cross-roads and vicious little hills, and singularly unpleasing to

the eye in a muddy winter. It is sufficiently near to London to

have undergone the same process of ill-regulated expansion that made

Bromstead the place it is. Several of its overgrown villages have

developed strings of factories and sidings along the railway lines,

and there is an abundance of petty villas. There seemed to be no

place at which one could take hold of more than this or that element

of the population. Now we met in a meeting-house, now in a Masonic

Hall or Drill Hall; I also did a certain amount of open-air speaking

in the dinner hour outside gas-works and groups of factories. Some

special sort of people was, as it were, secreted in response to each

special appeal. One said things carefully adjusted to the

distinctive limitations of each gathering. Jokes of an incredible

silliness and shallowness drifted about us. Our advisers made us

declare that if we were elected we would live in the district, and

one hasty agent had bills printed, "If Mr. Remington is elected he

will live here." The enemy obtained a number of these bills and

stuck them on outhouses, pigstyes, dog-kennels; you cannot imagine

how irksome the repetition of that jest became. The vast drifting

indifference in between my meetings impressed me more and more. I

realised the vagueness of my own plans as I had never done before I

brought them to the test of this experience. I was perplexed by the

riddle of just how far I was, in any sense of the word, taking hold

at all, how far I wasn't myself flowing into an accepted groove.

Margaret was troubled by no such doubts. She was clear I had to go

into Parliament on the side of Liberalism and the light, as against

the late Government and darkness. Essential to the memory of my

first contest, is the memory of her clear bright face, very resolute

and grave, helping me consciously, steadfastly, with all her

strength. Her quiet confidence, while I was so dissatisfied, worked

curiously towards the alienation of my sympathies. I felt she had

no business to be so sure of me. I had moments of vivid resentment

at being thus marched towards Parliament.

I seemed now always to be discovering alien forces of character in

her. Her way of taking life diverged from me more and more. She

sounded amazing, independent notes. She bought some particularly

costly furs for the campaign that roused enthusiasm whenever she

appeared. She also made me a birthday present in November of a

heavily fur-trimmed coat and this she would make me remove as I went

on to the platform, and hold over her arm until I was ready to

resume it. It was fearfully heavy for her and she liked it to be

heavy for her. That act of servitude was in essence a towering

self-assertion. I would glance sideways while some chairman

floundered through his introduction and see the clear blue eye with

which she regarded the audience, which existed so far as she was

concerned merely to return me to Parliament. It was a friendly eye,

provided they were not silly or troublesome. But it kindled a

little at the hint of a hostile question. After we had come so far

and taken so much trouble!

She constituted herself the dragoman of our political travels. In

hotels she was serenely resolute for the quietest and the best, she

rejected all their proposals for meals and substituted a severely

nourishing dietary of her own, and even in private houses she

astonished me by her tranquil insistence upon special comforts and

sustenance. I can see her face now as it would confront a hostess,

a little intent, but sweetly resolute and assured.

Since our marriage she had read a number of political memoirs, and

she had been particularly impressed by the career of Mrs. Gladstone.

I don't think it occurred to her to compare and contrast my quality

with that of Mrs. Gladstone's husband. I suspect her of a

deliberate intention of achieving parallel results by parallel

methods. I was to be Gladstonised. Gladstone it appeared used to

lubricate his speeches with a mixture-if my memory serves me right-

of egg beaten up in sherry, and Margaret was very anxious I should

take a leaf from that celebrated book. She wanted, I know, to hold

the glass in her hand while I was speaking.

But here I was firm. "No," I said, very decisively, "simply I won't

stand that. It's a matter of conscience. I shouldn't feel-

democratic. I'll take my chance of the common water in the carafe

on the chairman's table."

"I DO wish you wouldn't," she said, distressed.

It was absurd to feel irritated; it was so admirable of her, a

little childish, infinitely womanly and devoted and fine-and I see

now how pathetic. But I could not afford to succumb to her. I

wanted to follow my own leading, to see things clearly, and this

reassuring pose of a high destiny, of an almost terribly efficient

pursuit of a fixed end when as a matter of fact I had a very

doubtful end and an aim as yet by no means fixed, was all too

seductive for dalliance…