DIST. V. Doesn't that rather indicate failure?
CHAMBERLAIN. No. Sometimes the political world has no use for statesmen— except to down them. Sometimes it prefers politicians, and perhaps rightly. Every age makes its own peculiar requirements; and those who find out when the political line is the better one to follow, are the successful ones. You and I have been—politicians; let's be honest and own it. And now my particular politics are over. Circumstances have emptied me out. That's different from mere failure. Great statesmen have been failures; we've seen them go down, you and I—too big, too far-seeing for their day. But they went down full, with all the weight of their great convictions and principles still to their credit. I'm empty. Time has played me out. That's the difference.
DIST. V. I am confident that history will give a different verdict.
CHAMBERLAIN. Will it? When exactly does history begin to get written? Is a man's reputation for statesmanship safe, even after a hundred years? What about Pitt? Can one be so sure of him now? His European policy may have been a blunder; his great work in Ireland may yet have to be reversed.
DIST. V. In reversed circumstances, that may become logical. But what has held good for a hundred year, I should incline to regard as statesmanship.
CHAMBERLAIN. "Held good"? Fetters a man can't break "hold good "; but they make a prisoner of him all the same. Policies have done that to nations before now. But would you, on that score, say of them that they have held good?
DIST. V. But let me understand, my dear Chamberlain, what exactly in
Pitt's policy you now question?
CHAMBERLAIN. Nothing: I can't see far enough ahead to question anything. I only say, when does history begin to get written? We don't know.
DIST. V. What more can one do than direct it for the generation in which one lives? That, it seems to me, is our main responsibility.
CHAMBERLAIN. Well, that's what you and I have done. How? Mainly by pulling down bigger men than ourselves. Randolph, Parnell, Gladstone—we got the better of them, didn't we? Have you never wondered why men of genius get sent into the world—only to be defeated? Gladstone was a bigger man than the whole lot of us; but we pulled him down—and I enjoyed doing it. Parnell, for all his limitations, was a great man. Well, we got him down too. And I confess that gave me satisfaction. You helped to pull Randolph down; but you didn't enjoy doing it. That's where you and I were different.