universe of + darkness and violence; an effect to which the diminishing smell of burning + rubber, the trampling of feet overhead, the swish of water, added + enormously. Everybody—unless, perhaps, it was Evesham—drank + rather carelessly because of the suppressed excitement of our situation, + and talked the louder and more freely. + </p> + <p> + “But what a flimsy thing our civilisation is!” said Evesham; “a mere thin + net of habits and associations!” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose those men came back,” said Wilkins. + </p> + <p> + “Lady Paskershortly did!” chuckled Evesham. + </p> + <p> + “How do they fit it in with the rest of their lives?” Wilkins speculated. + “I suppose there's Pekin-stained police officers, Pekin-stained J. P.'s—trying + petty pilferers in the severest manner.”... + </p> + <p> + Then for a time things became preposterous. There was a sudden cascade of + water by the fireplace, and then absurdly the ceiling began to rain upon + us, first at this point and then that. “My new suit!” cried some one. + “Perrrrrr-up pe-rr”—a new vertical line of blackened water would + establish itself and form a spreading pool upon the gleaming cloth. The + men nearest would arrange catchment areas of plates and flower bowls. + “Draw up!” said Tarvrille, “draw up. That's the bad end of the table!” He + turned to the imperturbable butler. “Take round bath towels,” he said; and + presently the men behind us were offering—with inflexible dignity—“Port + wine, Sir. Bath towel, Sir!” Waulsort, with streaks of blackened water on + his forehead, was suddenly reminded of a wet year when he had followed the + French army manoeuvres. An animated dispute sprang up between him and Neal + about the relative efficiency of the new French and German field guns. + Wrassleton joined in and a little drunken shrivelled Oxford don of some + sort with a black-splashed shirt front who presently silenced them all by + the immensity and particularity of his knowledge of field artillery. Then + the talk drifted to Sedan and the effect of dead horses upon + drinking-water, which brought Wrassleton and Weston Massinghay into a + dispute of great vigour and emphasis. “The trouble in South Africa,” said + Weston Massinghay, “wasn't that we didn't boil our water. It was that we + didn't boil our men. The Boers drank the same stuff we did. THEY didn't + get dysentery.” + </p> + <p> + That argument went on for some time. I was attacked across the table by a + man named Burshort about my Endowment of Motherhood schemes, but in the + gaps of that debate I could still hear Weston Massinghay at intervals + repeat in a rather thickened voice: “THEY didn't get dysentery.” + </p> + <p> + I think Evesham went early. The rest of us clustered more and more closely + towards the drier end of the room, the table was pushed along, and the + area beneath the extinguished conflagration abandoned to a tinkling, + splashing company of pots and pans and bowls and baths. Everybody was now + disposed to be hilarious and noisy, to say startling and aggressive + things; we must have sounded a queer clamour to a listener in the next + room. The devil inspired them to begin baiting me. “Ours isn't the Tory + party any more,” said Burshort. “Remington has made it the Obstetric + Party.” + </p> + <p> + “That's good!” said Weston Massinghay, with all his teeth gleaming; “I + shall use that against you in the House!” + </p> + <p> + “I shall denounce you for abusing private confidences if you do,” said + Tarvrille. + </p> + <p> + “Remington wants us to give up launching Dreadnoughts and launch babies + instead,” Burshort urged. “For the price of one Dreadnought—” + </p> + <p> + The little shrivelled don who had been omniscient about guns joined in the + baiting, and displayed himself a venomous creature. Something in his eyes + told me he knew Isabel and hated me for it. “Love and fine thinking,” he + began, a little thickly, and knocking over a wine-glass with a too easy + gesture. “Love and fine thinking. Two things don't go together. No + philosophy worth a damn ever came out of excesses of love. Salt Lake City—Piggott—Ag—Agapemone + again—no works to matter.” + </p> + <p> + Everybody laughed. + </p> + <p> + “Got to rec'nise these facts,” said my assailant. “Love and fine think'n + pretty phrase—attractive. Suitable for p'litical dec'rations. + Postcard, Christmas, gilt lets, in a wreath of white flow's. Not oth'wise + valu'ble.” + </p> + <p> + I made some remark, I forget what, but he overbore me. + </p> + <p> + Real things we want are Hate—Hate and COARSE think'n. I b'long to + the school of Mrs. F's Aunt—” + </p> + <p> + “What?” said some one, intent. + </p> + <p> + “In 'Little Dorrit,'” explained Tarvrille; “go on!” + </p> + <p> + “Hate a fool,” said my assailant. + </p> + <p> + Tarvrille glanced at me. I smiled to conceal the loss of my temper. + </p> + <p> + “Hate,” said the little man, emphasising his point with a clumsy fist. + “Hate's the driving force. What's m'rality?—hate of rotten goings + on. What's patriotism?—hate of int'loping foreigners. What's + Radicalism?—hate of lords. What's Toryism?—hate of + disturbance. It's all hate—hate from top to bottom. Hate of a mess. + Remington owned it the other day, said he hated a mu'll. There you are! If + you couldn't get hate into an election, damn it (hic) people wou'n't poll. + Poll for love!—no' me!” + </p> + <p> + He paused, but before any one could speak he had resumed. + </p> + <p> + “Then this about fine thinking. Like going into a bear pit armed with a + tagle—talgent—talgent galv'nometer. Like going to fight a mad + dog with Shasepear and the Bible. Fine thinking—what we want is the + thickes' thinking we can get. Thinking that stands up alone. Taf Reform + means work for all, thassort of thing.” + </p> + <p> + The gentleman from Cambridge paused. “YOU a flag!” he said. “I'd as soon + go to ba'ell und' wet tissue paper!” + </p> + <p> + My best answer on the spur of the moment was: + </p> + <p> + “The Japanese did.” Which was absurd. + </p> + <p> + I went on to some other reply, I forget exactly what, and the talk of the + whole table drew round me. It was an extraordinary revelation to me. Every + one was unusually careless and outspoken, and it was amazing how + manifestly they echoed the feeling of this old Tory spokesman. They were + quite friendly to me, they regarded me and the BLUE WEEKLY as valuable + party assets for Toryism, but it was clear they attached no more + importance to what were my realities than they did to the remarkable + therapeutic claims of Mrs. Eddy. They were flushed and amused, perhaps + they went a little too far in their resolves to draw me, but they left the + impression on my mind of men irrevocably set upon narrow and cynical views + of political life. For them the political struggle was a game, whose + counters were human hate and human credulity; their real aim was just + every one's aim, the preservation of the class and way of living to which + their lives were attuned. They did not know how tired I was, how exhausted + mentally and morally, nor how cruel their convergent attack on me chanced + to be. But my temper gave way, I became tart and fierce, perhaps my + replies were a trifle absurd, and Tarvrille, with that quick eye and + sympathy of his, came to the rescue. Then for a time I sat silent and + drank port wine while the others talked. The disorder of the room, the + still dripping ceiling, the noise, the displaced ties and crumpled shirts + of my companions, jarred