litician, for instance,
that his oratory has an "electric effect," or that he is "full of
personal magnetism," or that he "can sway an audience to tears or
laughter at will." A Free Paper telling the truth about him says that
he is a dull speaker, full of commonplaces, elderly, smelling strongly
of the Chapel, and giving the impression that he is tired out;
flogging up sham enthusiasm with stale phrases which the reporters
have already learnt to put into shorthand with one conventional
outline years ago.[1]

Well, the false, the ludicrously false picture designed to put this
politician in the limelight (as against favours to be rendered), no
doubt remains the general impression with most of those 500,000
people. The simple and rather tawdry truth may be but doubtfully
accepted by a few hundreds only.

But sooner or later a certain small proportion of the 500,000 actually
_hear_ the politician in question. They hear him speak. They receive a
primary and true impression.

If they had not read anything suggesting the truth, it is quite upon
the cards that the false suggestion would still have weight with
them, in spite of the evidence of their senses. Men are so built that
uncontradicted falsehood sufficiently repeated does have that curious
power of illusion. A man having heard the speech delivered by the old
gentleman, if there were nothing but the Official Press to inform
opinion, might go away saying to himself: "I was not very much
impressed, but no doubt that was due to my own weariness. I cannot but
believe that the general reputation he bears is well founded. He must
be a great orator, for I have always heard him called one."

But a man who has even once seen it stated that this politician was
_exactly what he was_ will vividly remember that description (which at
first hearing he probably thought false); physical experience has
confirmed the true statement and made it live. These statements of
truth, even when they are quite unimportant, more, of course, when
they illuminate matters of great civic moment, have a cumulative
effect.

I am confident, for instance, that at the present time the mass of
middle-class people are not only acquainted with, but convinced of,
the truth, that, long before the war, the House of Commons had become
a fraud; that its debates did not turn upon matters which really
divided opinion, and that even its paltry debating points, the
pretence of a true opposition was a falsehood.