magistrate, a Member of Parliament, and a director of several important
companies. He was also that other thing, which I did not tell him.

The moral is that a certain sort of person does exist, to whose glory this
article is dedicated. He is not the ordinary man. He is not the miner,
who is sharp enough to ask for the necessities of existence. He is not
the mine-owner, who is sharp enough to get a great deal more, by selling
his coal at the best possible moment. He is not the aristocratic
politician, who has a cynical but a fair sympathy with both economic
opportunities. But he is the man who appears in scores of public places
open to the upper middle class or (that less known but more powerful
section) the lower upper class. Men like this all over the country are
really saying whatever comes into their heads in their capacities of
justice of the peace, candidate for Parliament, Colonel of the Yeomanry,
old family doctor, Poor Law guardian, coroner, or above all, arbiter in
trade disputes. He suffers, in the literal sense, from softening of the
brain; he has softened it by always taking the view of everything most
comfortable for his country, his class, and his private personality. He
is a deadly public danger. But as I have given him his name at the
beginning of this article there is no need for me to repeat it at the end.




THE CONSCRIPT AND THE CRISIS


Very few of us ever see the history of our own time happening. And I
think the best service a modern journalist can do to society is to record
as plainly as ever he can exactly what impression was produced on his mind