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The New Machiavelli Chapter 8 Part 2 · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter eight, 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: Antoniogus four. And into all these things, with the manner
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  Speaker 1: of a trifling and casual incident, comes the figure of
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  Speaker 1: Isabelle Rivers. My first impressions of her were of a
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  Speaker 1: rather ugly and ungainly extraordinarily interesting schoolgirl, with a beautiful
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  Speaker 1: quick flush under her warm brown skin, who said and
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  Speaker 1: did amusing and surprising things. When first I saw her,
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  Speaker 1: she was riding a very old bicycle down hill with
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  Speaker 1: her feet on the fork of the frame. Seemed to
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  Speaker 1: me to the public danger. But afterwards I came to
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  Speaker 1: understand the quality of her nerve better. And on the
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  Speaker 1: third occasion she was, for her own private satisfaction, climbing
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  Speaker 1: a tree. On the intervening a case, we had what
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  Speaker 1: seems now to have been a long sustained conversation about
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  Speaker 1: the political situation and the books and papers I had written.
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  Speaker 1: I wonder if it was what a delightful mixture of
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  Speaker 1: child and grave woman she was at that time, and
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  Speaker 1: how little I reckoned on the part she would play
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  Speaker 1: in my life. And since she has played that part.
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  Speaker 1: How impossible it is to tell now of those early days.
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  Speaker 1: Since I wrote that opening paragraph to this section, my
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  Speaker 1: idle pen has been, as it were, playing by itself
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  Speaker 1: and sketching faces on the blotting pad. One impish whizen
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  Speaker 1: visage is oddly like little Bailey, and I have been
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  Speaker 1: thinking cheek on fist amidst a limitless wealth of memories.
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  Speaker 1: She sits below me on the low wall, under the
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  Speaker 1: olive trees, with our little child in her arms. She
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  Speaker 1: is now the central fact in my life. It still
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  Speaker 1: seems a little incredible that that should be. So. She
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  Speaker 1: has destroyed me as a politician, brought me to this
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  Speaker 1: belated rebeginning of life. When I sit down and try
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  Speaker 1: to make her a girl again, I feel like the
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  Speaker 1: Arabian fishman who tried to put the genie back into
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  Speaker 1: the pot from which it had spread gigantic across the skies.
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  Speaker 1: I have a very clear vision of her rush down hill,
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  Speaker 1: past our laboring ascendant car, my colors fluttered from handlebar
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  Speaker 1: and shoulder knot, and her waving hand and the sharp
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  Speaker 1: note of her voice. She cried out something I don't
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  Speaker 1: know what, some greeting, what a pretty girl, said Margaret Parville,
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  Speaker 1: the cheap photographer, that industrious organizer for whom, by way
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  Speaker 1: of repayment, I got those magic letters, that knighthood of
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  Speaker 1: the underlings. J P was in the car with us
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  Speaker 1: and explained her to us. One of the best workers
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  Speaker 1: you have, he said. And then after a toilsome, troubled morning,
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  Speaker 1: we came rather cross from the strain of sustained amiability
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  Speaker 1: to Sir Graham Rivers house. It seemed all softness and quiet.
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  Speaker 1: I recall dead white paneling and oval mirrors horizontally set,
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  Speaker 1: and a marble fireplace between white marble blind Homer and
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  Speaker 1: marble blind Vergil, very grave and fine. And how Isabel
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  Speaker 1: came into lunch in a shapeless thing like a blue
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  Speaker 1: smock that made her bright, quick changing face seem yellow
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  Speaker 1: under her cloud of black hair. Her stepsister was there,
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  Speaker 1: Miss Gamer, to whom the house was to descend, a
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  Speaker 1: well dressed lady of thirty amiably disavowing responsibility for Isabel
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  Speaker 1: in every phase and gesture. And there was a very
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  Speaker 1: pleasant doctor, an Oxford man who seemed on excellent terms
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  Speaker 1: with everyone. It was manifest that he was in the
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  Speaker 1: habit of sparring with the girl, but on this occasion
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  Speaker 1: she wasn't sparring and refused to be teased into a
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  Speaker 1: display in spite of the toy of either Kim or
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  Speaker 1: her father. She was, they discovered, with rising eyebrows shy.
