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withdrawn, withdrawn so completely that one doubts if it has ever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…
6
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…
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.
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!"
I wonder what reply I should have got.
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…
7
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…
When I think of the Socialists there comes a vivid memory of certain
evening gatherings at our house…
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.
"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?"
"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…"
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