We had some stolen meetings, too, in the evenings, I upon one side of a low garden wall, Sylvia upon the other. Stolen meetings are apt to be very sweet and stirring to young blood; but the sordid consideration of the railway fare to Weybridge forbade frequent indulgence, and such was my absorption in social questions, such my growing hatred of Sylvia's anti-human form of religion, that even here I could not altogether forbear from argument. Indeed, I believe I often left poor Sylvia weary and bewildered by the apparently crushing force of my representations, which, while quite capable of making her pretty head to ache, left her mental and emotional attitude as completely untouched as though I had never opened my lips.
Wrought up by means of my own eloquence, I would make my way back to London in a hot tremor of exaltation, which I took to be love and desire of Sylvia. And then, as like as not, I would receive a letter from my lady-love the next day, the refrain of which would be:
"How strange you are. How you muddle me! Indeed, you don't understand; and neither, perhaps, do I understand you. It seems to me you would drag sacred matters down to the dusty level of your politics."
The dusty level of my politics! That was it. The affairs of the world, of mortal men, they were as the affairs of ants to pretty Sylvia. A lofty and soaring view, you say? Why, no; not that exactly, for what remained of real and vital moment in her mind, to the exclusion of all serious interest in humanity? There remained, as a source of much gratification, what I called the daily dramatic performance at St. Jude's; and there remained as the one study worthy of serious devotion and interest—Sylvia Wheeler's own soul. She never sought to influence the welfare of another person's soul. Indeed, as she so often said to me, with a kind of plaintiveness which should have softened my declamatory ardour but did not, she did not like speaking of such matters at all; she regarded it as a kind of desecration.
No, it did not seem to me a lofty and inspiring view that Sylvia took. On the contrary, it exercised a choking effect upon me, by reason of what I regarded as its intense littleness and narrowness. The too often bitter and sordid realities of the struggle of life, as I saw it in London, had the effect upon me of making Sylvia's esoteric exclusiveness of interest seem so petty as to be an insult to human intelligence. I would stare out of the train windows, on my way back from Weybridge, at the countless lights, the endless huddled roofs of London; and, seeing in these a representation of the huge populace of the city, I would stretch out my arms in an impotent embrace, muttering:
"Yes, indeed, you are real; you are more important than any other consideration; you are not the mere shadows she thinks you; your service is of more moment than any miracle, or than any nursing of one's own soul!"
And so I would make my way to Fleet Street, where I forced myself to believe I served the people by teaching them to despise patriotism, to give nothing, but to organize and demand, and keep on demanding and obtaining, more and more, from a State whose business it was to give, and to ask nothing in return. I was becoming known, and smiled at mockingly, for my earnest devotion to the extreme of the Daily Gazette's policy, which, if it made for anything, made, I suppose, for anti-nationalism, anti-militarism, anti-Imperialism, anti-loyalty, and anti-everything else except State aid—by which was meant the antithesis of aid of the State.
"I've got quite a good job for you this afternoon, Mordan—something quite in your line," said Mr. Charles N. Pierce one morning. "A lot of these South African firebrands are having a luncheon at the Westminster Palace Hotel, and that fellow John Crondall is to give an address afterwards on 'Imperial Interests and Imperial Duties.' I'll give you your fling on this up to half a column—three-quarters if it's good enough; but, be careful. A sort of contemptuous good humour will be the best line to take. Make 'em ridiculous. And don't forget to convey the idea of the whole business being plutocratic. You know the sort of thing: Park Lane Israelites, scooping millions, at the expense of the overtaxed proletariat in England. Jingoism, a sort of swell bucket-shop business—you know the tone. None of your heroics, mind you. It's got to be news; but you can work in the ridicule all right."
I always think of that luncheon as one of the stepping-stones in my life. However crude and mistaken I had been up till then, I had always been sincere. My report of that function went against my own convictions. The writing of it was a painful business; I knew I was being mean and dishonest. Not that what I heard there changed my views materially. No; I still clung to my general convictions, which fitted the policy of the Daily Gazette. But the fact remained that in treating that gathering as I did, on the lines laid down by my news-editor, I knew that I was being dishonest, that I was conveying an untrue impression.
In this feeling, as in most of a young man's keen feelings, the personal element played a considerable part. I was introduced to the speaker, John Crondall, by a Cambridge man I knew, who came there on behalf of a Conservative paper, which had recently taken a new lease of life in new hands, and become the most powerful among the serious organs of the Empire party. It is a curious thing, by the way, that overwhelming as was the dominance of the anti-national party in politics, the Imperialist party could still claim the support of the greatest and most thoughtfully written newspapers.