war alike. The man who owns property is a public official and
has to behave as such. That's the gist of socialism as I understand it."

"Or be dismissed from his post," I said, "and replaced by some better
sort of official. A man's none the less an official because he's
irresponsible. What he does with his property affects people just the
same. Private! No one is really private but an outlaw...."

Order and devotion were the very essence of our socialism, and a
splendid collective vigour and happiness its end. We projected an ideal
state, an organised state as confident and powerful as modern science,
as balanced and beautiful as a body, as beneficent as sunshine, the
organised state that should end muddle for ever; it ruled all our ideals
and gave form to all our ambitions.

Every man was to be definitely related to that, to have his predominant
duty to that. Such was the England renewed we had in mind, and how to
serve that end, to subdue undisciplined worker and undisciplined wealth
to it, and make the Scientific Commonweal, King, was the continuing
substance of our intercourse.

11

Every day the wine of the mountains was stronger in our blood, and the
flush of our youth deeper. We would go in the morning sunlight along
some narrow Alpine mule-path shouting large suggestions for national
reorganisation, and weighing considerations as lightly as though the
world was wax in our hands. "Great England," we said in effect, over
and over again, "and we will be among the makers! England renewed! The
country has been warned; it has learnt its lesson. The disasters and
anxieties of the war have sunk in. England has become serious.... Oh!
there are big things before us to do; big enduring things!"

One evening we walked up to the loggia of a little pilgrimage church,
I forget its name, that stands out on a conical hill at the head of a
winding stair above the town of Locarno. Down below the houses clustered
amidst a confusion of heat-bitten greenery. I had been sitting silently
on the parapet, looking across to the purple mountain masses where
Switzerland passes into Italy, and the drift of our talk seemed suddenly
to gather to a head.

I broke into speech, giving form to the thoughts that had been
accumulating. My words have long since passed out of my memory, the
phrases of familiar expression have altered for me, but the substance
remains as clear as ever. I said how we were in our measure emperors
and kings,