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The New Machiavelli Chapter 13 Part 2 · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter thirteen, Section two of the New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells.
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  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by
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  Speaker 1: Antonyogus five. But before things came to that pass, some
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  Speaker 1: months and many phases, and a sudden journey to America intervened.
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  Speaker 1: This thing spells disaster. I said, you are too big,
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  Speaker 1: and I am too big to attempt this secrecy. Think
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  Speaker 1: of the intolerable possibility of being found out at any cost.
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  Speaker 1: We have to stop, even at the cost of parting,
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  Speaker 1: just because we may be found out, Just because we
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  Speaker 1: may be found out. Master, I shouldn't in the least
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  Speaker 1: mind being found out with you. I'm afraid I'd be proud.
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  Speaker 1: Wait till it happens. There followed a struggle of immense
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  Speaker 1: insincerity between us. It is hard to tell who urged
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  Speaker 1: and who resisted. She came to me one night, to
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  Speaker 1: the editorial room of the Blue Weekly, and argued and
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  Speaker 1: kissed me with wet salt lips, and wept in my arms.
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  Speaker 1: She told me that now passionate longing for me and
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  Speaker 1: my intimate life possessed her so that she could not work,
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  Speaker 1: could not think, could not endure other people for the
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  Speaker 1: love of me, I fled absurdly. That is the secret
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  Speaker 1: of the futile journey to America that puzzled all my friends.
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  Speaker 1: I ran away from Isabel, I took hold of the
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  Speaker 1: situation with all my strength, put in Britain with sketchy,
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  Speaker 1: hasty instructions to edit the paper, and started headlong and
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  Speaker 1: with luggage from which, among other things, my shaving things
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  Speaker 1: were omitted upon a tour round the world. Preposterous flight
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  Speaker 1: that was. I remember as a thing almost farcical, my
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  Speaker 1: explanations to Margaret, and how frantic anxious I was to
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  Speaker 1: prevent the remote possibility of her coming with me. And
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  Speaker 1: how I crossed in the Tuscan a bad wet boat,
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  Speaker 1: and mixed sea sickness with ungovernable sorrow. I wept tears.
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  Speaker 1: It was inexpressibly queer and ridiculous, and good God, how
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  Speaker 1: I hated my fellow passengers. New York inflamed and excited
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  Speaker 1: me for a time, And when things slackened, I whirled
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  Speaker 1: westward to Chicago, eating and drinking. I remember, in the
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  Speaker 1: train from shoals of little dishes. With a sort of
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  Speaker 1: desperate veracity, I did the queerest things to distract myself.
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  Speaker 1: No novelist would dare to invent my mental and emotional muddle.
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  Speaker 1: Chicago also held me at first amazing lapse from civilization
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  Speaker 1: that the place is, and then abruptly with hosts expecting
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  Speaker 1: me and everything settled. For some days in Denver, I
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  Speaker 1: found myself at the end of my renunciations and turned
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  Speaker 1: and came back headlong to London. Let me confess, it
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  Speaker 1: wasn't any sense of perfect and incurable trust and confidence
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  Speaker 1: that brought me back, or any idea that now I
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  Speaker 1: had strength to refrain. It was a sudden realization that,
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  Speaker 1: after all, the separation might succeed. Some careless phrasing in
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  Speaker 1: one of her jealously read letters set that idea going
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  Speaker 1: in my mind. The haunting perception that I might return
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  Speaker 1: to London and find it empty of the Isabelle who
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  Speaker 1: had pervaded it, honor, discretion, the careers of both of
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  Speaker 1: us became nothing at the thought. I couldn't conceive my
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  Speaker 1: life resuming there without isabel I couldn't, in short stand it.
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  Speaker 1: I don't even excuse my return. It is inexcusable. I
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  Speaker 1: ought to have kept upon my way westward and held
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  Speaker 1: out I couldn't I wanted Isabel. I wanted her so
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  Speaker 1: badly now that everything else in the world was phantom
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  Speaker 1: like until that want was satisfied. Perhaps you have never
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  Speaker 1: wanted anything like that. I went straight to her. But
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  Speaker 1: here I come to untellable things. There is no describing
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  Speaker 1: the reality of love. The shapes of things are nothing.
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  Speaker 1: The actual happenings are nothing, except that somehow there falls
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  Speaker 1: a light upon them, and a wonder of how we met,
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  Speaker 1: and the thrill of the adventure, the curious, bright sense
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  Speaker 1: of defiance, the joy of having dared. I can't tell.