on my tormented nerves.... + </p> + <p> + It was long past midnight when we dispersed. I remember Tarvrille coming + with me into the hall, and then suggesting we should go upstairs to see + the damage. A manservant carried up two flickering candles for us. One end + of the room was gutted, curtains, hangings, several chairs and tables were + completely burnt, the panelling was scorched and warped, three smashed + windows made the candles flare and gutter, and some scraps of broken china + still lay on the puddled floor. + </p> + <p> + As we surveyed this, Lady Tarvrille appeared, back from some party, a + slender, white-cloaked, satin-footed figure with amazed blue eyes beneath + her golden hair. I remember how stupidly we laughed at her surprise. + </p> + <p> + 2 + </p> + <p> + I parted from Panmure at the corner of Aldington Street, and went my way + alone. But I did not go home, I turned westward and walked for a long way, + and then struck northward aimlessly. I was too miserable to go to my + house. + </p> + <p> + I wandered about that night like a man who has discovered his Gods are + dead. I can look back now detached yet sympathetic upon that wild + confusion of moods and impulses, and by it I think I can understand, oh! + half the wrongdoing and blundering in the world. + </p> + <p> + I do not feel now the logical force of the process that must have + convinced me then that I had made my sacrifice and spent my strength in + vain. At no time had I been under any illusion that the Tory party had + higher ideals than any other party, yet it came to me like a thing newly + discovered that the men I had to work with had for the most part no such + dreams, no sense of any collective purpose, no atom of the faith I held. + They were just as immediately intent upon personal ends, just as limited + by habits of thought, as the men in any other group or party. Perhaps I + had slipped unawares for a time into the delusions of a party man—but + I do not think so. + </p> + <p> + No, it was the mood of profound despondency that had followed upon the + abrupt cessation of my familiar intercourse with Isabel, that gave this + fact that had always been present in my mind its quality of devastating + revelation. It seemed as though I had never seen before nor suspected the + stupendous gap between the chaotic aims, the routine, the conventional + acquiescences, the vulgarisations of the personal life, and that clearly + conscious development and service of a collective thought and purpose at + which my efforts aimed. I had thought them but a little way apart, and now + I saw they were separated by all the distance between earth and heaven. I + saw now in myself and every one around me, a concentration upon interests + close at hand, an inability to detach oneself from the provocations, + tendernesses, instinctive hates, dumb lusts and shy timidities that + touched one at every point; and, save for rare exalted moments, a + regardlessness of broader aims and remoter possibilities that made the + white passion of statecraft seem as unearthly and irrelevant to human life + as the story an astronomer will tell, half proven but altogether + incredible, of habitable planets and answering intelligences, suns' + distances uncounted across the deep. It seemed to me I had aspired too + high and thought too far, had mocked my own littleness by presumption, had + given the uttermost dear reality of life for a theoriser's dream. + </p> + <p> + All through that wandering agony of mine that night a dozen threads of + thought interwove; now I was a soul speaking in protest to God against a + task too cold and high for it, and now I was an angry man, scorned and + pointed upon, who had let life cheat him of the ultimate pride of his + soul. Now I was the fool of ambition, who opened his box of gold to find + blank emptiness, and now I was a spinner of flimsy thoughts, whose web + tore to rags at a touch. I realised for the first time how much I had come + to depend upon the mind and faith of Isabel, how she had confirmed me and + sustained me, how little strength I had to go on with our purposes now + that she had vanished from my life. She had been the incarnation of those + great abstractions, the saving reality, the voice that answered back. + There was no support that night in the things that had been. We were alone + together on the cliff for ever more!—that was very pretty in its + way, but it had no truth whatever that could help me now, no ounce of + sustaining value. I wanted Isabel that night, no sentiment or memory of + her, but Isabel alive,—to talk to me, to touch me, to hold me + together. I wanted unendurably the dusky gentleness of her presence, the + consolation of her voice. + </p> + <p> + We were alone together on the cliff! I startled a passing cabman into + interest by laughing aloud at that magnificent and characteristic + sentimentality. What a lie it was, and how satisfying it had been! That + was just where we shouldn't remain. We of all people had no distinction + from that humanity whose lot is to forget. We should go out to other + interests, new experiences, new demands. That tall and intricate fabric of + ambitious understandings we had built up together in our intimacy would be + the first to go; and last perhaps to endure with us would be a few gross + memories of sights and sounds, and trivial incidental excitements.... + </p> + <p> + I had a curious feeling that night that I had lost touch with life for a + long time, and had now been reminded of its quality. That infernal little + don's parody of my ruling phrase, “Hate and coarse thinking,” stuck in my + thoughts like a poisoned dart, a centre of inflammation. Just as a man who + is debilitated has no longer the vitality to resist an infection, so my + mind, slackened by the crisis of my separation from Isabel, could find no + resistance to his emphatic suggestion. It seemed to me that what he had + said was overpoweringly true, not only of contemporary life, but of all + possible human life. Love is the rare thing, the treasured thing; you lock + it away jealously and watch, and well you may; hate and aggression and + force keep the streets and rule the world. And fine thinking is, in the + rough issues of life, weak thinking, is a balancing indecisive process, + discovers with disloyal impartiality a justice and a defect on each + disputing side. “Good honest men,” as Dayton calls them, rule the world, + with a way of thinking out decisions like shooting cartloads of bricks, + and with a steadfast pleasure in hostility. Dayton liked to call his + antagonists “blaggards and scoundrels”—it justified his opposition—the + Lords were “scoundrels,” all people richer than he were “scoundrels,” all + Socialists, all troublesome poor people; he liked to think of jails and + justice being done. His public spirit was saturated with the sombre joys + of conflict and the pleasant thought of condign punishment for all + recalcitrant souls. That was the way of it, I perceived. That had survival + value, as the biologists say. He was fool enough in politics to be a + consistent and happy politician.... + </p> + <p> + Hate and coarse thinking; how the infernal truth of the phrase beat me + down that night! I couldn't remember that I had known this all along, and + that it did not really matter in the slightest degree. I had worked it all + out long ago in other terms, when I had seen how all parties stood for + interests inevitably, and how the purpose in life achieves itself, if it + achieves itself at all, as a bye product of the war of individuals and + classes. Hadn't I always known that science and philosophy elaborate + themselves in spite of all the passion and narrowness of men, in spite of + the vanities and weakness of their servants, in spite of all the heated + disorder of contemporary things? Wasn't it my own phrase to speak of “that + greater mind in men, in which we are but moments and transitorily lit + cells?” Hadn't I known that the spirit of man still speaks like a thing + that struggles out of mud and slime, and that the mere effort to speak + means choking and disaster? Hadn't I known that we who think without fear + and speak without discretion will not come to our own for the next two + thousand years? + </p> + <p> + It was the last was most forgotten of all that faith mislaid. Before + mankind, in my vision that night, stretched new centuries of confusion, + vast stupid wars, hastily conceived laws, foolish temporary triumphs of + order, lapses, set-backs, despairs, catastrophes, new beginnings, a + multitudinous wilderness of time, a nigh plotless drama of wrong-headed + energies. In order to assuage my parting from Isabel we had set ourselves + to imagine great rewards for our separation, great personal rewards; we + had promised ourselves success visible and shining in our lives. To + console ourselves in our separation we had made out of the BLUE WEEKLY and + our young Tory movement preposterously enormous things-as though those + poor fertilising touches at the soil were indeed the germinating seeds of + the millennium, as though a million lives such as ours had not to + contribute before the beginning of the beginning. That poor pretence had + failed. That magnificent proposition shrivelled to nothing in the black + loneliness of that night. + </p> + <p> + I saw that there were to be no such compensations. So far as my real + services to mankind were concerned I had to live an unrecognised and + unrewarded life. If I made successes it would be by the way. Our + separation would alter nothing of that. My scandal would cling to me now + for all my life, a thing affecting relationships, embarrassing and + hampering my spirit. I should follow the common lot of those who live by + the imagination, and follow it now in infinite loneliness of soul; the one + good comforter, the one effectual familiar, was lost to me for ever; I + should do good and evil together, no one caring to understand; I should + produce much weary work, much bad-spirited work, much absolute evil; the + good in me would be too often ill-expressed and missed or misinterpreted. + In the end I might leave one gleaming flake or so amidst the slag heaps + for a moment of postmortem sympathy. I was afraid beyond measure of my + derelict self. Because I believed with all my soul in love and fine + thinking that did not mean that I should necessarily either love + steadfastly or think finely. I remember how I fell talking to God—I + think I talked out loud. “Why do I care for these things?” I cried, “when + I can do so little! Why am I apart from the jolly thoughtless fighting + life of men? These dreams fade to nothingness, and leave me bare!” + </p> + <p> + I scolded. “Why don't you speak to a man, show yourself? I thought I had a + gleam of you in Isabel,—and then you take her away. Do you really + think I can carry on this game alone, doing your work in darkness and + silence, living in muddled conflict, half living, half dying?” + </p> + <p> + Grotesque analogies arose in my mind. I discovered a strange parallelism + between my now tattered phrase of “Love and fine thinking” and the “Love + and the Word” of Christian thought. Was it possible the Christian + propaganda had at the outset meant just that system of attitudes I had + been feeling my way towards from the very beginning of my life? Had I + spent a lifetime making my way back to Christ? It mocks humanity to think + how Christ has been overlaid. I went along now, recalling long-neglected + phrases and sentences; I had a new vision of that great central figure + preaching love with hate and coarse thinking even in the disciples about + Him, rising to a tidal wave at last in that clamour for Barabbas, and the + public satisfaction in His fate.... + </p> + <p> + It's curious to think that hopeless love and a noisy disordered dinner + should lead a man to these speculations, but they did. “He DID mean that!” + I said, and suddenly thought of what a bludgeon they'd made of His + Christianity. Athwart that perplexing, patient enigma sitting inaudibly + among publicans and sinners, danced and gibbered a long procession of the + champions of orthodoxy. “He wasn't human,” I said, and remembered that + last despairing cry, “My God! My God! why hast Thou forsaken Me?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, HE forsakes every one,” I said, flying out as a tired mind will, with + an obvious repartee.... + </p> + <p> + I passed at a bound from such monstrous theology to a towering rage + against the Baileys. In an instant and with no sense of absurdity I wanted—in + the intervals of love and fine thinking—to fling about that + strenuously virtuous couple; I wanted to kick Keyhole of the PEEPSHOW into + the gutter and make a common massacre of all the prosperous rascaldom that + makes a trade and rule of virtue. I can still feel that transition. In a + moment I had reached that phase of weakly decisive anger which is for + people of my temperament the concomitant of exhaustion. + </p> + <p> + “I will have her,” I cried. “By Heaven! I WILL have her! Life mocks me and + cheats me. Nothing can be made good to me again.... Why shouldn't I save + what I can? I can't save myself without her....” + </p> + <p> + I remember myself—as a sort of anti-climax to that—rather + tediously asking my way home. I was somewhere in the neighbourhood of + Holland Park.... + </p> + <p> + It was then between one and two. I felt that I could go home now without + any risk of meeting Margaret. It had been the thought of returning to + Margaret that had sent me wandering that night. It is one of the ugliest + facts I recall about that time of crisis, the intense aversion I felt for + Margaret. No sense of her goodness, her injury and nobility, and the + enormous generosity of her forgiveness, sufficed to mitigate that. I hope + now that in this book I am able to give something of her silvery + splendour, but all through this crisis I felt nothing of that. There was a + triumphant kindliness about her that I found intolerable. She meant to be + so kind to me, to offer unstinted consolation, to meet my needs, to supply + just all she imagined Isabel had given me. + </p> + <p> + When I left Tarvrille's, I felt I could anticipate exactly how she would + meet my homecoming. She would be perplexed by my crumpled shirt front, on + which I had spilt some drops of wine; she would overlook that by an + effort, explain it sentimentally, resolve it should make no difference to + her. She would want to know who had been present, what we had talked + about, show the alertest interest in whatever it was—it didn't + matter what.... No, I couldn't face her. + </p> + <p> + So I did not reach my study until two o'clock. + </p> + <p> + There, I remember, stood the new and very beautiful old silver + candlesticks that she had set there two days since to please me—the + foolish kindliness of it! But in her search for expression, Margaret + heaped presents upon me. She had fitted these candlesticks with electric + lights, and I must, I suppose, have lit them to write my note to Isabel. + “Give me a word—the world aches without you,” was all I scrawled, + though I fully meant that she should come to me. I knew, though I ought + not to have known, that now she had left her flat, she was with the Balfes—she + was to have been married from the Balfes—and I sent my letter there. + And I went out into the silent square and posted the note forthwith, + because I knew quite clearly that if I left it until morning I should + never post it at all. + </p> + <p> + 3 + </p> + <p> + I had a curious revulsion of feeling that morning of our meeting. (Of all + places for such a clandestine encounter she had chosen the bridge opposite + Buckingham Palace.) Overnight I had been full of self pity, and eager for + the comfort of Isabel's presence. But the ill-written scrawl in which she + had replied had been full of the suggestion of her own weakness and + misery. And when I saw her, my own selfish sorrows were altogether swept + away by a wave of pitiful tenderness. Something had happened to her that I + did not understand. She was manifestly ill. She came towards me wearily, + she who had always borne herself so bravely; her shoulders seemed bent, + and her eyes were tired, and her face white and drawn. All my life has + been a narrow self-centred life; no brothers, no sisters or children or + weak things had ever yet made any intimate appeal to me, and suddenly—I + verily believe for the first time in my life!—I felt a great passion + of protective ownership; I felt that here was something that I could die + to shelter, something that meant more than joy or pride or splendid + ambitions or splendid creation to me, a new kind of hold upon me, a new + power in the world. Some sealed fountain was opened in my breast. I knew + that I could love Isabel broken, Isabel beaten, Isabel ugly and in pain, + more than I could love any sweet or delightful or glorious thing in life. + I didn't care any more for anything in the world but Isabel, and that I + should protect her. I trembled as I came near her, and could scarcely + speak to her for the emotion that filled me.... + </p> + <p> + “I had your letter,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “I had yours.” + </p> + <p> + “Where can we talk?” + </p> + <p> + I remember my lame sentences. “We'll have a boat. That's best here.” + </p> + <p> + I took her to the little boat-house, and there we hired a boat, and I + rowed in silence under the bridge and into the shade of a tree. The square + grey stone masses of the Foreign Office loomed through the twigs, I + remember, and a little space of grass separated us from the pathway and + the scrutiny of passers-by. And there we talked. + </p> + <p> + “I had to write to you,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “I had to come.” + </p> + <p> + “When are you to be married?” + </p> + <p> + “Thursday week.” + </p> + <p> + “Well?” I said. “But—can we?” + </p> + <p> + She leant forward and scrutinised my face with eyes wide open. “What do + you mean?” she said at last in a whisper. + </p> + <p> + “Can we stand it? After all?” + </p> + <p> + I looked at her white face. “Can you?” I said. + </p> + <p> + She whispered. “Your career?” + </p> + <p> + Then suddenly her face was contorted,—she wept silently, exactly as + a child tormented beyond endurance might suddenly weep.... + </p> + <p> + “Oh! I don't care,” I cried, “now. I don't care. Damn the whole system of + things! Damn all this patching of the irrevocable! I want to take care of + you, Isabel! and have you with me.” + </p> + <p> + “I can't stand it,” she blubbered. + </p> + <p> + “You needn't stand it. I thought it was best for you.... I thought indeed + it was best for you. I thought even you wanted it like that.” + </p> + <p> + “Couldn't I live alone—as I meant to do?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” I said, “you couldn't. You're not strong enough. I've thought of + that; I've got to shelter you.” + </p> + <p> + “And I want you,” I went on. “I'm not strong enough—I can't stand + life without you.” + </p> + <p> + She stopped weeping, she made a great effort to control herself, and + looked at me steadfastly for a moment. “I was going to kill myself,” she + whispered. “I was going to kill myself quietly—somehow. I meant to + wait a bit and have an accident. I thought—you didn't understand. + You were a man, and couldn't understand....” + </p> + <p> + “People can't do as we thought we could do,” I said. “We've gone too far + together.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” she said, and I stared into her eyes. + </p> + <p> + “The horror of it,” she whispered. “The horror of being handed over. It's + just only begun to dawn upon me, seeing him now as I do. He tries to be + kind to me.... I didn't know. I felt adventurous before.... It makes me + feel like all the women in the world who have ever been owned and + subdued.... It's not that he isn't the best of men, it's because I'm a + part of you.... I can't go through with it. If I go through with it, I + shall be left—robbed of pride—outraged—a woman + beaten....” + </p> + <p> + “I know,” I said, “I know.” + </p> + <p> + “I want to live alone.... I don't care for anything now but just escape. + If you can help me....” + </p> + <p> + “I must take you away. There's nothing for us but to go away together.” + </p> + <p> + “But your work,” she said; “your career! Margaret! Our promises!” + </p> + <p> + “We've made a mess of things, Isabel—or things have made a mess of + us. I don't know which. Our flags are in the mud, anyhow. It's too late to + save those other things! They have to go. You can't make terms with + defeat. I thought it was Margaret needed me most. But it's you. And I need + you. I didn't think of that either. I haven't a doubt left in the world + now. We've got to leave everything rather than leave each other. I'm sure + of it. Now we have gone so far. We've got to go right down to earth and + begin again.... Dear, I WANT disgrace with you....” + </p> + <p> + So I whispered to her as she sat crumpled together on the faded cushions + of the boat, this white and weary young woman who had been so valiant and + careless a girl. “I don't care,” I said. “I don't care for anything, if I + can save you out of the wreckage we have made together.” + </p> + <p> + 4 + </p> + <p> + The next day I went to the office of the BLUE WEEKLY in order to get as + much as possible of its affairs in working order before I left London with + Isabel. I just missed Shoesmith in the lower office. Upstairs I found + Britten amidst a pile of outside articles, methodically reading the title + of each and sometimes the first half-dozen lines, and either dropping them + in a growing heap on the floor for a clerk to return, or putting them + aside for consideration. I interrupted him, squatted on the window-sill of + the open window, and sketched out my ideas for the session. + </p> + <p> + “You're far-sighted,” he remarked at something of mine which reached out + ahead. + </p> + <p> + “I like to see things prepared,” I answered. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” he said, and ripped open the envelope of a fresh aspirant. + </p> + <p> + I was silent while he read. + </p> + <p> + “You're going away with Isabel Rivers,” he said abruptly. + </p> + <p> + “Well!” I said, amazed. + </p> + <p> + “I know,” he said, and lost his breath. “Not my business. Only—” + </p> + <p> + It was queer to find Britten afraid to say a thing. + </p> + <p> + “It's not playing the game,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “What do you know?” + </p> + <p> + “Everything that matters.” + </p> + <p> + “Some games,” I said, “are too hard to play.” + </p> + <p> + There came a pause between us. + </p> + <p> + “I didn't know you were watching all this,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” he answered, after a pause, “I've watched.” + </p> + <p> + “Sorry—sorry you don't approve.” + </p> + <p> + “It means smashing such an infernal lot of things, Remington.” + </p> + <p> + I did not answer. + </p> + <p> + “You're going away then?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Soon?” + </p> + <p> + “Right away.” + </p> + <p> + “There's your wife.” + </p> + <p> + “I know.” + </p> + <p> + “Shoesmith—whom you're pledged to in a manner. You've just picked + him out and made him conspicuous. Every one will know. Oh! of course—it's + nothing to you. Honour—” + </p> + <p> + “I know.” + </p> + <p> + “Common decency.” + </p> + <p> + I nodded. + </p> + <p> + “All this movement of ours. That's what I care for most.... It's come to + be a big thing, Remington.” + </p> + <p> + “That will go on.” + </p> + <p> + “We have a use for you—no one else quite fills it. No one.... I'm + not sure it will go on.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you think I haven't thought of all these things?” + </p> + <p> + He shrugged his shoulders, and rejected two papers unread. + </p> + <p> + “I knew,” he remarked, “when you came back from America. You were alight + with it.” Then he let his bitterness gleam for a moment. “But I thought + you would stick to your bargain.” + </p> + <p> + “It's not so much choice as you think,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “There's always a choice.” + </p> + <p> + “No,” I said. + </p> + <p> + He scrutinised my face. + </p> + <p> + “I can't live without her—I can't work. She's all mixed up with this—and + everything. And besides, there's things you can't understand. There's + feelings you've never felt.... You don't understand how much we've been to + one another.” + </p> + <p> + Britten frowned and thought. + </p> + <p> + “Some things one's GOT to do,” he threw out. + </p> + <p> + “Some things one can't do.” + </p> + <p> + “These infernal institutions—” + </p> + <p> + “Some one must begin,” I said. + </p> + <p> + He shook his head. “Not YOU,” he said. “No!” + </p> + <p> + He stretched out his hands on the desk before him, and spoke again. + </p> + <p> + “Remington,” he said, “I've thought of this business day and night too. It + matters to me. It matters immensely to me. In a way—it's a thing one + doesn't often say to a man—I've loved you. I'm the sort of man who + leads a narrow life.... But you've been something fine and good for me, + since that time, do you remember? when we talked about Mecca together.” + </p> + <p> + I nodded. + </p> + <p> + “Yes. And you'll always be something fine and good for me anyhow. I know + things about you,—qualities—no mere act can destroy them.. .. + Well, I can tell you, you're doing wrong. You're going on now like a man + who is hypnotised and can't turn round. You're piling wrong on wrong. It + was wrong for you two people ever to be lovers.” + </p> + <p> + He paused. + </p> + <p> + “It gripped us hard,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “Yes!—but in your position! And hers! It was vile!” + </p> + <p> + “You've not been tempted.” + </p> + <p> + “How do you know? Anyhow—having done that, you ought to have stood + the consequences and thought of other people. You could have ended it at + the first pause for reflection. You didn't. You blundered again. You kept + on. You owed a certain secrecy to all of us! You didn't keep it. You were + careless. You made things worse. This engagement and this publicity!—Damn + it, Remington!” + </p> + <p> + “I know,” I said, with smarting eyes. “Damn it! with all my heart! It came + of trying to patch.... You CAN'T patch.” + </p> + <p> + “And now, as I care for anything under heaven, Remington, you two ought to + stand these last consequences—and part. You ought to part. Other + people have to stand things! Other people have to part. You ought to. You + say—what do you say? It's loss of so much life to lose each other. + So is losing a hand or a leg. But it's what you've incurred. Amputate. + Take your punishment—After all, you chose it.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, damn!” I said, standing up and going to the window. + </p> + <p> + “Damn by all means. I never knew a topic so full of justifiable damns. But + you two did choose it. You ought to stick to your undertaking.” + </p> + <p> + I turned upon him with a snarl in my voice. “My dear Britten!” I cried. + “Don't I KNOW I'm doing wrong? Aren't I in a net? Suppose I don't go! Is + there any right in that? Do you think we're going to be much to ourselves + or any one after this parting? I've been thinking all last night of this + business, trying it over and over again from the beginning. How was it we + went wrong? Since I came back from America—I grant you THAT—but + SINCE, there's never been a step that wasn't forced, that hadn't as much + right in it or more, as wrong. You talk as though I was a thing of steel + that could bend this way or that and never change. You talk as though + Isabel was a cat one could give to any kind of owner.... We two are things + that change and grow and alter all the time. We're—so interwoven + that being parted now will leave us just misshapen cripples.... You don't + know the motives, you don't know the rush and feel of things, you don't + know how it was with us, and how it is with us. You don't know the hunger + for the mere sight of one another; you don't know anything.” + </p> + <p> + Britten looked at his finger-nails closely. His red face puckered to a wry + frown. “Haven't we all at times wanted the world put back?” he grunted, + and looked hard and close at one particular nail. + </p> + <p> + There was a long pause. + </p> + <p> + “I want her,” I said, “and I'm going to have her. I'm too tired for + balancing the right or wrong of it any more. You can't separate them. I + saw her yesterday.... She's—ill.... I'd take her now, if death were + just outside the door waiting for us.” + </p> + <p> + “Torture?” + </p> + <p> + I thought. “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “For her?” + </p> + <p> + “There isn't,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “If there was?” + </p> + <p> + I made no answer. + </p> + <p> + “It's blind Want. And there's nothing ever been put into you to stand + against it. What are you going to do with the rest of your lives?” + </p> + <p> + “No end of things.” