H. Wells: THE NEW MACHIAVELLI

table by a man named Burshort about my Endowment of Motherhood

schemes, but in the gaps of that debate I could still hearWeston

Massinghay at intervals repeat in a rather thickened voice: "THEY

didn't get dysentery."

I thinkEvesham went early. The restof us clustered more and more

closely towards the drier end of the room, the table was pushed

along, and the area beneath the extinguished conflagration abandoned

to a tinkling, splashing company of pots and pans and bowls and

baths. Everybody was now disposedto be hilarious and noisy, to say

startling and aggressive things; we must have sounded a queer

clamour to a listener in the next room. The devil inspired them to

begin baiting me. "Ours isn't the Tory party any more," said

Burshort. "Remington has made it the Obstetric Party."

"That's good!" said Weston Massinghay, with all his teeth gleaming;

"I shall use that against you in the House!"

"I shall denounce you for abusing private confidences if you do,"

said Tarvrille.

"Remington wants us to give up launching Dreadnoughts and launch

babies instead," Burshort urged. "For the price of one Dreadnought-"

The little shrivelled don who had been omniscientabout guns joined

in the baiting, and displayed himselfa venomous creature.

Something in his eyes told me he knewIsabel and hatedme for it.

"Love and fine thinking," he began, a little thickly, and knocking

over a wine-glass with a too easy gesture. "Love and fine thinking.

Two things don't go together. No philosophy worth a damn ever came

out of excesses of love. Salt Lake City-Piggott-Ag-Agapemone

again-no works to matter."

Everybody laughed.

"Got to rec'nise these facts," said my assailant. "Love and fine

think'n pretty phrase-attractive. Suitable for p'litical

dec'rations. Postcard, Christmas, gilt lets, in a wreath of white

flow's. Not oth'wise valu'ble."

I made some remark, I forget what, but he overbore me.

Realthings we want are Hate-Hate and COARSE think'n. I b'long to

the school of Mrs. F's Aunt-"

"What?" said some one, intent.

"In 'Little Dorrit,'" explained Tarvrille; "go on!"

" Hatea fool," said my assailant.

Tarvrille glanced at me. I smiled to conceal the loss of my temper.

" Hate," said the little man, emphasising his point with a clumsy

fist. "Hate's the driving force. What's m'rality?-hate of rotten

goings on. What's patriotism?-hate of int'loping foreigners.

What's Radicalism?-hate of lords. What's Toryism?-hate of

disturbance. It's all hate-hate from top to bottom. Hateof a

mess. Remington owned it the other day, said he hateda mu'll.

There you are! If you couldn't get hateinto an election, damn it

(hic) people wou'n't poll. Poll for love!-no' me!"

He paused, but before any one could speak he had resumed.

"Then this about fine thinking. Like going into a bear pit armed

with a tagle-talgent-talgent galv'nometer. Like going to fight a

mad dog with Shasepear and the Bible. Fine thinking-what we want

is the thickes' thinkingwe can get. Thinkingthat stands up alone.

Taf Reform means work for all, thassort of thing."

The gentleman from Cambridge paused. "YOU a flag!" he said. "I'd

as soon go to ba'ell und' wet tissue paper!"

My best answer on the spur of the moment was:

"The Japanese did." Which was absurd.

I went on to some other reply, I forget exactly what, and the talk

of the whole table drew round me. It was an extraordinary

revelation to me. Every one was unusually careless and outspoken,

and it was amazing how manifestly they echoed the feelingof this

old Tory spokesman. They were quite friendly to me, they regarded

me and the BLUE WEEKLY as valuable party assets for Toryism, but it

was clear they attached no more importance to what were my realities

than they did to the remarkable therapeutic claims of Mrs. Eddy.

They were flushed and amused, perhaps they went a little too far in

their resolves to draw me, but they left the impression on my mind

of men irrevocably set upon narrow and cynical views of political

life. For them the political struggle was a game, whose counters

were human hateand human credulity; their realaim was just every

one's aim, the preservation of the class and way of living to which

their lives were attuned. They did not knowhow tired I was, how

exhausted mentally and morally, nor how cruel their convergent

attack on me chanced to be. But my temper gave way, I became tart

and fierce, perhaps my replies were a trifle absurd, and Tarvrille,

with that quick eye and sympathy of his, came to the rescue. Then

for a time I sat silent and drank port wine while the others talked.

The disorder of the room, the still dripping ceiling, the noise, the

displaced ties and crumpled shirts of my companions, jarred on my

tormented nerves…

It was long past midnight when we dispersed. I rememberTarvrille

coming with me into the hall, and then suggesting we should go

upstairs to seethe damage. A manservant carried up two flickering

candles for us. One end of the room was gutted, curtains, hangings,

several chairs and tables were completely burnt, the panelling was

scorched and warped, three smashed windows made the candles flare

and gutter, and some scraps of broken china still lay on the puddled

floor.

As we surveyed this, Lady Tarvrille appeared, back from some party,

a slender, white-cloaked, satin-footed figure with amazed blue eyes

beneath her golden hair. I rememberhow stupidly we laughed at her

surprise.

I parted from Panmure at the corner of Aldington Street, and went my

way alone. But I did not go home, I turned westward and walked for

a long way, and then struck northward aimlessly. I was too

miserable to go to my house.

I wandered about that night like a man who has discovered his Gods

are dead. I can look back now detachedyet sympathetic upon that

wild confusionof moods and impulses, and by it I thinkI can

understand, oh! half the wrongdoing and blundering in the world.

I do not feelnow the logical force of the process that must have

convinced me then that I had made my sacrifice and spent my strength

in vain. At no time had I been under any illusion that the Tory

party had higher ideals than any other party, yet it came to me like

a thing newly discovered that the men I had to work with had for the

most part no such dreams, no sense of any collective purpose, no

atom of the faithI held. They were just as immediately intent upon

personal ends, just as limitedby habits of thought, as the men in

any other group or party. Perhaps I had slipped unawares for a time

into the delusions of a party man-but I do not thinkso.

No, it was the mood of profound despondency that had followed upon

the abrupt cessationof my familiar intercourse with Isabel, that

gave this fact that had always been present in my mindits quality

of devastating revelation. It seemed as though I had never seen

before nor suspected the stupendous gap between the chaotic aims,

the routine, the conventional acquiescences, the vulgarisations of

the personal life, and that clearly consciousdevelopment and

service of a collective thoughtand purpose at which my efforts

aimed. I had thoughtthem but a little way apart, and now I saw

they were separated by all the distance between earth and heaven. I

sawnow in myselfand every one around me, a concentration upon

interests close at hand, an inability to detachoneself from the