"But the good intention," I pleaded, "the Good Will!"

"Sentimentality," said Britten. "No Good Will is anything but
dishonesty unless it frets and burns and hurts and destroys a man.
That lot of yours have nothing but a good will to think they have
good will. Do you think they lie awake of nights searching their
hearts as we do? Lewis? Crampton? Or those neat, admiring,
satisfied little wives? See how they shrank from the probe!"

"We all," I said, "shrink from the probe."

"God help us!" said Britten. . . .

"We are but vermin at the best, Remington," he broke out,"and the
greatest saint only a worm that has lifted its head for a moment
from the dust. We are damned, we are meant to be damned, coral
animalculae building upward, upward in a sea of damnation. But of
all the damned things that ever were damned, your damned shirking,
temperate, sham-efficient, self-satisfied, respectable, make-
believe, Fabian-spirited Young Liberal is the utterly damnedest."
He paused for a moment, and resumed in an entirely different note:
"Which is why I was so surprised, Remington, to find YOU in this
set!"

"You're just the old plunger you used to be, Britten," I said.
"You're going too far with all your might for the sake of the damns.
Like a donkey that drags its cart up a bank to get thistles.
There's depths in Liberalism--"

"We were talking about Liberals."