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  Speaker 1: It seemed an opportunity too rare for them to miss.
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  Speaker 1: They proclaimed her enthusiasm for me in a way that
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  Speaker 1: brought a flush to her cheek and a look into
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  Speaker 1: her eye between appeal and defiance. They declared she had
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  Speaker 1: read my books, which I thought at the time was exaggeration.
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  Speaker 1: Their dry political quality was so distinctly not what one
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  Speaker 1: was accustomed to regard as schoolgirl reading. Miss Gamer protested
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  Speaker 1: to protect her when once in a blue moon Isabel
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  Speaker 1: is well behaved. Except for these attacks. I do not
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  Speaker 1: remember much of the conversation at table. It was, I know,
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  Speaker 1: discursive and concerned with a sort of topographical and social
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  Speaker 1: and electioneering fact natural to such a visit. Old Rivers
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  Speaker 1: struck me as a delightful person, modestly unconscious of his
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  Speaker 1: doubly earned VC and the plucky defense of Cardin Bargut
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  Speaker 1: that won his baronetcy. He was that excellent type, the
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  Speaker 1: soldier radical. And we began that day, a friendship that
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  Speaker 1: was only ended by his death in the hunting field
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  Speaker 1: three years later. He interested Margaret into a disregard of
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  Speaker 1: my plate and the fact that I had secured the
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  Speaker 1: illegal indulgence of Mozelle. After lunch, we went for coffee
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  Speaker 1: into another low room, this time brown paneled, and looking
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  Speaker 1: through French windows on a red walled garden, graceful even
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  Speaker 1: in its winter desolation. And there the conversation suddenly picked
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  Speaker 1: up and became good. It had fallen to a pause,
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  Speaker 1: and the doctor, with an air of definitely throwing off
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  Speaker 1: a mask and wrecking an established tranquility, remarked, very probably,
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  Speaker 1: you liberals will come in, though I'm not sure you'll
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  Speaker 1: come in so mightily as you think. But what you
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  Speaker 1: do when you do come in passes my comprehension. There's
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  Speaker 1: good work sometimes, said Sir Graham, in undoing. You can't
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  Speaker 1: govern a great empire by mending and repealing the acts
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  Speaker 1: of your predecessors, said the doctor. There came that kind
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  Speaker 1: of pause that happens when a subject is broached too
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  Speaker 1: big and difficult for the gathering. Margaret's blue eyes regarded
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  Speaker 1: the speaker with quiet disapproval. For a moment and then
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  Speaker 1: came to me in the not too confident hope that
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  Speaker 1: I would snub him out of existence with some prompt
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  Speaker 1: rhetorical stroke. A voice spoke out of the big arm chair.
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  Speaker 1: We'll do things, said Isabel. The doctor's eye lit with
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  Speaker 1: the joy of the fisherman who strikes his fish. At last,
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  Speaker 1: what will you do, he asked her. Every one knows
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  Speaker 1: where a mixed lot, said Isabel. Poor old chaps like me,
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  Speaker 1: interjected the general. But that's not a program, said the doctor.
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  Speaker 1: But mister Remington has published a program, said Isabel. The
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  Speaker 1: doctor copped half an eye at me in some review,
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  Speaker 1: the girl went on. After all, we're not going to
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  Speaker 1: elect the whole Liberal party in the kingdam Stead division.
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  Speaker 1: I'm a Remington knight. But the program, said the doctor.
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  Speaker 1: The program in front of mister Remington. Scandal always comes
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  Speaker 1: home at last, said the doctor. Let him hear the
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  Speaker 1: worst I'd like to hear, I said. Electioneering shatters convictions
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  Speaker 1: and enfeebles the mind. Not mine, said Isabel, stoutly. I mean, well,
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  Speaker 1: anyhow I take it, mister Remington stands for constructing a
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  Speaker 1: civilized state out of this muddle. This muddle, protested the
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  Speaker 1: doctor with an appeal of the eye to the beautiful
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  Speaker 1: long room and the ordered garden outside, the bright, clean windows.