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't believe you are right,” I said. “I believe we can save something—” + </p> + <p> + Britten shook his head. “Some scraps of salvage won't excuse you,” he + said. + </p> + <p> + His indignation rose. “In the middle of life!” he said. “No man has a + right to take his hand from the plough!” + </p> + <p> + He leant forward on his desk and opened an argumentative palm. “You know, + Remington,” he said, “and I know, that if this could be fended off for six + months—if you could be clapped in prison, or got out of the way + somehow,—until this marriage was all over and settled down for a + year, say—you know then you two could meet, curious, happy, as + friends. Saved! You KNOW it.” + </p> + <p> + I turned and stared at him. “You're wrong, Britten,” I said. “And does it + matter if we could?” + </p> + <p> + I found that in talking to him I could frame the apologetics I had not + been able to find for myself alone. + </p> + <p> + “I am certain of one thing, Britten. It is our duty not to hush up this + scandal.” + </p> + <p> + He raised his eyebrows. I perceived now the element of absurdity in me, + but at the time I was as serious as a man who is burning. + </p> + <p> + “It's our duty,” I went on, “to smash now openly in the sight of every + one. Yes! I've got that as clean and plain—as prison whitewash. I am + convinced that we have got to be public to the uttermost now—I mean + it—until every corner of our world knows this story, knows it fully, + adds it to the Parnell story and the Ashton Dean story and the Carmel + story and the Witterslea story, and all the other stories that have picked + man after man out of English public life, the men with active + imaginations, the men of strong initiative. To think this tottering + old-woman ridden Empire should dare to waste a man on such a score! You + say I ought to be penitent—” + </p> + <p> + Britten shook his head and smiled very faintly. + </p> + <p> + “I'm boiling with indignation,” I said. “I lay in bed last night and went + through it all. What in God's name was to be expected of us but what has + happened? I went through my life bit by bit last night, I recalled all + I've had to do with virtue and women, and all I was told and how I was + prepared. I was born into cowardice and debasement. We all are. Our + generation's grimy with hypocrisy. I came to the most beautiful things in + life—like peeping Tom of Coventry. I was never given a light, never + given a touch of natural manhood by all this dingy, furtive, canting, + humbugging English world. Thank God! I'll soon be out of it! The shame of + it! The very savages in Australia initiate their children better than the + English do to-day. Neither of us was ever given a view of what they call + morality that didn't make it show as shabby subservience, as the meanest + discretion, an abject submission to unreasonable prohibitions! meek + surrender of mind and body to the dictation of pedants and old women and + fools. We weren't taught—we were mumbled at! And when we found that + the thing they called unclean, unclean, was Pagan beauty—God! it was + a glory to sin, Britten, it was a pride and splendour like bathing in the + sunlight after dust and grime!” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Britten. “That's all very well—” + </p> + <p> + I interrupted him. “I know there's a case—I'm beginning to think it + a valid case against us; but we never met it! There's a steely pride in + self restraint, a nobility of chastity, but only for those who see and + think and act—untrammeled and unafraid. The other thing, the current + thing, why! it's worth as much as the chastity of a monkey kept in a cage + by itself!” I put my foot in a chair, and urged my case upon him. “This is + a dirty world, Britten, simply because it is a muddled world, and the + thing you call morality is dirtier now than the thing you call immorality. + Why don't the moralists pick their stuff out of the slime if they care for + it, and wipe it?—damn them! I am burning now to say: 'Yes, we did + this and this,' to all the world. All the world!... I will!” + </p> + <p> + Britten rubbed the palm of his hand on the corner of his desk. “That's all + very well, Remington,” he said. “You mean to go.” + </p> + <p> + He stopped and began again. “If you didn't know you were in the wrong you + wouldn't be so damned rhetorical. You're in the wrong. It's as plain to + you as it is to me. You're leaving a big work, you're leaving a wife who + trusted you, to go and live with your jolly mistress.... You won't see + you're a statesman that matters, that no single man, maybe, might come to + such influence as you in the next ten years. You're throwing yourself away + and accusing your country of rejecting you.” + </p> + <p> + He swung round upon his swivel at me. “Remington,” he said, “have you + forgotten the immense things our movement means?” + </p> + <p> + I thought. “Perhaps I am rhetorical,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “But the things we might achieve! If you'd only stay now—even now! + Oh! you'd suffer a little socially, but what of that? You'd be able to go + on—perhaps all the better for hostility of the kind you'd get. You + know, Remington—you KNOW.” + </p> + <p> + I thought and went back to his earlier point. “If I am rhetorical, at any + rate it's a living feeling behind it. Yes, I remember all the implications + of our aims—very splendid, very remote. But just now it's rather + like offering to give a freezing man the sunlit Himalayas from end to end + in return for his camp-fire. When you talk of me and my jolly mistress, it + isn't fair. That misrepresents everything. I'm not going out of this—for + delights. That's the sort of thing men like Snuffles and Keyhole imagine—that + excites them! When I think of the things these creatures think! Ugh! But + YOU know better? You know that physical passion that burns like a fire—ends + clean. I'm going for love, Britten—if I sinned for passion. I'm + going, Britten, because when I saw her the other day she HURT me. She hurt + me damnably, Britten.... I've been a cold man—I've led a rhetorical + life—you hit me with that word!—I put things in a windy way, I + know, but what has got hold of me at last is her pain. She's ill. Don't + you understand? She's a sick thing—a weak thing. She's no more a + goddess than I'm a god.... I'm not in love with her now; I'm RAW with love + for her. I feel like a man that's been flayed. I have been flayed.... You + don't begin to imagine the sort of helpless solicitude.... She's not going + to do things easily; she's ill. Her courage fails.... It's hard to put + things when one isn't rhetorical, but it's this, Britten—there are + distresses that matter more than all the delights or achievements in the + world.... I made her what she is—as I never made Margaret. I've made + her—I've broken her.... I'm going with my own woman. The rest of my + life and England, and so forth, must square itself to that....” + </p> + <p> + For a long time, as it seemed, we remained silent and motionless. We'd + said all we had to say. My eyes caught a printed slip upon the desk before + him, and I came back abruptly to the paper. + </p> + <p> + I picked up this galley proof. It was one of Winter's essays. “This man + goes on doing first-rate stuff,” I said. “I hope you will keep him going.” + </p> + <p> + He did not answer for a moment or so. “I'll keep him going,” he said at + last with a sigh. + </p> + <p> + 5 + </p> + <p> + I have a letter Margaret wrote me within a week of our flight. I cannot + resist transcribing some of it here, because it lights things as no word + of mine can do. It is a string of nearly inconsecutive thoughts written in + pencil in a fine, tall, sprawling hand. Its very inconsecutiveness is + essential. Many words are underlined. It was in answer to one from me; but + what I wrote has passed utterly from my mind.... + </p> + <p> + “Certainly,” she says, “I want to hear from you, but I do not want to see + you. There's a sort of abstract YOU that I want to go on with. Something + I've made out of you.... I want to know things about you—but I don't + want to see or feel or imagine. When some day I have got rid of my + intolerable sense of proprietorship, it may be different. Then perhaps we + may meet again. I think it is even more the loss of our political work and + dreams that I am feeling than the loss of your presence. Aching loss. I + thought so much of the things we were DOING for the world—had given + myself so unreservedly. You've left me with nothing to DO. I am suddenly + at loose ends.... + </p> + <p> + “We women are trained to be so dependent on a man. I've got no life of my + own at all. It seems now to me that I wore my clothes even for you and + your schemes.... + </p> + <p> + “After I have told myself a hundred times why this has happened, I ask + again, 'Why did he give things up? Why did he give things up?'