human
You lost Hellesfield, Mr. Tallente, as you would have lost any seat north of Bedford,
gpt
Owing to the influence of the Democrats?
human
Certainly.
gpt
But why is that influence exercised against me? Tallente demanded.
human
I am thankful to have an opportunity of asking you that question, Dartrey. Surely you would reckon me more of a people's man than these Whigs and Coalitionists?
gpt
Very much more, Dartrey agreed.
human
So much more, Mr. Tallente, that we don't wish to see you dancing any longer between two stools. We want you in our camp. You are the first man, Tallente, whom we have sought out in this way. We have come at a busy time, under pretext of a holiday, some two hundred miles from London to suggest to you, temporarily deprived of political standing, that you join us.
gpt
That temporary deprivation, Tallente murmured,
human
Precisely!
gpt
And the alternative?
human
Those who are not with us are against us, Dartrey declared.
gpt
If you persist in remaining the doubtful factor in politics, it is our business to see that you have no definite status there.
human
Your methods are at least modern, he observed.
gpt
You invite a man to join your party, and if he refuses you threaten him with political extinction.
human
Why not? Dartrey asked wonderingly.
gpt
You do not pause to consider the matter. Government is meant for the million. Where the individual might impede good government, common sense calls for his ostracism. No nation has been more slow to realise this than England. A code of order and morals established two thousand years ago has been accepted by them as incapable of modification or improvement. To take a single instance. Supposing De Valera had been shot the first day he talked treason against the Empire, your troubles with Ireland would have been immensely minimised. And mark this, for it is the crux of the whole matter, the people of Ireland would have attained what they wanted much sooner. You are not one of those, Andrew Tallente, who refuse to see the writing on the wall. You know that in one form or another in this country the democracy must rule. They felt the flame of inspiration when war came and they helped to win the war. What was their reward? The opulent portion of them were saddled with an enormous income tax and high prices of living through bad legislation, which made life a burden. The more poverty-stricken suffered sympathetically in exactly the same way. We won the war and we lost the peace. We fastened upon the shoulders of the deserving, the wage-earning portion of the community, a burden which their shoulders could never carry a burden which, had we lost the war instead of winning it, would have led promptly to a revolution and a measure at least of freedom.
human
There is so much of truth in what you say, Tallente declared,
gpt
Steady on, Miller interrupted, suddenly sitting up in his chair.
human
Look here, Tallente--
gpt
Be quiet until I have finished, Tallente went on.
human
He was concerned in no end of intrigue with Austrian and German Socialists for embarrassing the Government and bringing the war to an end. I should say that but for the fact that our Government at the time was wholly one of compromise, and was leaning largely upon the Labour vote, he would have been impeached for high treason.
gpt
And what of all this?
human
Nothing, Tallente replied,
gpt
No man's principles can remain stable in an unstable world, Miller pronounced.
human
I still detest force and compulsion of every sort, but I recognise its necessity in our present civil life far more than I did in a war which was, after all, a war of politicians.
gpt
Mr. Tallente, she said,
human
I can understand your feeling aggrieved. You are not a man whom it is easy to threaten, but remember that after all we must go on our fixed way towards the appointed goal. And--consider--isn't the upraised rod for your good? Your place is with us--indeed it is. I fancy that Stephen here forgets that you are not yet fully acquainted with our real principles and aims. A political party cannot be judged from the platform. The views expressed there have to be largely governed by the character of the audience. It is to the textbooks of our creed, Dartrey's textbooks, that you should turn.
gpt
I have read your views on certain social matters, Miss Miall,
human
And thoroughly disapproved them, of course! But you know, Mr. Tallente, we are out not to reconstruct Society but to lay the stepping stones for a reconstruction. That is all, I suppose, that any single generation could accomplish. The views which I have advocated in the _Universal Review_ are the views which will be accepted as a matter of course in fifty years' time. To-day they seem crude and unmoral, chiefly because the casual reader, especially the British reader, dwells so much upon external effects and thinks so little of the soul that lies below. Even you, Mr. Tallente, with your passion for order and your distrust of all change in established things, can scarcely consider our marriage laws an entire success?
gpt
We want you to remember this, he said.
human
The principles which we advocate are condemned before they are considered by men of inherited principles and academic education such as yourself, because you have associated them always with the disciples of anarchy, bolshevism, and other diseased rituals. You have never stooped to separate the good from the bad. The person who dares to tamper with the laws of King Alfred stands before you prejudged. Granted that our doctrines are extreme, are we--let me be personal and say am I--the class of man whom you have associated with these doctrines? We Democrats have gained great power during the last ten years. We have thrust our influence deep into the hearts of those great, sinister bodies, the trades unions. There is no one except ourselves who realises our numerical and potential strength. We could have created a revolution in this country at any time since the Premier's first gloomy speech in the House of Commons after the signing of peace, had we chosen. I can assure you that we haven't the least fancy for marching through the streets with red flags and letting loose the diseased end of our community upon the palaces and public buildings of London. We are Democrats or Republicans, whichever you choose to call us, who desire to conquer with the brain, as we shall conquer, and where we recognise a man of genius like yourself, who must be for us or against us, if we cannot convert him then we must see that politically he ceases to count.
gpt
I cannot offer you dinner, he said,
human
I accept your invitation, Dartrey replied eagerly.
gpt
I have been sitting here, longing for the chance to watch the sunset from behind your wood.
human
It will be delightful, Nora murmured.
gpt
I want to go down to the grass pier.