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  Speaker 1: Well that muddle if you like. There's a slum within
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  Speaker 1: a mile of us. Already the dust and blacks get
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  Speaker 1: worse and worse. Sissy, they do, agreed, miss Gamer. Mister
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  Speaker 1: Remington stands for construction, order, education, discipline, and you, said
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  Speaker 1: the doctor. I'm a good Remington knight. Discipline, said the doctor. Oh,
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  Speaker 1: said Isabel. At times one has to be napoleonic. They
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  Speaker 1: want to libel me, Mister Remington. A political worker can't
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  Speaker 1: always be in time for meals, can she? At times
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  Speaker 1: one has to make splendid cuts. Miss Gamer said something
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  Speaker 1: indistinctly order, education, discipline, said Sir Graham. Excellent things, but
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  Speaker 1: of a sort of memory. In my young days we
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  Speaker 1: talked about something called liberty. Liberty under the law, I said,
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  Speaker 1: with an unexpected approving murmur from Margaret, and took up
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  Speaker 1: the defense. The old liberal definition of liberty was a
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  Speaker 1: trifle uncritical privilege and legal restrictions and not the only
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  Speaker 1: enemies of liberty. An uneducated, underbred, and underfed property less
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  Speaker 1: man is a man who has lost the possibility of liberty.
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  Speaker 1: There's no liberty worth a rap for him. A man
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  Speaker 1: who is swimming hopelessly for life wants nothing but the
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  Speaker 1: liberty to get out of the water. He'll give every
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  Speaker 1: other liberty for it until he gets out. Sir Graham
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  Speaker 1: took me up and we fell into a discussion of
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  Speaker 1: the changing qualities of liberalism. It was a good give
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  Speaker 1: and take talk, extraordinarily refreshing after the nonsense and crowding
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  Speaker 1: secondary issues of the electioneering outside. We all contributed more
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  Speaker 1: or less except misgamer. Margaret followed with knitted brows and
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  Speaker 1: occasional interjections. People won't see that, for example, And it
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  Speaker 1: all seems so plain to me. The doctor showed himself clever,
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  Speaker 1: but unsubstantial and inconsistent. Isabel sat back, with her black
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  Speaker 1: mop of hair buried deep in the chair, looking quickly
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  Speaker 1: from face to face. Her color came and went with
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  Speaker 1: her vivid intellectual excitement. Occasionally she would dart a word,
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  Speaker 1: usually a very apt word like a lizard's tongue, into
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  Speaker 1: the discussion. I remember chiefly that a chance illustration betrayed
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  Speaker 1: that she had read Bishop Burnett. After that, it was
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  Speaker 1: not surprising that Isabel should ask for a lift in
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  Speaker 1: our car as far as the Lurky committee room, and
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  Speaker 1: that she should offer me quite sound advice en route
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  Speaker 1: upon the intellectual temperament of the lurky gas workers. On
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  Speaker 1: the third occasion that I saw isabel she was, as
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  Speaker 1: I have said, climbing a tree, and a very creditable tree,
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  Speaker 1: for her own private satisfaction. It was a lapse from
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  Speaker 1: the high seriousness of politics, and I perceived she felt
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  Speaker 1: that I might regard it as such and attach too
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  Speaker 1: much importance to it. I had some difficulty in reassuring her.
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  Speaker 1: And it's odd to note now it has never occurred
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  Speaker 1: to me before that from that day to this, I
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  Speaker 1: do not think I've ever reminded Isabelle of that encounter.
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  Speaker 1: And after that memory, she seems to be flickering about
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  Speaker 1: always in the election, an inextinguishable flame. Now she flew
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  Speaker 1: by on her bicycle. Now she dashed into committee rooms.
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  Speaker 1: Now she appeared on doorsteps in animated conversation with dubius voters.
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  Speaker 1: I took every chance I could to talk to her.