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  Speaker 1: I can but hint of just one aspect of what
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  Speaker 1: an amazing lark. It's the only word it seemed to us.
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  Speaker 1: The beauty which was the essence of it, which justifies
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  Speaker 1: it so far as it will bear justification elude statement.
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  Speaker 1: What can a record of contrived meetings, of sundering, de
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  Speaker 1: difficulties evaded and overcome signify here? Or what can it
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  Speaker 1: convey to say that one looked deep into two dear,
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  Speaker 1: steadfast eyes, or fell to heart, throb and beat, or
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  Speaker 1: gripped soft hair softly in a trembling hand, robbed of
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  Speaker 1: encompassing love. These things are of no more value than
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  Speaker 1: the taste of good wine, or the sight of good pictures,
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  Speaker 1: or the hearing of music, just sensuality and no more.
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  Speaker 1: No one can tell love. We can only tell the
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  Speaker 1: gross facts of love and its consequences. Given love, given mutuality,
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  Speaker 1: and one has affected a supreme synthesis and come to
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  Speaker 1: a new level of life. But only those who know
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  Speaker 1: can know. This business has brought me more bitterness and
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  Speaker 1: sorrow than I had ever expected to bear. But even
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  Speaker 1: now I will not say that I regret that wilful homecoming. Altogether,
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  Speaker 1: we loved to the uttermost. Neither of us could have
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  Speaker 1: loved any one else as we did and do love
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  Speaker 1: one another. It was ours that beauty. It existed only
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  Speaker 1: between us when we were close together, for no one
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  Speaker 1: in the world ever to know, save ourselves. My return
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  Speaker 1: to the office sticks out in my memory with an
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  Speaker 1: extreme vividness because of the wild eagle of pride that
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  Speaker 1: screamed within me. It was Tuesday morning, and though not
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  Speaker 1: a soul in London knew of it yet except Isabelle.
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  Speaker 1: I had been back in England a week. I came
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  Speaker 1: in upon Britain and stood in the doorway. God, he said,
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  Speaker 1: at the sight of me. I'm back, I said. He
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  Speaker 1: looked at my excited face with those red brown eyes
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  Speaker 1: of his. Silently, I defied him to speak his mind.
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  Speaker 1: Where did you turn back? He said? At last six
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  Speaker 1: I had to tell what were so far as I
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  Speaker 1: can remember my first positive lies to Margaret in explaining
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  Speaker 1: that return. I had written to her from Chicago and
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  Speaker 1: again from New York, saying that I felt I ought
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  Speaker 1: to be on the spot in England for the new session,
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  Speaker 1: and that I was coming back presently. I concealed the
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  Speaker 1: name of my boat from her and made a calculated prevarication.
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  Speaker 1: When I announced my presence in London, I telephoned before
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  Speaker 1: I went back for my rooms to be prepared. She was,
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  Speaker 1: I knew, with the bunting harblows in Durham, and when
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  Speaker 1: she came back to Radnor Square, I had been at
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  Speaker 1: home a day. I remember her return so well. My
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  Speaker 1: going away, and the vivid secret of the present had
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  Speaker 1: wiped out from my mind much of our long estrangement.
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  Speaker 1: Something too had changed in her. I had had some
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  Speaker 1: hint of it in her letters, but now I saw
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  Speaker 1: it plainly. I came out of my study upon the
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  Speaker 1: landing when I heard the turmoil of her arrival below,
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  Speaker 1: and she came upstairs with a quickened gladness. It was
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  Speaker 1: a cold march, and she was dressed in unfamiliar dark
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  Speaker 1: furs that suited her extremely and reinforced the delicate flush
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  Speaker 1: of her sweet face. She held out both her hands
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  Speaker 1: to me and drew me to her unhesitatingly, and kissed me.