... + </p> + <p> + “It is just as though you were wilfully dead.... + </p> + <p> + “Then I ask again and again whether this thing need have happened at all, + whether if I had had a warning, if I had understood better, I might not + have adapted myself to your restless mind and made this catastrophe + impossible.... + </p> + <p> + “Oh, my dear! why hadn't you the pluck to hurt me at the beginning, and + tell me what you thought of me and life? You didn't give me a chance; not + a chance. I suppose you couldn't. All these things you and I stood away + from. You let my first repugnances repel you.... + </p> + <p> + “It is strange to think after all these years that I should be asking + myself, do I love you? have I loved you? In a sense I think I HATE you. I + feel you have taken my life, dragged it in your wake for a time, thrown it + aside. I am resentful. Unfairly resentful, for why should I exact that you + should watch and understand my life, when clearly I have understood so + little of yours. But I am savage—savage at the wrecking of all you + were to do. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, why—why did you give things up? + </p> + <p> + “No human being is his own to do what he likes with. You were not only + pledged to my tiresome, ineffectual companionship, but to great purposes. + They ARE great purposes.... + </p> + <p> + “If only I could take up your work as you leave it, with the strength you + had—then indeed I feel I could let you go—you and your young + mistress.... All that matters so little to me.... + </p> + <p> + “Yet I think I must indeed love you yourself in my slower way. At times I + am mad with jealousy at the thought of all I hadn't the wit to give + you.... I've always hidden my tears from you—and what was in my + heart. It's my nature to hide—and you, you want things brought to + you to see. You are so curious as to be almost cruel. You don't understand + reserves. You have no mercy with restraints and reservations. You are not + really a CIVILISED man at all. You hate pretences—and not only + pretences but decent coverings.... + </p> + <p> + “It's only after one has lost love and the chance of loving that slow + people like myself find what they might have done. Why wasn't I bold and + reckless and abandoned? It's as reasonable to ask that, I suppose, as to + ask why my hair is fair.... + </p> + <p> + “I go on with these perhapses over and over again here when I find myself + alone.... + </p> + <p> + “My dear, my dear, you can't think of the desolation of things—I + shall never go back to that house we furnished together, that was to have + been the laboratory (do you remember calling it a laboratory?) in which + you were to forge so much of the new order.... + </p> + <p> + “But, dear, if I can help you—even now—in any way—help + both of you, I mean.... It tears me when I think of you poor and + discredited. You will let me help you if I can—it will be the last + wrong not to let me do that.... + </p> + <p> + “You had better not get ill. If you do, and I hear of it—I shall + come after you with a troupe of doctor's and nurses. If I am a failure as + a wife, no one has ever said I was anything but a success as a district + visitor....” + </p> + <p> + There are other sheets, but I cannot tell whether they were written before + or after the ones from which I have quoted. And most of them have little + things too intimate to set down. But this oddly penetrating analysis of + our differences must, I think, be given. + </p> + <p> + “There are all sorts of things I can't express about this and want to. + There's this difference that has always been between us, that you like + nakedness and wildness, and I, clothing and restraint. It goes through + everything. You are always TALKING of order and system, and the splendid + dream of the order that might replace the muddled system you hate, but by + a sort of instinct you seem to want to break the law. I've watched you so + closely. Now I want to obey laws, to make sacrifices, to follow rules. I + don't want to make, but I do want to keep. You are at once makers and + rebels, you and Isabel too. You're bad people—criminal people, I + feel, and yet full of something the world must have. You're so much better + than me, and so much viler. It may be there is no making without + destruction, but it seems to me sometimes that it is nothing but an + instinct for lawlessness that drives you. You remind me—do you + remember?—of that time we went from Naples to Vesuvius, and walked + over the hot new lava there. Do you remember how tired I was? I know it + disappointed you that I was tired. One walked there in spite of the heat + because there was a crust; like custom, like law. But directly a crust + forms on things, you are restless to break down to the fire again. You + talk of beauty, both of you, as something terrible, mysterious, + imperative. YOUR beauty is something altogether different from anything I + know or feel. It has pain in it. Yet you always speak as though it was + something I ought to feel and am dishonest not to feel. MY beauty is a + quiet thing. You have always laughed at my feeling for old-fashioned + chintz and blue china and Sheraton. But I like all these familiar USED + things. My beauty is STILL beauty, and yours, is excitement. I know + nothing of the fascination of the fire, or why one should go deliberately + out of all the decent fine things of life to run dangers and be singed and + tormented and destroyed. I don't understand....” + </p> + <p> + 6 + </p> + <p> + I remember very freshly the mood of our departure from London, the + platform of Charing Cross with the big illuminated clock overhead, the + bustle of porters and passengers with luggage, the shouting of newsboys + and boys with flowers and sweets, and the groups of friends seeing + travellers off by the boat train. Isabel sat very quiet and still in the + compartment, and I stood upon the platform with the door open, with a + curious reluctance to take the last step that should sever me from + London's ground. I showed our tickets, and bought a handful of red roses + for her. At last came the guards crying: “Take your seats,” and I got in + and closed the door on me. We had, thank Heaven! a compartment to + ourselves. I let down the window and stared out. + </p> + <p> + There was a bustle of final adieux on the platform, a cry of “Stand away, + please, stand away!” and the train was gliding slowly and smoothly out of + the station. + </p> + <p> + I looked out upon the river as the train rumbled with slowly gathering + pace across the bridge, and the bobbing black heads of the pedestrians in + the footway, and the curve of the river and the glowing great hotels, and + the lights and reflections and blacknesses of that old, familiar + spectacle. Then with a common thought, we turned our eyes westward to + where the pinnacles of Westminster and the shining clock tower rose