concrete.
As it is, it is not only impossible to get what one wants, but it is
impossible to get any part of it, because nobody can mark it out plainly
like a map. That clear and even hard quality that there was in the old
bargaining has wholly vanished. We forget that the word "compromise"
contains, among other things, the rigid and ringing word "promise."
Moderation is not vague; it is as definite as perfection. The middle
point is as fixed as the extreme point.

If I am made to walk the plank by a pirate, it is vain for me to offer,
as a common-sense compromise, to walk along the plank for a reasonable
distance. It is exactly about the reasonable distance that the pirate
and I differ. There is an exquisite mathematical split second at which
the plank tips up. My common-sense ends just before that instant; the
pirate's common-sense begins just beyond it. But the point itself is as
hard as any geometrical diagram; as abstract as any theological dogma.

*****

III. THE NEW HYPOCRITE

But this new cloudy political cowardice has rendered useless the old
English compromise. People have begun to be terrified of an improvement
merely because it is complete. They call it utopian and revolutionary
that anyone should really have his own way, or anything be really done,
and done with. Compromise used to mean that half a loaf was better than
no bread. Among modern statesmen it really seems to mean that half a
loaf is better than a whole loaf.

As an instance to sharpen the argument, I take the one case of our
everlasting education bills. We have actually contrived to invent a new
kind of hypocrite. The old hypocrite, Tartuffe or Pecksniff, was a man
whose aims were really worldly and practical, while he pretended that
they were religious. The new hypocrite is one whose aims are really
religious, while he pretends that they are worldly and practical. The
Rev. Brown, the Wesleyan minister, sturdily declares that he cares
nothing for creeds, but only for education; meanwhile, in truth, the
wildest Wesleyanism is tearing his soul. The Rev. Smith, of the Church
of England, explains gracefully, with the Oxford manner, that the only
question for him is the prosperity and efficiency of the schools; while
in truth all the evil passions of a curate are roaring within him. It
is a fight of creeds masquerading as policies. I think these reverend
gentlemen do themselves wrong; I think they are more pious than they
will admit. Theo