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  Speaker 1: I had never met anything like her before in the world,
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  Speaker 1: and she interested me immensely. And before the polling day
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  Speaker 1: she and I had become in the frankest simplicity, fast
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  Speaker 1: friends that I think sets out very fairly the facts
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  Speaker 1: of our early relationship, But it is hard to get
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  Speaker 1: it true, either in form or texture. Because of the bright, translucent, colored,
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  Speaker 1: and refracting memories that come between, one forgets not only
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  Speaker 1: the tint and quality of thoughts and impressions through that
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  Speaker 1: intervening haze, one forgets them altogether. I don't remember now
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  Speaker 1: that I ever thought in those days of passionate love
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  Speaker 1: or the possibility of such love between us. I may
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  Speaker 1: have done so again and again, but I doubt it
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  Speaker 1: very strongly. I don't think I ever thought of such aspects.
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  Speaker 1: I had no more sense of any danger between us,
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  Speaker 1: seeing the years and things that separated us, than I
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  Speaker 1: could have had if she had been an intelligent, bright
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  Speaker 1: eyed bird. Isabel came into my life as a new
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  Speaker 1: sort of thing. She didn't join on at all to
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  Speaker 1: my previous experiences of womanhood. They were not, as I
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  Speaker 1: have labored to explain, either very wide or very penetrating
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  Speaker 1: experiences on the whole. Strangled dinginess expresses them. But I
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  Speaker 1: do not believe they were narrower or shallower than those
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  Speaker 1: of many other men of my class. I thought of
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  Speaker 1: women as pretty things and beautiful things, pretty rather than beautiful, attractive,
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  Speaker 1: and at times disconcertingly attractive, often bright and witty, but
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  Speaker 1: because of the vast reservations that hid them from me wanting,
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  Speaker 1: subtly and inevitably wanting in understanding, my idealization of Margaret
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  Speaker 1: had evaporated insensibly after our marriage. The shrine I had
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  Speaker 1: made for her in my private thoughts stood at last
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  Speaker 1: undisguisedly empty. But Isabel did not, for a moment admit
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  Speaker 1: of either idealization or interested contempt. She opened a new
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  Speaker 1: sphere of womanhood to me. With her steady amber brown eyes,
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  Speaker 1: her unaffected interest in impersonal things, her upstanding, wasteless blue body,
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  Speaker 1: her energy, decision and courage. She seemed rather some new
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  Speaker 1: and infinitely finer form of boyhood than a feminine creature,
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  Speaker 1: as I had come to measure feminine. She was my
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  Speaker 1: perfect friend. Could I have foreseen, had my world been
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  Speaker 1: more wisely planned to this day, we might have been
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  Speaker 1: such friends. She seemed at that time unconscious of sex,
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  Speaker 1: though she has told me since how full she was
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  Speaker 1: of protesting curiosities and restrained emotions. She spoke as indeed
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  Speaker 1: she has always spoken simply, clearly and vividly. Schools girls
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  Speaker 1: slang mingled with words that mark ample, voracious reading, and
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  Speaker 1: she moved quickly, with the free directness of some graceful
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  Speaker 1: young animal. She took many of the easy freedoms a
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  Speaker 1: man or a sister might have done with me. She
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  Speaker 1: would touch my arm, lay hand on my shoulder as
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  Speaker 1: I sat, adjust the lapel of a breast pocket as
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  Speaker 1: she talked to me. She says now, she loved me
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  Speaker 1: always from the beginning. I doubt if there was a
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  Speaker 1: suspicion of that in her mind. Those days I used
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  Speaker 1: to find her a guarding me with the clearest, steadiest
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  Speaker 1: gaze in the world, exactly like the gaze of some nice, healthy,
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  Speaker 1: innocent animal in a forest, interested, inquiring, speculative, but singularly untroubled.
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  Speaker 1: Five polling day came after a last horse and dingy crescendo.
