it ever, indeed, or will
it ever indeed be possible? Is the progress that seems attainable in
certain directions worth the retrogression that may be its price?

4

It was to the Pentagram Circle that I first broached the new conceptions
that were developing in my mind. I count the evening of my paper the
beginning of the movement that created the BLUE WEEKLY and our wing of
the present New Tory party. I do that without any excessive egotism,
because my essay was no solitary man's production; it was my reaction
to forces that had come to me very large through my fellow-members; its
quick reception by them showed that I was, so to speak, merely the first
of the chestnuts to pop. The atmospheric quality of the evening stands
out very vividly in my memory. The night, I remember, was warmly foggy
when after midnight we went to finish our talk at my house.

We had recently changed the rules of the club to admit visitors, and
so it happened that I had brought Britten, and Crupp introduced Arnold
Shoesmith, my former schoolfellow at City Merchants, and now the
wealthy successor of his father and elder brother. I remember his heavy,
inexpressively handsome face lighting to his rare smile at the sight of
me, and how little I dreamt of the tragic entanglement that was destined
to involve us both. Gane was present, and Esmeer, a newly-added
member, but I think Bailey was absent. Either he was absent, or he said
something so entirely characteristic and undistinguished that it has
left no impression on my mind.

I had broken a little from the traditions of the club even in my title,
which was deliberately a challenge to the liberal idea: it was, "The
World Exists for Exceptional People." It is not the title I should
choose now--for since that time I have got my phrase of "mental
hinterlander" into journalistic use. I should say now, "The World Exists
for Mental Hinterland."

The notes I made of that opening have long since vanished with a
thousand other papers, but some odd chance has preserved and brought
with me to Italy the menu for the evening; its back black with the
scrawled notes I made of the discussion for my reply. I found it the
other day among some letters from Margaret and a copy of the 1909 Report
of the Poor Law Commission, also rich with pencilled marginalia.

My opening was a criticism of the democratic idea and method, upon lines
such as I have already sufficiently indicated in the preceding sections.