And yet
we must admit that they would not really have been fundamentally surprised
if he had shaved his head in humiliation, given all his goods to the poor,
embraced the lepers in a lazar-house, and been canonised as a saint in
heaven. So strongly did they hold that the pivot of Will should turn
freely, which now is rusted, and sticks.
For we, whatever our political opinions, certainly never think of our
public men like that. If we hold the opinion that Mr. Lloyd George is a
noble tribune of the populace and protector of the poor, we do not admit
that he can ever have paltered with the truth or bargained with the
powerful. If we hold the equally idiotic opinion that he is a red and
rabid Socialist, maddening mobs into mutiny and theft, then we expect him
to go on maddening them--and us. We do not expect him, let us say,
suddenly to go into a monastery. We have lost the idea of repentance;
especially in public things; that is why we cannot really get rid of our
great national abuses of economic tyranny and aristocratic avarice.
Progress in the modern sense is a very dismal drudge; and mostly consists
of being moved on by the police. We move on because we are not allowed to
move back.
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