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  Speaker 1: The excitement was not of the sort that makes one
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  Speaker 1: forget one is tired out. The waiting for the end
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  Speaker 1: of the count has left a long blank mark on
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  Speaker 1: my memory. And then everyone was shaking my hand and
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  Speaker 1: repeating nine hundred and seventy six. My success had been
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  Speaker 1: a foregone conclusion since the afternoon. But we all behaved
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  Speaker 1: as though we had not been anticipating this result for hours,
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  Speaker 1: as though any other figures but nine hundred and seventy
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  Speaker 1: six would have meant something entirely different. Nine hundred seventy six,
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  Speaker 1: said Margaret. They didn't expect three hundred, nine hundred and
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  Speaker 1: seventy six, said a little short man with a paper.
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  Speaker 1: It means a big turnover, two dozen short of a thousand,
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  Speaker 1: you know, a tremendous hulla balloo began outside, and a
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  Speaker 1: lot of fresh people came into the room. Isabel flushed,
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  Speaker 1: but not out of breath. Heaven knows where she had
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  Speaker 1: sprung from at that time of night, was running her
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  Speaker 1: hand down my sleeve, almost caressingly, with the innocent, bold
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  Speaker 1: affection of a girl got you in. She said, it's
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  Speaker 1: been no end of a lark, and now said I
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  Speaker 1: I must go and be constructive. Now you must go
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  Speaker 1: and be constructive. She said, you've got to live here,
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  Speaker 1: She added, By jove, yes, I said we'll have to
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  Speaker 1: house hunt. I shall read all your speeches, she hesitated.
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  Speaker 1: I wish I was you, she said, and said it
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  Speaker 1: as though it was not exactly the things she was
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  Speaker 1: meaning to say. They want you to speak, said Margaret,
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  Speaker 1: with something unsaid in her face. You must come out
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  Speaker 1: with me, I answered, putting my arm through hers, and
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  Speaker 1: felt some one urging me to the French windows that
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  Speaker 1: gave on the balcony. If you think, she said, yielding gladly, Oh, rather,
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  Speaker 1: said I. The mayor of Kingham's Stead, a managing little
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  Speaker 1: man with no great belief in my oratorical powers, was
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  Speaker 1: sticking his face up to mine. It's all over, he said,
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  Speaker 1: and you've won. Say all the nice things you can,
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  Speaker 1: and say them plainly. I turned a handed Margaret out
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  Speaker 1: through the window and stood looking over the market place,
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  Speaker 1: which was more than half filled with swaying people. The
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  Speaker 1: crowd set up a roar of approval at the sight
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  Speaker 1: of us, tempered by a little booing. Down in one
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  Speaker 1: corner of the square, a fight was going on for
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  Speaker 1: a flag, a fight that even the prospect of a
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  Speaker 1: speech could not instantly check. Speech cried voices, speech, and
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  Speaker 1: then a brief woo that was drowned in a cascade
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  Speaker 1: of shouts and cheers. The conflict round the flag culminated
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  Speaker 1: in the smashing of a pane of glass in the
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  Speaker 1: chemist's window, and instantly sank to peace, gentlemen, voters of
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  Speaker 1: the Kinghamsted division, I began vote for women. Yelled a
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  Speaker 1: voice amidst laughter, the first time I remember hearing that
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  Speaker 1: memorable war cry. Three cheers of Missus Remington. Missus Remington
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: asks me to thank you, I said, amidst further uproar
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  Speaker 1: and reiterated cries of speech. Then silence came with a
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  Speaker 1: startling swiftness. Isabel was still in my mind. I suppose
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  Speaker 1: I shall go to Westminster. I began. I sought for
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  Speaker 1: some compelling phrase, and could not find one to do
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  Speaker 1: my share. I went on in building up a great
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  Speaker 1: and splendid civilization. I paused, and there was a weak
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  Speaker 1: gust of cheering, and then a renewal of booing. This election,
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  Speaker 1: I said, has been the end and the beginning of
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: much new ideas are abroad. Chinese labor yelled a voice,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: and across the square swept a wild fire of hooting
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  Speaker 1: and bawling. It is one of the few occasions when
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  Speaker 1: I quite lost my hold on a speech. I glanced
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: sideways and saw the Mayor of Kinghamstead speaking behind his
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: hand to Parville. By happy chance, Parville caught my eye.
