It was an odd, fragmentary discussion that night. We were all with ideas in our minds at once fine and imperfect. We threw out suggestions that showed themselves at once far inadequate, and we tried to qualify them by minor self-contradictions. Britten, I think, got more said than any one. “You all seem to think you want to organise people, particular groups and classes of individuals,” he insisted. “It isn't that. That's the standing error of politicians. You want to organise a culture. Civilisation isn't a matter of concrete groupings; it's a matter of prevailing ideas. The problem is how to make bold, clear ideas prevail. The question for Remington and us is just what groups of people will most help this culture forward.”
“Yes, but how are the Lords going to behave?” said Crupp. “You yourself were asking that a little while ago.”
“If they win or if they lose,” Gane maintained, “there will be a movement to reorganise aristocracy—Reform of the House of Lords, they'll call the political form of it.”
“Bailey thinks that,” said some one.
“The labour people want abolition,” said some one. “Let 'em,” said Thorns.
He became audible, sketching a possibility of action.
“Suppose all of us were able to work together. It's just one of those indeterminate, confused, eventful times ahead when a steady jet of ideas might produce enormous results.”
“Leave me out of it,” said Dayton, “IF you please.”
“We should,” said Thorns under his breath.
I took up Crupp's initiative, I remember, and expanded it.