of the population. Now we met in a meeting-house, now in a Masonic
Hall or Drill Hall; I also did a certain amount of open-air speaking
in the dinner hour outside gas-works and groups of factories. Some
special sort of people was, as it were, secreted in response to each
special appeal. One said things carefully adjusted to the
distinctive limitations of each gathering. Jokes of an incredible
silliness and shallowness drifted about us. Our advisers made us
declare that if we were elected we would live in the district, and
one hasty agent had bills printed, "If Mr. Remington is elected he
will live here." The enemy obtained a number of these bills and
stuck them on outhouses, pigstyes, dog-kennels; you cannot imagine
how irksome the repetition of that jest became. The vast drifting
indifference in between my meetings impressed me more and more. I
realised the vagueness of my own plans as I had never done before I
brought them to the test of this experience. I was perplexed by the
riddle of just how far I was, in any sense of the word, taking hold
at all, how far I wasn't myself flowing into an accepted groove.

Margaret was troubled by no such doubts. She was clear I had to go
into Parliament on the side of Liberalism and the light, as against
the late Government and darkness. Essential to the memory of my
first contest, is the memory of her clear bright face, very resolute
and grave, helping me consciously, steadfastly, with all her
strength. Her quiet confidence, while I was so dissatisfied, worked
curiously towards the alienation of my sympathies. I felt she had
no business to be so sure of me. I had moments of vivid resentment
at being thus marched towards Parliament.

I seemed now always to be discovering alien forces of character in
her. Her way of taking life diverged from me more and more. She