I would turn my eyes down the crowded room and see others of him and
others. What did he think he was up to? Did he for a moment
realise that his presence under that ceramic glory of a ceiling with
me meant, if it had any rational meaning at all, that we were
jointly doing something with the nation and the empire and
mankind? . . . How on earth could any one get hold of him, make
any noble use of him? He didn't read beyond his newspaper. He
never thought, but only followed imaginings in his heart. He never
discussed. At the first hint of discussion his temper gave way.
He was, I knew, a deep, thinly-covered tank of resentments and
quite irrational moral rages. Yet withal I would have to resist
an impulse to go over to him and nudge him and say to him, "Look
here! What indeed do you think we are doing with the nation and
the empire and mankind? You know--MANKIND!"

I wonder what reply I should have got.

So far as any average could be struck and so far as any backbone
could be located, it seemed to me that this silent, shy, replete,
sub-angry, middle-class sentimentalist was in his endless species
and varieties and dialects the backbone of our party. So far as I
could be considered as representing anything in the House, I
pretended to sit for the elements of HIM. . . .



7


For a time I turned towards the Socialists. They at least had an