THE NEW MACHIAVELLI

9

One countervailing influence to my drift to Toryism in those days

was Margaret's quite religious faith in the Liberals. I realised

that slowly and with a mild astonishment. It set me, indeed, even

then questioning my own change of opinion. We came at last

incidentally, as our way was, to an exchange of views. It was as

nearly a quarrel as we had before I came over to the Conservative

side. It was at Champneys, and I think during the same visit that

witnessed my exploration of Lady Forthundred. It arose indirectly,

I think, out of some comments of mine upon our fellow-guests, but it

is one of those memories of which the scene and quality remain more

vivid than the things said, a memory without any very definite

beginning or end. It was afternoon, in the pause between tea and

the dressing bell, and we were in Margaret's big silver-adorned,

chintz-bright room, looking out on the trim Italian garden…

Yes, the beginning of it has escaped me altogether, but I remember

it as an odd exceptional little wrangle.

At first we seem to have split upon the moral quality of the

aristocracy, and I had an odd sense that in some way too feminine

for me to understand our hostess had aggrieved her. She said, I

know, that Champneys distressed her; made her "eager for work and

reality again."

"But aren't these people real?"

"They're so superficial, so extravagant!"

I said I was not shocked by their unreality. They seemed the least

affected people I had ever met. "And are they really so

extravagant?" I asked, and put it to her that her dresses cost quite

as much as any other woman's in the house.

"It's not only their dresses," Margaret parried. "It's the scale

and spirit of things."

I questioned that. "They're cynical," said Margaret, staring before

her out of the window.

I challenged her, and she quoted the Brabants, about whom there had

been an ancient scandal. She'd heard of it from Altiora, and it was

also Altiora who'd given her a horror of Lord Carnaby, who was also

with us. "You know his reputation," said Margaret. "That Normandy

girl. Every one knows about it. I shiver when I look at him. He

seems-oh! like something not of OUR civilisation. He WILL come and

say little things to me."

"Offensive things?"

"No, politenesses and things. Of course his manners are-quite

right. That only makes it worse, I think. It shows he might have

helped-all that happened. I do all I can to make him see I don't

like him. But none of the others make the slightest objection to

him."

"Perhaps these people imagine something might be said for him."

"That's just it," said Margaret.

"Charity," I suggested.

"I don't like that sort of toleration."

I was oddly annoyed. "Like eating with publicans and sinners," I

said. "No!…

But scandals, and the contempt for rigid standards their condonation

displayed, weren't more than the sharp edge of the trouble. "It's

their whole position, their selfish predominance, their class

conspiracy against the mass of people," said Margaret. "When I sit

at dinner in that splendid room, with its glitter and white

reflections and candlelight, and its flowers and its wonderful

service and its candelabra of solid gold, I seem to feel the slums

and the mines and the over-crowded cottages stuffed away under the

table."

I reminded Margaret that she was not altogether innocent of unearned

increment.

"But aren't we doing our best to give it back?" she said.

I was moved to question her. "Do you reallythink," I asked, "that

the Tories and peers and rich people are to blame for social

injustice as we have it to-day? Do you reallysee politics as a

struggle of light on the Liberal side against darkness on the Tory?"

"They MUST know," said Margaret.

I found myself questioning that. I see now that to Margaret it must

have seemed the perversest carping against manifest things, but at

the time I was concentrated simply upon the elucidation of her view

and my own; I wanted to get at her conception in the sharpest,

hardest lines that were possible. It was perfectly clear that she

saw Toryism as the diabolical element in affairs. The thing showed

in its hopeless untruth all the clearer for the fine, clean emotion

with which she gave it out to me. My sleeping peer in the library

at Stamford Court and Evesham talking luminously behind the

Hartstein flowers embodied the devil, and my replete citizen sucking

at his cigar in the National Liberal Club, Willie Crampton

discussing the care and management of the stomach over a specially

hygienic lemonade, and Dr. Tumpany in his aggressive frock-coat

pegging out a sort of right in Socialism, were the centre and

wings of the angelic side. It was nonsense. But how was I to put

the truth to her?

"I don't see things at all as you do," I said. "I don't see things

in the same way."

"Think of the poor," said Margaret, going off at a tangent.

"Think of every one," I said. "We Liberals have done more mischief

through well-intentioned benevolence than all the selfishness in the

world could have done. We built up the liquor interest."

"WE!" cried Margaret. "How can you say that? It's against us."

"Naturally. But we made it a monopoly in our clumsy efforts to

prevent people drinking what they liked, because it interfered with

industrial regularity-"

"Oh!" cried Margaret, stung; and I could see she thought I was

talking mere wickedness.

"That's it," I said.

"But would you have people drink whatever they pleased?"

"Certainly. What right have I to dictate to other men and women?"

"But think of the children!"

"Ah! there you have the folly of modern Liberalism, its half-

cunning, half-silly way of getting at everything in a roundabout

fashion. If neglecting children is an offence, and it IS an

offence, then deal with it as such, but don't go badgering and

restricting people who sell something that may possibly in some

cases lead to a neglect of children. If drunkenness is an offence,

punish it, but don't punish a man for selling honest drink that

perhaps after all won't make any one drunk at all. Don't intensify

the viciousness of the public-house by assuming the place isn't fit

for women and children. That's either spite or folly. Make the

public-house FIT for women and children. Make it a real public-

house. If we Liberals go on as we are going, we shall presently

want to stop the sale of ink and paper because those things tempt

men to forgery. We do already threaten the privacy of the post

because of betting tout's letters. The drift of all that kind of

thing is narrow, unimaginative, mischievous, stupid…"

I stopped short and walked to the window and surveyed a pretty

fountain, facsimile of one in Verona, amidst trim-cut borderings of

yew. Beyond, and seen between the stems of ilex trees, was a great

blaze of yellow flowers…

"But prevention," I heard Margaret behind me, "is the essence of our

work."

I turned. "There's no prevention but education. There's no

antiseptics in life but love and fine thinking. Make people fine,

make fine people. Don't be afraid. These Tory leaders are better

people individually than the average; why cast them for the villains

of the piece? The real villain in the piece-in the whole human

drama-is the muddle-headedness, and it matters very little if it's

virtuous-minded or wicked. I want to get at muddle-headedness. If

I could do that I could let all that you call wickedness in the

world run about and do what it jolly well pleased. It would matter

about as much as a slightly neglected dog-in an otherwise well-

managed home."

My thoughts had run away with me.

"I can't understand you," said Margaret, in the profoundest

distress. "I can't understand how it is you are coming to see

things like this."