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  Speaker 1: What do they want, I asked, Eh, what do they want?
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  Speaker 1: Say something about general fairness? The other side prompted Parville.
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  Speaker 1: Flattered but a little surprised by my appeal, I pulled
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  Speaker 1: myself hastily into a more populous strain with the gross
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: eulogy of my opponent's good taste. Chinese labor, cried the
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  Speaker 1: voice again, you've given that notice to quit, I answered,
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  Speaker 1: the marketplace rawed delight. But whether that delight expressed hostility
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: to chinamen or hostility to their practical enslavement, no student
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: of the general election of nineteen oh six has ever
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  Speaker 1: been able to determine. Certainly, one of the most effective
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: posters on our side displayed a hideous yellow face, just
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  Speaker 1: that and nothing more. There was not even a legend
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  Speaker 1: to it. How it impressed the electorate we did not know,
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  Speaker 1: but that it impressed the electorate profoundly. There can be
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: no disputing Six Kinghamstead was one of the earliest constituentses
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: fought and we came back it must have been Saturday,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: triumphant but very tired, to our house in Raden's Square.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: In the train we read the first intimations that the
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  Speaker 1: victory of our party was likely to be a sweeping one.
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  Speaker 1: Then came a period where one was going about receiving
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  Speaker 1: and giving congratulations and watching the other men arrive, very
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  Speaker 1: like a boy who has returned to school with the
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: first batch. After the holidays, the London world reeked with
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: the general election. It had invaded the nurseries. All the
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: children of one's friends had got big maps of England
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  Speaker 1: cut up into squares to represent constituencies, and were busy
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: sticking gum blue labels over the conquered red of Unionism
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: that had hitherto submerged the country. And there were also
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: orange labels, if I remember rightly, to represent the New
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Labor Party and green for the Irish. I engaged myself
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: to speak at one or two London meetings, and lunched
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: at the Reform which was fairly tepid, and dined and
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: spent one or two tumultuous evenings at the National Liberal Club,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: which was in active eruption. The National Liberal became feverishly
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: congested towards midnight as the results of the counting came
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: dropping in. A big green baized screen had been fixed
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: up at one end of the large smoking room with
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: the names of the constituencies that were voting that day,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: and directly the figures came to hand up they went
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: amidst cheers that at last lost their energy through sheer repetition.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: Whenever there was record of a liberal gain. I don't
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: remember what happened when there was a liberal loss. I
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: don't think that any were announced while I was there.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: How packed and noisy the place was, and what a
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: wreak of tobacco and whiskey fumes we made. Everybody was
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: excited and talking, making waves of harsh, confused sound that
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: beat upon one's ears, and every now and then hoarse
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: voices would shout for someone to speak. Our little set
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: was much in evidence. Both the Cramptons were in Lewis
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: bunting harblow. We gave brief addresses attuned to this excitement
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: in the late hour, amidst much enthusiasm. Now we can
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: do things, I said, amidst a rapture of applause. Men
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: I did not know from Adam held up glasses and
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: nodded to me in solemn, fuddled approval. As I came down,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: passed them into the crowd. Again. Men were betting whether
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: the Unionists would lose more or less than two hundred seats.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: I wonder just what we shall do with her all.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: I heard one skeptic speculating after these orgies, I would
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: get home very tired and excited, and find it difficult
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: to get to sleep. I would lie and speculate about
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: what it was we were going to do. One hadn't
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: anticipated quite such a tremendous succession to power for one's party.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: Liberalism was swirling in like a flood. I found the
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: next few weeks very unsatisfactory and distressing. I don't clearly
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: remember what it was I had spected. I suppose the
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: fuss and strain of the general election had built up
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: a feeling that my return would in some way put
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: power into my hands, And instead I found myself a mere,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: undistinguished unit in a vast but rather vague majority. There
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: were moments when I felt very distinctly that a majority
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: could be too big a crowd. Altogether, I had all
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: my work still before me. I had achieved nothing as
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: yet but opportunity, and a very crowded opportunity. It was
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: at that everyone about me was chatting parliament and appointments.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: One breathed distracting and irritating speculations as to what would