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  Speaker 1: So glad you are back, dear, she said, Oh, so
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  Speaker 1: very glad you are back. I returned her kiss with
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  Speaker 1: a queer feeling at my heart, too undifferentiated to be
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  Speaker 1: even a definite sense of guilt or meanness. I think
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  Speaker 1: it was chiefly amazement at the universe and myself. I
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  Speaker 1: never knew what it was to be away from you,
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  Speaker 1: she said. I perceived suddenly that she had resolved to
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  Speaker 1: end our estrangement. She put herself so that my arm
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  Speaker 1: came caressingly about her. These are jolly furs, I said,
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  Speaker 1: I got them for you. The parlor maid appeared below,
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  Speaker 1: dealing with the maid and the luggage cab. Tell me
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  Speaker 1: all about America, said Margaret, I feel as though you've
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  Speaker 1: been away six years. We went arm in arm into
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  Speaker 1: our little sitting room, and I took off the furs
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  Speaker 1: for her and sat down upon the chintz covered sofa
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  Speaker 1: by the fire. She had ordered tea and came and
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  Speaker 1: sat by me. I don't know what I had expected,
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  Speaker 1: but of all things, I had certainly not expected this
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  Speaker 1: sudden abolition of our distances. I want to know all
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  Speaker 1: about America, she repeated, with her eyes scrutinizing me. Why
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  Speaker 1: did you come back? I repeated the substance of my
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  Speaker 1: letters rather lamely, and she sat listening. But why did
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  Speaker 1: you turn back without going to Denver? I wanted to
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  Speaker 1: come back. I was restless, restlessness, she said, And thought
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  Speaker 1: you were restless in Venice. You said it was restlessness
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  Speaker 1: took you to America. Again, she studied me. She turned
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  Speaker 1: a little awkwardly to her tea things and poured needless
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  Speaker 1: water from the silver kettle into the teapot. Then she
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  Speaker 1: sat still for some moments, looking at the equipage with
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  Speaker 1: expressionless eyes. I saw her hand upon the edge of
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  Speaker 1: the table tremble slightly. I watched her closely. A vague
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  Speaker 1: uneasiness possessed me. What might she not know or guess?
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  Speaker 1: She spoke at last, with an effort, I wish you
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  Speaker 1: were in parliament. Again, she said. Life doesn't give you
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  Speaker 1: events enough. If I was in parliament again, I should
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  Speaker 1: be on the conservative side. I know, she said, and
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  Speaker 1: was still more thoughtful. Lately, she began, and paused, lately,
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  Speaker 1: I've been reading you. I didn't help her out with
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  Speaker 1: what she had to say. I waited. I didn't understand
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  Speaker 1: what you're after. I had misjudged. I didn't know. I
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  Speaker 1: think perhaps I was rather stupid. Her eyes were suddenly
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  Speaker 1: shining with tears. You didn't give me much chance to understand.
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  Speaker 1: She turned upon me suddenly, with a voice full of tears. Husband,
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  Speaker 1: she said, abruptly, holding her two hands out to me,
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  Speaker 1: I want to begin over again. I took her hands,
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  Speaker 1: perplexed beyond measure, my dear, I said, I want to
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  Speaker 1: begin over again. I bowed my head to hide my face,
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  Speaker 1: and found her hand in mine and kissed it. Ah,
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  Speaker 1: she said, and slowly withdrew her hand. She leant forward,
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  Speaker 1: with her arm on the sofa back, and looked very
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  Speaker 1: intently into my face. I felt the most damnable scoundrel
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  Speaker 1: in the world. As I returned her gaze, the thought
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  Speaker 1: of Isabel's darkly shining eyes seemed like a physical presence.
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  Speaker 1: Between us. Tell me, I said, presently, to break the
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  Speaker 1: intolerable tension. Tell me plainly what you mean by this.
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  Speaker 1: I sat a little away from her, and then took
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  Speaker 1: my tea cup in hand, with an odd effect of
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  Speaker 1: defending myself. Have you been reading that old book of mine?
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  Speaker 1: I asked that in the paper I took a complete
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  Speaker 1: set from the beginning down to Durham with me. I
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  Speaker 1: have read it, over, thought it over. I didn't understand
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  Speaker 1: what you were teaching. There was a little pause. It
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  Speaker 1: all seems so plain to me now, she said, and
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  Speaker 1: so true. I was profoundly disconcerted. I put down my teacup,
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  Speaker 1: stood up in the middle of the hearth rug and
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  Speaker 1: began talking. I'm tremendously glad Margaret, that you've come to see.
