THE NEW MACHIAVELLI

11

Every day the wine of the mountains was stronger in our blood, and

the flush of our youth deeper. We would go in the morning sunlight

along some narrow Alpine mule-path shouting large suggestions for

national re-organisation, and weighing considerations as lightly as

though the world was wax in our hands. "Great England," we said in

effect, over and over again, "and we will be among the makers!

England renewed! The country has been warned; it has learnt its

lesson. The disasters and anxieties of the war have sunk in.

England has become serious… Oh! there are big things before

us to do; big enduring things!"

One evening we walked up to the loggia of a little pilgrimage

church, I forget its name, that stands out on a conical hill at the

head of a winding stair above the town of Locarno. Down below the

houses clustered amidst a confusion of heat-bitten greenery. I had

been sitting silently on the parapet, looking across to the purple

mountain masses where Switzerland passes into Italy, and the drift

of our talk seemed suddenly to gather to a head.

I broke into speech, giving form to the thoughts that had been

accumulating. My words have long since passed out of my memory, the

phrases of familiar expression have altered for me, but the

substance remains as clear as ever. I said how we were in our

measure emperors and kings, men undriven, free to do as we pleased

with life; we classed among the happy ones, our bread and common

necessities were given us for nothing, we had abilities,-it wasn't

modesty but cowardice to behave as if we hadn't-and Fortune watched

us to see what we might do with opportunity and the world.

"There are so many things to do, you see," began Willersley, in his

judicial lecturer's voice.

"So many things we may do," I interrupted, "with all these years

before us… We're exceptional men. It's our place, our duty,

to do things."

"Here anyhow," I said, answering the faint amusement of his face;

"I've got no modesty. Everything conspires to set me up. Why

should I run about like all those grubby little beasts down there,

seeking nothing but mean little vanities and indulgencies-and then

take credit for modesty? I KNOW Iam capable. I KNOW I have

imagination. Modesty! I know if I don't attempt the very biggest

things in life Iam a damned shirk. The very biggest! Somebody has

to attempt them. I feel like a loaded gun that is only a little

perplexed because it has to find out just where to aim itself…"

The lake and the frontier villages, a white puff of steam on the

distant railway to Luino, the busy boats and steamers trailing

triangular wakes of foam, the long vista eastward towards

battlemented Bellinzona, the vast mountain distances, now tinged

with sunset light, behind this nearer landscape, and the southward

waters with remote coast towns shining dimly, waters that merged at

last in a luminous golden haze, made a broad panoramic spectacle.

It was as if one surveyed the world,-and it was like the games I

used to set out upon my nursery floor. I was exalted by it; I felt

larger than men. So kings should feel.

That sense of largness came to me then, and it has come to me since,

again and again, a splendid intimation or a splendid vanity. Once,

I remember, when I looked at Genoa from the mountain crest behind

the town and saw that multitudinous place in all its beauty of width

and abundance and clustering human effort, and once as I was

steaming past the brown low hills of Staten Island towards the

towering vigour and clamorous vitality of New York City, that mood

rose to its quintessence. And once it came to me, as I shall tell,

on Dover cliffs. And a hundred times when I have thought of England

as our country might be, with no wretched poor, no wretched rich, a

nation armed and ordered, trained and purposeful amidst its vales

and rivers, that emotion of collective ends and collective purposes

has returned to me. I felt as great as humanity. For a brief

moment I was humanity, looking at the world I had made and had still

to make…