was in a position to affirm that these things might not have
been. If a man's capacities are hinted at or even stated by himself to
his fellow-creatures with a certain amount of discretion, and if he does
not court failure by putting them to the proof, it does not occur to
most people to contradict him, and the possible truth of the
contradiction soon sinks out of sight. So Sir William sat on the brink
of the river and watched the others plunging into the waves, diving,
rising, breasting the current, and was agreeably supported by the
consciousness that if Fate had so ordained it, he himself would have
been capable of performing all these feats just as creditably. No need
now to stifle a misgiving that in the old days would occasionally
obtrude itself into the glowing views of the future, that he was
possibly not of a stature to play the great parts for which he might be
cast. On the contrary, what now remained was the blessed peace brought
by renunciation, the calm renunciation of prospects that in the light of
ceasing to try to attain them seemed absolutely certain. No one now
could ever say that he had failed. He had been prevented by
circumstances from achieving any success of a definite and conspicuous
kind, although the position he had attained, the consideration nearly
always accorded to the ordinary prosperous middle-aged Englishman of the
upper classes who has done nothing to forfeit his claim to it, and more
than all, the plenitude of assurance which he received of his deserts
from his immediate surroundings, might well have been considered success
enough. And on his return to England, after eighteen months of
wandering, although he was no longer in Parliament and had no actual
voice in deciding the politics of his country, it pleased him to think
that if he chose he could still take an active line, that he could
belong to the volunteer army of orators who make speeches at other
people's elections and who write letters to the newspaper that the world
may know their views on a given situation.

At the time of which we speak political parties in England were trying
in vain to re-adjust an equable balance. Conservatives and Unionists,
almost indistinguishable, were waving the Imperialist banner in the
face of the world. The Liberals, once the advanced and subversive party,
were now raising their voices in protest, tentatively advocating the
claims of what they considered the oppressed races. Derisive epithets
wer