THE NEW MACHIAVELLI

CHAPTER THE THIRD
MARGARET IN VENICE
1

There comes into my mind a confusedmemory of conversations with

Margaret; we must have had dozens altogether, and they mix in now

for the most part inextricably not only with one another, but with

later talks and with things we discussed at Pangbourne. We had the

immensest anticipations of the years and opportunities that lay

before us. I was now very deeply in love with her indeed. I felt

not that I had cleaned up my life but that she had. We called each

other "confederate" I remember, and made during our brief engagement

a series of visits to the various legislative bodies in London, the

County Council, the House of Commons, where we dined with Villiers,

and the St. Pancras Vestry, where we heard Shaw speaking. I was

full of plans and so was she of the way in which we were to live and

work. We were to pay back in public service whatever excess of

wealth beyond his merits old Seddon's economic advantage had won for

him from the toiling people in the potteries. The end of the Boer

War was so recent that that blessed word "efficiency" echoed still

in people's minds and thoughts. Lord Roseberry in a memorable

oration had put it into the heads of the big outer public, but the

Baileys with a certain show of justice claimed to have set it going

in the channels that took it to him-if as a matter of fact it was

taken to him. But then it was their habit to make claims of that

sort. They certainly did their share to keep "efficient" going.

Altiora's highest praise was "thoroughly efficient." We were to be

a "thoroughly efficient" political couple of the "new type." She

explained us to herself and Oscar, she explained us to ourselves,

she explained us to the people who came to her dinners and

afternoons until the world was highly charged with explanation and

expectation, and the proposal that I should be the Liberal candidate

for the Kinghamstead Division seemed the most natural development in

the world.

I was full of the ideal of hard restrained living and relentless

activity, and throughout a beautiful November at Venice, where

chiefly we spent our honeymoon, we turned over and over again and

discussed in every aspect our conception of a life tremendously

focussed upon the ideal of social service.

Most clearly there stands out a picture of ourselves talking in a

gondola on our way to Torcella. Far away behind us the smoke of

Murano forms a black stain upon an immense shining prospect of

smooth water, water as unruffled and luminous as the sky above, a

mirror on which rows of posts and distant black high-stemmed, swan-

necked boats with their minutely clear swinging gondoliers, float

aerially. Remote and low before us rises the little tower of our

destination. Our men swing together and their oars swirl leisurely

through the water, hump back in the rowlocks, splash sharply and go

swishing back again. Margaret lies back on cushions, with her face

shaded by a holland parasol, and I sit up beside her.

"You see," I say, and in spite of Margaret's note of perfect

acquiescence I feelmyself reasoning against an indefinable

antagonism, "it is so easy to fall into a slack way with life.

There may seem to be something priggish in a meticulous discipline,

but otherwise it is so easy to slip into indolent habits-and to be

distracted from one's purpose. The country, the world, wants men to

serve its constructive needs, to work out and carry out plans. For

a man who has to make a living the enemy is immediate necessity; for

people like ourselves it's-it's the constant small opportunity of

agreeable things."

"Frittering away," she says, "time and strength."

"That is what I feel. It's so pleasant to pretend one is simply

modest, it looks so foolish at times to take one's self too

seriously. We've GOT to take ourselves seriously."

She endorses my words with her eyes.

"I feel I can do great things with life."

"I KNOW you can."

"But that's only to be done by concentrating one's life upon one

main end. We have to plan our days, to make everything subserve our

scheme."

"I feel," she answers softly, "we ought to give-every hour."

Her face becomes dreamy. "I WANT to give every hour," she adds.