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  Speaker 1: I'm not altogether perverse, I began. I launched out into
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  Speaker 1: a rather trite and windy exposition of my views, and
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  Speaker 1: she sat close to me on the sofa, looking up
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  Speaker 1: into my face, hanging on my words, a deliberate and
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  Speaker 1: invincible convert. Yes, she said, yes, I had never doubted
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  Speaker 1: my new conceptions before. Now I doubted them profoundly. But
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  Speaker 1: I went on talking. It's the grim irony in the
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  Speaker 1: lives of all politicians, writers, public teachers, that once the
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  Speaker 1: audience is at their feet, a new loyalty has gripped them.
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  Speaker 1: It isn't their business to admit doubt and imperfections. They
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  Speaker 1: have to go on talking. And I was now so
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  Speaker 1: accustomed to Isabel's vivid interruptions, qualifications, restatements, and confirmations. Margaret
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  Speaker 1: and I dined together at home. She made me open
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  Speaker 1: out my political projects to her. I have been foolish,
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  Speaker 1: she said, I want to help, and by some excuse
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  Speaker 1: I have forgotten. She made me come to her room.
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  Speaker 1: I think it was some book. I had to take
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  Speaker 1: her some American book I had brought back with me
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  Speaker 1: and mentioned in our talk. I walked in with it
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  Speaker 1: and put it down on the table and turned to
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  Speaker 1: go husband. She cried and held out her slender arms
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  Speaker 1: to me. I was compelled to go to her and
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  Speaker 1: kiss her, and she twined them softly about my neck
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  Speaker 1: and drew me to her and kissed me. I disentangled
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  Speaker 1: them very gently and took each wrist and kissed it
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  Speaker 1: and the backs of her hands. Good Night, I said.
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  Speaker 1: There came a little pause. Good night, Margaret, I repeated,
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  Speaker 1: and walked very deliberately and with a kind of sham
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  Speaker 1: preoccupation to the door. I did not look at her,
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  Speaker 1: but I could feel her standing watching me. If I
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  Speaker 1: had looked up, she would, I knew, have held out
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  Speaker 1: her arms to me. At the very outset that secret,
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  Speaker 1: which was to touch no one but Isabel and myself
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  Speaker 1: had reached out to stab another human being. Seven The
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  Speaker 1: whole world had changed for Isabel and me, and we
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  Speaker 1: tried to pretend that nothing had changed except a small
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  Speaker 1: matter between us. We believed, quite honestly at that time,
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  Speaker 1: that it was possible to keep this thing that had
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  Speaker 1: happened from any reaction at all, save perhaps through some
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  Speaker 1: magically enhanced vigor in our work upon the world about us.
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  Speaker 1: Seen in retrospect, one can realize the absurdity of this belief.
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  Speaker 1: Within a week I realized it. But that does not
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  Speaker 1: alter the fact that we did believe as much, and
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  Speaker 1: that people who are deeply in love and unable to
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  Speaker 1: marry will continue to believe so to the very end
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  Speaker 1: of time. They will continue to believe out of existence
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  Speaker 1: every consideration that separates them until they have come together.
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  Speaker 1: Then they will count the cost, as we too had
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  Speaker 1: to do. I am telling a story and not propounding
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  Speaker 1: theories in this book, and chiefly I am telling of
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  Speaker 1: the ideas and influences and emotions that have happened to me,
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  Speaker 1: me as a sort of sounding board for mine world.
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  Speaker 1: The moralist is at liberty to go over my conduct
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  Speaker 1: with his measure and say, at this point or at
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  Speaker 1: that you went wrong, and you ought to have done so.
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  Speaker 1: And so the point of interest to the statesman is
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  Speaker 1: that it didn't, for a moment occur to us to
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  Speaker 1: do so, and so when the time for doing it came.
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  Speaker 1: It amazes me now to think how little either of
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  Speaker 1: us troubled about the established rights or wrongs of the situation.
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  Speaker 1: We hadn't an atom of respect for them, innate or acquired.
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  Speaker 1: The guardians and public morals will say we were very
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  Speaker 1: bad people. I submit in defense that they are very
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  Speaker 1: bad guardians, provocative guardians. And when at last there came
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  Speaker 1: a claim against us that had an effective validity for us,
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  Speaker 1: we were in the full tide of passionate intimacy. I
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  Speaker 1: had a night of nearly sleepless perplexity after Margaret's return.
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  Speaker 1: She had suddenly presented herself to me like something dramatically recalled, fine, generous,
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  Speaker 1: infinitely capable of feeling. I was amazed how much I
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  Speaker 1: had forgotten her in my contempt for vulgarized and conventionalized honor.
