ffence, and it IS an offence, then deal
with it as such, but don't go badgering and restricting people who sell
something that may possibly in some cases lead to a neglect of children.
If drunkenness is an offence, punish it, but don't punish a man for
selling honest drink that perhaps after all won't make any one drunk at
all. Don't intensify the viciousness of the public-house by assuming the
place isn't fit for women and children. That's either spite or folly.
Make the public-house FIT for women and children. Make it a real
public-house. If we Liberals go on as we are going, we shall presently
want to stop the sale of ink and paper because those things tempt men
to forgery. We do already threaten the privacy of the post because of
betting tout's letters. The drift of all that kind of thing is narrow,
unimaginative, mischievous, stupid...."

I stopped short and walked to the window and surveyed a pretty fountain,
facsimile of one in Verona, amidst trim-cut borderings of yew. Beyond,
and seen between the stems of ilex trees, was a great blaze of yellow
flowers....

"But prevention," I heard Margaret behind me, "is the essence of our
work."

I turned. "There's no prevention but education. There's no antiseptics
in life but love and fine thinking. Make people fine, make fine people.
Don't be afraid. These Tory leaders are better people individually
than the average; why cast them for the villains of the piece? The
real villain in the piece--in the whole human drama--is the
muddle-headedness, and it matters very little if it's virtuous-minded or
wicked. I want to get at muddle-headedness. If I could do that I could
let all that you call wickedness in the world run about and do what
it jolly well pleased. It would matter about as much as a slightly
neglected dog--in an otherwise well-managed home."

My thoughts had run away with me.

"I can't understand you," said Margaret, in the profoundest distress. "I
can't understand how it is you are coming to see things like this."

10

The moods of a thinking man in politics are curiously evasive and
difficult to describe. Neither the public nor the historian will permit
the statesman moods. He has from the first to assume he has an Aim, a
definite Aim, and to pretend to an absolute consistency with that. Those
subtle questionings about the very fundamentals of life which plague us
all so relentlessly nowadays are supposed to be silenced. He lifts his
chin and pursue