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: be done, and who would be asked to do it.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: I was chiefly impressed by what was unlikely to be done,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: and by the absence of any general plan of legislation
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: to hold us altogether. I found the talk about parliamentary
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: procedure and etiquette particularly trying. We dined with the Elder
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: Crampton's one evening, and old Sir Edward was lengthily sage
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: about what the House liked, what it didn't like, what
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: made a good impression, and what a bad one. A
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: man shouldn't speak more than twice in his first session,
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: and not at first on too contentious a topic, said
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: Sir Edward. No very much depends on manner. The house
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: hates a lecturer. There's a sort of airy earnestness. He
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: waved his cigar to eke out his words. Little peculiarities
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: of costume count for a great deal. I could name
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: one man who spent three years living down a pair
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: of spatter dashers. On the other hand, I think like that,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: if it catches the eye of the punch man, for example,
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: maybe you're making He went off into a lengthy speculation
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: on why the House had come to like an originally
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: unpopular irishmen named bigger. The opening of Parliament gave me
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: some peculiar moods. I began to feel more and more
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: like a branded sheep. We were sworn in in batches,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: dozens and scores of fresh men, trying not to look
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: too fresh under the inspection of policemen and messengers, all
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: of us carrying new silk hats and wearing magisterial coats.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: It is one of my vivid memories from this period,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: the sudden outbreak of silk hats in the smoking room
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: of the National Liberal Club. At first I thought there
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: must have been a funeral. Familiar faces that one had
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: grown to know under soft felt hats, under bowlers, under
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: liberal minded wide brims, and above artistic ties and tweed
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: jackets suddenly met one staring with the stern gaze of
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: self consciousness from under silk hats of incredible glossiness. There
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: was a disposition to wear the hat much too forward,
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: I thought, for a good parliamentary style. There was much
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: play with the hats, all through a tremendous competition to
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: get in first and put hats on coveted seats. A
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: memory hangs about me of the house in the early afternoon,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: an inhumane desolation inhabited almost entirely by silk hats. The
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: current use of cards to secure seats came later. There
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: were yards and yards of empty green benches, with hats
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: and hats and hats distributed along them, resolute looking top hats,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: lax top hats with a kind of shadowy grin under them,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: sensible top hats brim upward, and one scandalous incontinent that
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: had rolled from the front opposition bench right to the
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: middle of the floor. A headless hat is surely the
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: most soldest thing in the world, far worse even than
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: a skull. Last. In a leisurely muddled manner, we got
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: to the address, and I found myself packed in a dense,
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: elbowing crowd to the right of the speaker's chair, while
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: the attenuated opposition nearly leedless after the massacre, tilted its
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: brim to its nose and sprawled at his ease amidst
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: its empty benches. There was a tremendous hullo balloo about something,
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: and I craned to see over the shoulder of the
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: man in front. Order Order Order. What's it about? I
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: asked the man in front of me. Was clearly no
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: better informed. And then I gathered from a slightly contemptuous
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: scotchman beside me that it was Chris Robinson had walked
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: between the Honorable Member in possession of the House and
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: the Speaker. I caught a glimpse of him, blushingly whispering
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: about his misadventure to a colleague. He was just that
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: same little figure I had once assisted to entertain at Cambridge,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: the gray haired now and still it seemed, with the
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: same knitted muffler he had discarded for a reckless half
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: hour while he talked to us in Hatherley's rooms. It
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: dawned upon me that I wasn't particularly wanted in the house,
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: and that I should get all I needed of the
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: opening speeches next day from the times. I made my
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: way out, and was presently walking rather aimlessly through the
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: outer lobby, I caught myself regarding the shadow that spread
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: itself out before me, multiplied itself in blue tints of
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: various intensity, shuffled itself like a pack of cards under
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: the many lights, the square shoulders, the silk hat already
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: worn with a parliamentary tilt backward. I found I was
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: surveying this statesmanlike outline with a weak approval a member.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: I felt the little cluster of people that were scattered
