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the new machiavelli-第26章

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central substance of that inalertness the book set itself to assail。  

So many things have been brought together in my mind that were once 

remotely separated。  A people that will not valiantly face and 

understand and admit love and passion can understand nothing 

whatever。  But in those days what is now just obvious truth to me 

was altogether outside my range of comprehension。 。 。 。







8





As I seek to recapitulate the interlacing growth of my apprehension 

of the world; as I flounder among the half…remembered developments 

that found me a crude schoolboy and left me a man; there comes out; 

as if it stood for all the rest; my first holiday abroad。  That did 

not happen until I was twenty…two。  I was a fellow of Trinity; and 

the Peace of Vereeniging had just been signed。



I went with a man named Willersley; a man some years senior to 

myself; who had just missed a fellowship and the higher division of 

the Civil Service; and who had become an enthusiastic member of the 

London School Board; upon which the cumulative vote and the support 

of the 〃advanced〃 people had placed him。  He had; like myself; a 

small independent income that relieved him of any necessity to earn 

a living; and he had a kindred craving for social theorising and 

some form of social service。  He had sought my acquaintance after 

reading a paper of mine (begotten by the visit of Chris Robinson) on 

the limits of pure democracy。  It had marched with some thoughts of 

his own。



We went by train to Spiez on the Lake of Thun; then up the Gemmi; 

and thence with one or two halts and digressions and a little modest 

climbing we crossed over by the Antrona pass (on which we were 

benighted) into Italy; and by way of Domo D'ossola and the Santa 

Maria Maggiore valley to Cannobio; and thence up the lake to Locarno 

(where; as I shall tell; we stayed some eventful days) and so up the 

Val Maggia and over to Airolo and home。



As I write of that long tramp of ours; something of its freshness 

and enlargement returns to me。  I feel again the faint pleasant 

excitement of the boat train; the trampling procession of people 

with hand baggage and laden porters along the platform of the 

Folkestone pier; the scarcely perceptible swaying of the moored boat 

beneath our feet。  Then; very obvious and simple; the little emotion 

of standing out from the homeland and seeing the long white Kentish 

cliffs recede。  One walked about the boat doing one's best not to 

feel absurdly adventurous; and presently a movement of people 

directed one's attention to a white lighthouse on a cliff to the 

east of us; coming up suddenly; and then one turned to scan the 

little different French coast villages; and then; sliding by in a 

pale sunshine came a long wooden pier with oddly dressed children 

upon it; and the clustering town of Boulogne。



One took it all with the outward calm that became a young man of 

nearly three and twenty; but one was alive to one's finger…tips with 

pleasing little stimulations。  The custom house examination excited 

one; the strangeness of a babble in a foreign tongue; one found the 

French of City Merchants' and Cambridge a shy and viscous flow; and 

then one was standing in the train as it went slowly through the 

rail…laid street to Boulogne Ville; and one looked out at the world 

in French; porters in blouses; workmen in enormous purple trousers; 

