o some
previous settlement that seemed secure; but we cannot do so much as
repeal an Act of Parliament. We entertain the weak-minded notion that
what is done can't be undone. Our view was well summarised in a
typical Victorian song with the refrain: "The mill will never grind
again the water that is past." There are many answers to this. One
(which would involve a disquisition on the phenomena of Evaporation
and Dew) we will here avoid. Another is, that to the minds of simple
country folk, the object of a mill is not to grind water, but to grind
corn, and that (strange as it may seem) there really have been
societies sufficiently vigilant and valiant to prevent their corn
perpetually flowing away from them, to the tune of a sentimental song.

Now this modern refusal to undo what has been done is not only an
intellectual fault; it is a moral fault also. It is not merely our
mental inability to understand the mistake we have made. It is also
our spiritual refusal to admit that we have made a mistake. It was
mere vanity in Mr. Brummell when he sent away trays full of
imperfectly knotted neck-cloths, lightly remarking, "These are our
failures." It is a good instance of the nearness of vanity to
humility, for at least he had to admit that they were failures. But it
would have been spiritual pride in Mr. Brummell if he had tied on all
the cravats, one on top of the other, lest his valet should discover
that he had ever tied one badly. For in spiritual pride there is
always an element of secrecy and solitude. Mr. Brummell would be
satanic; also (which I fear would affect him more) he would be badly
dressed. But he would be a perfect presentation of the modern
publicist, who cannot do anything right, because he must not admit
that he ever did anything wrong.

This strange, weak obstinacy, this persistence in the wrong path of
progress, grows weaker and worse, as do all such weak things. And by
the time in which I write its moral attitude has taken on something of
the sinister and even the horrible. Our mistakes have become our
secrets. Editors and journalists tear up with a guilty air all that
reminds them of the party promises unfulfilled, or the party ideals
reproaching them. It is true of our statesmen (much more than of our
bishops, of whom Mr. Wells said it), that socially in evidence they
are intellectually in hiding. The society is heavy with unconfessed
sins; its mind is sore and silent with painful subjects; it has a