hard + and clear against the still, luminous sky. + </p> + <p> + “They'll be in Committee on the Reformatory Bill to-night,” I said, a + little stupidly. + </p> + <p> + “And so,” I added, “good-bye to London!” + </p> + <p> + We said no more, but watched the south-side streets below—bright + gleams of lights and movement, and the dark, dim, monstrous shapes of + houses and factories. We ran through Waterloo Station, London Bridge, New + Cross, St. John's. We said never a word. It seemed to me that for a time + we had exhausted our emotions. We had escaped, we had cut our knot, we had + accepted the last penalty of that headlong return of mine from Chicago a + year and a half ago. That was all settled. That harvest of feelings we had + reaped. I thought now only of London, of London as the symbol of all we + were leaving and all we had lost in the world. I felt nothing now but an + enormous and overwhelming regret.... + </p> + <p> + The train swayed and rattled on its way. We ran through old Bromstead, + where once I had played with cities and armies on the nursery floor. The + sprawling suburbs with their scattered lights gave way to dim tree-set + country under a cloud-veiled, intermittently shining moon. We passed + Cardcaster Place. Perhaps old Wardingham, that pillar of the old + Conservatives, was there, fretting over his unsuccessful struggle with our + young Toryism. Little he recked of this new turn of the wheel and how it + would confirm his contempt of all our novelties. Perhaps some faint + intimation drew him to the window to see behind the stems of the young fir + trees that bordered his domain, the little string of lighted carriage + windows gliding southward.... + </p> + <p> + Suddenly I began to realise just what it was we were doing. + </p> + <p> + And now, indeed, I knew what London had been to me, London where I had + been born and educated, the slovenly mother of my mind and all my + ambitions, London and the empire! It seemed to me we must be going out to + a world that was utterly empty. All our significance fell from us—and + before us was no meaning any more. We were leaving London; my hand, which + had gripped so hungrily upon its complex life, had been forced from it, my + fingers left their hold. That was over. I should never have a voice in + public affairs again. The inexorable unwritten law which forbids overt + scandal sentenced me. We were going out to a new life, a life that + appeared in that moment to be a mere shrivelled remnant of me, a mere + residuum of sheltering and feeding and seeing amidst alien scenery and the + sound of unfamiliar tongues. We were going to live cheaply in a foreign + place, so cut off that I meet now the merest stray tourist, the commonest + tweed-clad stranger with a mixture of shyness and hunger.... And suddenly + all the schemes I was leaving appeared fine and adventurous and hopeful as + they had never done before. How great was this purpose I had relinquished, + this bold and subtle remaking of the English will! I had doubted so many + things, and now suddenly I doubted my unimportance, doubted my right to + this suicidal abandonment. Was I not a trusted messenger, greatly trusted + and favoured, who had turned aside by the way? Had I not, after all, stood + for far more than I had thought; was I not filching from that dear great + city of my birth and life, some vitally necessary thing, a key, a link, a + reconciling clue in her political development, that now she might seek + vaguely for in vain? What is one life against the State? Ought I not to + have sacrificed Isabel and all my passion and sorrow for Isabel, and held + to my thing—stuck to my thing? + </p> + <p> + I heard as though he had spoken it in the carriage Britten's “It WAS a + good game.” No end of a game. And for the first time I imagined the faces + and voices of Crupp and Esmeer and Gane when they learnt of this secret + flight, this flight of which they were quite unwarned. And Shoesmith might + be there in the house,—Shoesmith who was to have been married in + four days—the thing might hit him full in front of any kind of + people. Cruel eyes might watch him. Why the devil hadn't I written letters + to warn them all? I could have posted them five minutes before the train + started. I had never thought to that moment of the immense mess they would + be in; how the whole edifice would clatter about their ears. I had a + sudden desire to stop the train and go back for a day, for two days, to + set that negligence right. My brain for a moment brightened, became + animated and prolific of ideas. I thought of a brilliant line we might + have taken on that confounded Reformatory Bill.... + </p> + <p> + That sort of thing was over.... + </p> + <p> + What indeed wasn't over? I passed to a vaguer, more multitudinous + perception of disaster, the friends I had lost already since Altiora began + her campaign, the ampler remnant whom now I must lose. I thought of people + I had been merry with, people I had worked with and played with, the + companions of talkative walks, the hostesses of houses that had once + glowed with welcome for us both. I perceived we must lose them all. I saw + life like a tree in late autumn that had once been rich and splendid with + friends—and now the last brave dears would be hanging on doubtfully + against the frosty chill of facts, twisting and tortured in the universal + gale of indignation, trying to evade the cold blast of the truth. I had + betrayed my party, my intimate friend, my wife, the wife whose devotion + had made me what I was. For awhile the figure of Margaret, remote, + wounded, shamed, dominated my mind, and the thought of my immense + ingratitude. Damn them! they'd take it out of her too. I had a feeling + that I wanted to go straight back and grip some one by the throat, some + one talking ill of Margaret. They'd blame her for not keeping me, for + letting things go so far.... I wanted the whole world to know how fine she + was. I saw in imagination the busy, excited dinner tables at work upon us + all, rather pleasantly excited, brightly indignant, merciless. + </p> + <p> + Well, it's the stuff we are!... + </p> + <p> + Then suddenly, stabbing me to the heart, came a vision of Margaret's tears + and the sound of her voice saying, “Husband mine! Oh! husband mine! To see + you cry!”... + </p> + <p> + I came out of a cloud of thoughts to discover the narrow compartment, with + its feeble lamp overhead, and our rugs and hand-baggage swaying on the + rack, and Isabel, very still in front of me, gripping my wilting red roses + tightly in her bare and ringless hand. + </p> + <p> + For a moment I could not understand her attitude, and then I perceived she + was sitting bent together with her head averted from the light to hide the + tears that were streaming down her face. She had not got her handkerchief + out for fear that I should see this, but I saw her tears, dark drops of + tears, upon her sleeve.... + </p> + <p> + I suppose she had been watching my expression, divining my thoughts. + </p> + <p> + For a time I stared at her and was motionless, in a sort of still and + weary amazement. Why had we done this injury to one another? WHY? Then + something stirred within me. + </p> + <p> + “ISABEL!” I whispered. + </p> + <p> + She made no sign. + </p> + <p> + “Isabel!” I repeated, and then crossed over to her and crept closely to + her, put my arm about her, and drew her wet cheek to mine. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1047 ***</div> +</body> +</html> |