hted. I was to accumulate large sums
in various vague ways, and enjoy innumerable "fluffy" evenings with her.

What a queer mad jumble of a shut-in world our London was, and how
blindly self-centred we all were in our pursuit of immediate gain, in
our absolute indifference to the larger outside movements, the shaping
of national destinies, the warring of national interests! I remember
that we were quite triumphant, in our little owlish way, that year; for
the weight of socialistic and anti-national, anti-responsible feeling
had forced a time-serving Cabinet into cutting down our Navy by a
quarter at one stroke. The hurried scramblers after money and pleasure
were much gratified.

"We can make defensive alliances with other Powers," they said.
"Meantime--retrench, reduce, cut down, and give us more freedom in our
race. Freedom, freedom--that's the thing; and peace for the development
of commerce."

Undoubtedly, as a people, we were fey.

X

FACILIS DESCENSUS AVERNI

Love thou thy land, with love far-brought
From out the storied Past, and used
Within the Present, but transfused
Thro' future time by power of thought.

True love turned round on fixed poles,
Love that endures not sordid ends,
For English natures, freemen, friends,
Thy brothers and immortal souls.

But pamper not a hasty time,
Nor feed with crude imaginings
The herd, wild hearts and feeble wings
That every sophister can lime.

Deliver not the tasks of might
To weakness, neither hide the ray
From those, not blind, who wait for day,
Tho' sitting girt with doubtful light.

TENNYSON.

And now, as assistant editor of _The Mass_, I entered a period of my
life upon which I look back as one might who, by chance rather than by
reason of any particular fitness for survival, had won safely through a
whirlpool. The next few years were a troublous time, a stormy era of
transition, for most English people. For many besides myself the period
was a veritable maelstrom of confusion, of blind battling with
unrecognized forces, of wasted effort, neglected duty, futile struggles,
and slavish inertia.

At an early stage I learned to know Clement Blaine for a sweater of
underpaid labour, a man as grossly self-indulgent as he was
unprincipled, as much a charlatan as he was, in many ways, an ignoramus.
Yet I see now, more clearly