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: about the lobby must be saying good God. I said,
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: in hot reaction, what am I doing here? It was
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: one of those moments, infinitely trivial in themselves, that yet
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: a cardinal in a man's life. It came to me
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: with extreme vividness that it wasn't so much that I
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: had got hold of something, as that something had got
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: hold of me. I distinctly recall the rebound of my mind.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: Whatever happened in this parliament, I at least would attempt something.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: By God, I said, I won't be overwhelmed. I am
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: here to do something, and do something I will. But
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: I felt that for the moment I could not remain
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: in the house. I went out by myself with my
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: thoughts into the night. It was a chilling night and
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: rare spots of rain were falling. I glanced over my
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: shoulder at the lit windows of the lords. I walked,
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: I remember westward, and presently came to the groven Or
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: embankment and followed it, watching the glittering black rush of
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: the river and the dark, dimly lit barges which the
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: water swirled across the river was the hunched skyline of
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: Dalton's potteries, and a kiln flared redly. Dimly luminous trams
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: were gliding amidst the dotted line of lamps, and two
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: little trains crawled into Waterloo Station. Mysterious black figures came
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: by me and were suddenly changed to the commonplace at
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: the touch of the nearer lamps. It was a big,
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: confused world. I felt for a man to lay his
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: hands upon. I remember I crossed Vauxhall Bridge and stood
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: for a time watching the huge black shapes in the
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: darkness under the gas works. A shoal of coal barges
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: lay indistinctly on the darkly shining mud and water below,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: and a colossal crane was perpetually hauling up coal into
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: mysterious blacknesses above, and dropping the empty clutch back to
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: the barges. Just one or two minute, black, featureless figures
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: of men toiled amidst these monster shapes. They did not
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: seem to be controlling them, but only moving about among them.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: These gas works have a big chimney that belches a
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: lurid flame into the night, a livid, shivering bluish flame,
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: shot with strange crimson streaks. On the other side of
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: Lambeth Bridge, broad stairs go down to the lapping water
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: of the river. The lower steps are luminous under the lamps,
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: and one treads unworned into thick soft thames as mud.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: They seem to be purely architectural steps they lead nowhere.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: They have an air of absolute indifference to mortal ends,
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: those shapes and large inhuman places. For all of mankind
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: that one sees at night about Lambeth is minute and pitiful.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: Beside the industrial monsters that snort and toil there mix
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: up inextricably with my memories of my first days as
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: a legislator. Black figures drift by me, heavy vans clatter,
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: a newspaper ruff tears by on a motor bicycle, and
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: presently on the albert embankment, every seat has its one
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: or two outcasts, huddled together and slumbering. These things come,
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: these things go. A whispering voice urged upon me, as
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: once those vast, unmeaning saurians whose bones incumber museums came
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: and went rejoicing noisily in fruitless lives. Fruitless lives was
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: that the truth of it all. Later, I stood within
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: sight of the Houses of Parliament, in front of the
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: colonnades of Saint Thomas's Hospital. I leant on the parapet,
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: close by a lamp stand of twisted dolphins, and I prayed.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: I remember the swirl of the tide upon the water,
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: and how a string of barges presently came swinging and
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: bumping round as high water turned to ebb That sudden
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: change of position, and my brief perplexity at it sticks
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: like a paper pin through the substance of my thoughts.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: It was then I was moved to prayer. I prayed
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: that night that life might not be in vain, that
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: in particular I might not live in vain. I prayed
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: for strength and faith, that the monstrous, blundering forces in
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: life might not overwhelm me, might not beat me back
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: to futility and a meaningless acquiescence in existent things. I
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: knew myself for the weakling I was. I knew that nevertheless,
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: it was set for me to make such order as
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: I could out of these disorders, and my task cowed me,
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: gave me, at the thought of it a sense of
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: yielding feebleness. Break me, O, God, I prayed, at last,
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: disgrace me, torment me, destroy me as you will, but
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: save me from self complacency and little interests and little successes,
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: and the life that passes like the shadow of a dream.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: End of Chapter eight, Section two, end of Book two.