Sea"
finished in the full consciousness that I had dealt honestly with myself
and my readers in every line of that book, I gave myself up to a not
unhappy pause. Then, while I was yet standing still, as it were, and
certainly not thinking of going out of my way to look for anything ugly,
the subject of "The Secret Agent"--I mean the tale--came to me in the
shape of a few words uttered by a friend in a casual conversation about
anarchists or rather anarchist activities; how brought about I don't
remember now.

I remember, however, remarking on the criminal futility of the whole
thing, doctrine, action, mentality; and on the contemptible aspect of
the half-crazy pose as of a brazen cheat exploiting the poignant
miseries and passionate credulities of a mankind always so tragically
eager for self-destruction. That was what made for me its philosophical
pretences so unpardonable. Presently, passing to particular instances,
we recalled the already old story of the attempt to blow up the
Greenwich Observatory; a blood-stained inanity of so fatuous a kind that
it was impossible to fathom its origin by any reasonable or even
unreasonable process of thought. For perverse unreason has its own
logical processes. But that outrage could not be laid hold of mentally
in any sort of way, so that one remained faced by the fact of a man
blown to bits for nothing even most remotely resembling an idea,
anarchistic or other. As to the outer wall of the Observatory it did not
show as much as the faintest crack.

I pointed all this out to my friend who remained silent for a while and
then remarked in his characteristically casual and omniscient manner:
"Oh, that fellow was half on idiot. His sister committed suicide
afterwards." These were absolutely the only words that passed between
us; for extreme surprise at this unexpected piece of information kept me
dumb for a moment and he began at once to talk of something else. It
never occurred to me later to ask how he arrived at his knowledge. I am
sure that if he had seen once in his life the back of an anarchist that
must have been the whole extent of his connection with the underworld.
He was, however, a man who liked to talk with all sorts of people, and
he may have gathered those illuminating facts at second or third hand,
from a crossing-sweeper, from a retired police officer, from some vague
man in his club, or even, perhaps, from a Minister of State met at some
public or private receptio