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  Speaker 1: I had forgotten that for me there was such a
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  Speaker 1: reality as honor, And here it was warm and near
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  Speaker 1: to me, living, breathing, unsuspecting Margaret's pride was my honor.
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  Speaker 1: That I had had no right even to imperil. I
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  Speaker 1: do not now remember if I thought at that time
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  Speaker 1: of going to Isabel and putting this new aspect of
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  Speaker 1: the case before her. Perhaps I did. Perhaps I may
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  Speaker 1: have considered even then the possibility of ending what had
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  Speaker 1: so freshly and passionately begun. If I did, it vanished
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  Speaker 1: next day at the sight of her. Whatever regrets came
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  Speaker 1: in the darkness, the daylight brought an obstinate confidence in
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  Speaker 1: our resolution. Again we would, we declared, pull the thing off.
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  Speaker 1: Margaret must not know, Margaret should not know. If Margaret
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  Speaker 1: did not know, thenn no harm whatever would be done.
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  Speaker 1: We tried to sustain that for a brief time we
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  Speaker 1: have been like two people in a magic cell, magically
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  Speaker 1: cut off from the world and full of a light
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  Speaker 1: of its own, and then we began to realize that
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  Speaker 1: we were not in the least cut off, that the
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  Speaker 1: world was all about us, and pressing in upon us,
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  Speaker 1: limiting us, threatening us, resuming possession of us. I tried
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  Speaker 1: to ignore the injury to Margaret of her unreciprocated advances.
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  Speaker 1: I tried to maintain to myself that this hidden love
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  Speaker 1: made no difference to the now irreparable breach between husband
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  Speaker 1: and wife. But I never spoke of it to Isabelle,
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  Speaker 1: or let us see that aspect of our case. How
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  Speaker 1: could I The time for that had gone. Then, in
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  Speaker 1: new shapes and relations came trouble. Distressful elements crept in
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  Speaker 1: by reason of our unavoidable furtiveness. We ignored them, hid
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  Speaker 1: them from each other, and attempted to hide them from ourselves.
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  Speaker 1: Successful love is a thing of abounding pride, and we
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  Speaker 1: had to be secret. It was delightful at first to
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  Speaker 1: be secret, a whispering, warm conspiracy. Then presently it became
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  Speaker 1: irksome and a little shameful. Her essential frankness of soul
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  Speaker 1: was all against the masks and falsehoods that many women
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  Speaker 1: would have enjoyed. Together. In our secrecy, we relaxed. Then,
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  Speaker 1: in the presence of other people. Again, it was tiresome
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  Speaker 1: to have to watch for the careless, too easy phrase
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  Speaker 1: to snatch back one's hand, and the limitless betrayal of
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  Speaker 1: a light, familiar touch. Love becomes a poor thing at best,
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  Speaker 1: a poor beautiful thing if it develops no continuing and
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  Speaker 1: habitual intimacy. We were always meeting and most gloriously loving
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  Speaker 1: and beginning, and then we had to snatch at remorseless
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  Speaker 1: ticking watches, hurry to catch trains, and go back to
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  Speaker 1: this or that. That is all very well for the
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  Speaker 1: intrigues of idle people, perhaps, but not for an intense
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  Speaker 1: personal relationship. It is like lighting a candle for the
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  Speaker 1: sake of lighting it over and over again, and each
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  Speaker 1: time blowing it out. That, no doubt, must be very
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  Speaker 1: amusing to children playing with the matches, but not to
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  Speaker 1: people who love warm light and want it in order
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  Speaker 1: to do fine and honorable things together. We had achieved.