police officers in peaked caps instead of helmets and romantically 

cloaked; big carts; all on two wheels instead of four; green 

shuttered casements instead of sash windows; and great numbers of 

neatly dressed women in economical mourning。



〃Oh! there's a priest!〃 one said; and was betrayed into suchlike 

artless cries。



It was a real other world; with different government and different 

methods; and in the night one was roused from uneasy slumbers and 

sat blinking and surly; wrapped up in one's couverture and with 

one's oreiller all awry; to encounter a new social phenomenon; the 

German official; so different in manner from the British; and when 

one woke again after that one had come to Bale; and out one tumbled 

to get coffee in Switzerland。 。 。 。



I have been over that route dozens of times since; but it still 

revives a certain lingering youthfulness; a certain sense of 

cheerful release in me。



I remember that I and Willersley became very sociological as we ran 

on to Spiez; and made all sorts of generalisations from the steeply 

sloping fields on the hillsides; and from the people we saw on 

platforms and from little differences in the way things were done。



The clean prosperity of Bale and Switzerland; the big clean 

stations; filled me with patriotic misgivings; as I thought of the 

vast dirtiness of London; the mean dirtiness of Cambridgeshire。  It 

came to me that perhaps my scheme of international values was all 

wrong; that quite stupendous possibilities and challenges for us and 

our empire might be developing hereand I recalled Meredith's 

Skepsey in France with a new understanding。



Willersley had dressed himself in a world…worn Norfolk suit of 

greenish grey tweeds that ended unfamiliarly at his rather 

impending; spectacled; intellectual visage。  I didn't; I remember; 

like the contrast of him with the drilled Swiss and Germans about 

us。  Convict coloured stockings and vast hobnail boots finished him 

below; and all his luggage was a borrowed rucksac that he had tied 

askew。  He did not want to shave in the train; but I made him at one 

of the Swiss stationsI dislike these Oxford slovenlinessesand 

then confound him! he cut himself and bled。 。 。 。



Next morning we were breathing a thin exhilarating air that seemed 

to have washed our very veins to an incredible cleanliness; and 

eating hard…boiled eggs in a vast clear space of rime…edged rocks; 

snow…mottled; above a blue…gashed glacier。  All about us the 

monstrous rock surfaces rose towards the shining peaks above; and 

there were winding moraines from which the ice had receded; and then 

dark clustering fir trees far below。



I had an extraordinary feeling of having come out of things; of 

being outside。



〃But this is the round world!〃 I said; with a sense of never having 

perceived it before; 〃this is the round world!〃







9





That holiday was full of big comprehensive effects; the first view 

of the Rhone valley and the distant Valaisian Alps; for example; 

which we saw from the shoulder of the mountain above the Gemmi; and 

the early summer dawn breaking over Italy as we moved from our 

night's crouching and munched bread and chocolate and stretched our 

stiff limbs among the tumbled and precipitous rocks that hung over 

Lake Cingolo; and surveyed the winding tiring rocky track going down 

and down to Antronapiano。



And our thoughts were as comprehensive as our impressions。  

Willersley's mind abounded in historical matter; he had an 

inaccurate abundant habit of topographical reference; he made me see 

and trace and see again the Roman Empire sweep up these winding 

valleys; and the coming of the first great Peace among the warring 

tribes of men。 。 。 。



In the retrospect each of us seems to have been talking about our 

outlook almost continually。  Each of us; you see; was full of the 

same question; very near and altogether predominant to us; the 

question: 〃What am I going to do with my life?〃  He saw it almost as 

importantly as I; but from a different angle; because his choice was 

largely made and mine still hung in the balance。



〃I feel we might do so many things;〃 I said; 〃and everything that 

calls one; calls one away from something else。〃



Willersley agreed without any modest disavowals。



〃We have got to think out;〃 he said; 〃just what we are and what we 

are up to。  We've got to do that now。  And thenit's one of those 

questions it is inadvisable to reopen subsequently。〃



He beamed at me through his glasses。  The sententious use of long 

words was a playful habit with him; that and a slight deliberate 

humour; habits occasional Extension Lecturing was doing very much to 

intensify。



〃You've made your decision?〃



He nodded with a peculiar forward movement of his head。



〃How would you put it?〃



〃Social Serviceeducation。  Whatever else matters or doesn't 

matter; it seems to me there is one thing we MUST have and increase; 

and that is the number of people who can think a littleand have 〃

he beamed again〃 an adequate sense of causation。〃



〃You're sure it's worth while。〃



〃For mecertainly。  I don't discuss that any more。〃



〃I don't limit myself too narrowly;〃 he added。  〃After all; the work 

is all one。  We who know; we who feel; are building the great modern 

state; joining wall to wall and way to way; the new great England 

rising out of the decaying old 。 。 。 we are the real statesmenI 

like that use of 
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