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  Speaker 1: I give the ugly phrase that expresses the increasing discolouration
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  Speaker 1: in my life mind. Illicit intercourse to end at that
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  Speaker 1: we now perceived wasn't in our style. But where were
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  Speaker 1: we to end? Perhaps we might at this stage have
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  Speaker 1: given it up. I think if we could have seen
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  Speaker 1: ahead and around us, we might have done so. But
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  Speaker 1: the glow of our cell blinded us. I wonder what
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  Speaker 1: might have happened if at that time we had given
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  Speaker 1: it up. We propounded it. We met again in secret
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  Speaker 1: to discuss it, and our overpowering passion for one another
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  Speaker 1: reduced that meeting to absurdity. Presently, the idea of children
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: crept between us. It came in from all our conceptions
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: of life and public service. It was we found in
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: the quality of our minds that physical love without children
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: is a little weak, timorous, more than a little shameful.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: With imaginative people, their very speed comes a time when
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: that realization is inevitable. We hadn't thought of that before.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: It isn't natural to think of that before. We hadn't known.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: There is no literature in English dealing with such things.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: There is a necessary sequence of phases in love. These
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: came in their order, and with them unanticipated tarnishings on
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: the first bright perfection of our relations. For a time,
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: these developing phases were no more than a secret and
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: private trouble between us. Little shadows spreading by imperceptible degrees
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: across that vivid and luminous cell eight. The hand Itch
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: election flung me suddenly into prominence. It is still only
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: two years since that struggle, and I will not trouble
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: the reader with the detailed history of events that must
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: be quite sufficiently present in his mind for my purpose.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: Already huge stacks of journalism have dealt with Handitch and
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: its significance for the reader very probably as for most
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: people outside a comparatively small circle. It meant my emergence
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: from obscurity. We have pruded no editor's name in the
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: Blue Weekly. I had never as yet been on the
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: London hoardings. Before handich I was a journalist and writer
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: of no great public standing. After handich I was definitely
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: a person in the little group of persons who stood
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: for the young imperialist movement. Handich was, to a very
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: large extent my affair. I realized then, as a man
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: comes to do, how much one can still grow After
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: seven and twenty in the second election, I was a
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: man taking hold of things at Kinghamstead. I had been
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: simply a young candidate, a party unit led about the constituency,
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: told to do this and that, and finally washed in
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: by the great anti imperialist flood like a starfish rolling
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: up a beach. My feminist views had earned the mistrust
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: of the party, and I do not think I should
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: have got the chance of Handich, or indeed any chance
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: at all of Parliament for a long time, if it
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: had not been that the seat, with its long record
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: of liberal victories and its liberal majority of three thousand,
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: six hundred and forty two at the last election, offered
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: a hopeless contest. The liberal dissensions and the belated but
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: by no means contemptible socialist candidate were providential interpositions. I think, however,
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: the conduct of gain Crup and Tarvril in coming down
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: to fight for me, did count tremendously in my favor.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: We aren't going to win, perhaps said Krupp, but we
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: are going to talk. And until the very eve of
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: victory we treated Handitch not so much as a battlefield
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: as a hoarding. And so it was. The endowment of
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: motherhood as a practical form of eugenics got into English politics. Plutus,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: our agent, was scared out of his wits when the
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: thing began. They're ascribing all sorts of queer ideas to
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: you about the family, he said, I think the family
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: exists for the good of the children, I said, is
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: that queer not when you explain it, But they won't
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: let you explain it. And about marriage, I'm all right
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: about marriage, trust me, of course, if you had children,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: said Plutus rather inconsiderately. They opened fire upon me in
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: a little electioneering rag called the Handitch Sentinel, with a
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: string of garbled quotations and misrepresentations that gave me an
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: admirable text for a speech. I spoke for an hour
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: and ten minutes with a more and more crumpled copy
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: of the Sentinel in my hand, and I made the
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: fullest and completest exposition of the idea of endowing motherhood
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: that I think had ever been made up to that
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: time in England. Its effect on the press was extraordinary.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: The liberal papers gave me quite unprecedented space, under the
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: impression that I had only to be given rope to
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: hang myself. The conservatives cut me down or tried to
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: justify me. The whole country was talking. I had had
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: a pamphlet in type upon the subject, and I revised
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: this carefully and put it on the bookstools. Within three days.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: It sold enormously and brought me bushels of letters. We
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: issued over three thousand in hand itch alone a meeting.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: After meeting, I was heckled upon nothing else. Long before
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: polling day, Plutus was converted. It's catching on like old
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: h pensions. He said. Wish the Liberals to think that
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: such a project should come from our side. But it
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: was only with the declaration of the poll that my
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: battle was won. No one expected more than a snatch victory,
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: and I was in by over fifteen hundred at one bound.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: Cossington's papers passed from apologetics varied by repudiation, to triumphant praise.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: A renaissance England breeding men, said the Leader in his
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Chief Daily on the morning after the polling, and claimed
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: that the Conservatives had been ever the pioneers, insanely bold,
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: constructive projects. I came up to London with a weary
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: but rejoicing Margaret by the night train. End of chapter thirteen.