but appetites and passions.
Power then is the condition of life, even of the life of the mass, in
any sense in which it is worth having. And in the interest of
Democracy itself every good Democrat ought to pray for the advent of
Aristocracy."

ALL of our company had now spoken except two. One was the author,
Vivian, and him I had decided to leave till the last. The other was
John Woodman, a member of the Society of Friends, and one who was
commonly regarded as a crank, because he lived on a farm in the
country, worked with his hands, and refused to pay taxes on the ground
that they went to maintain the army and navy. If Harington was
handsome, Woodman was beautiful, but with beauty of expression rather
than of features, I had always thought of him as a perfect example of
that rare type, the genuine Christian. And since Harington had just
revealed himself as a typical Pagan, I felt glad of the chance which
brought the two men into such close juxtaposition. My only doubt was,
whether Woodman would consent to speak. For on previous occasions I
had known him to refuse; and he was the only one of us who had always
been able to sustain his refusal, without unpleasantness, but without
yielding. To-night, however, he rose in response to my appeal, and
spoke as follows:

"All the evening I have been wondering when the lot would fall on me,
and whether, when it did, I should feel, as we Friends say, 'free' to
answer the call. Now that it has come, I am, I think, free; but not,
if you will pardon me, for a long or eloquent speech. What I have to
say I shall say as simply and as briefly as I can; and you, I know,
will listen with your accustomed tolerance, though I shall differ even
more, if possible, from all the other speakers, than they have differed
from one another. For you have all spoken from the point of view of
the world. You have put forward proposals for changing society and
making it better. But you have relied, for the most part, on external
means to accomplish such changes. You have spoken of extending or
limiting the powers of government, of socialism, of anarchy, of
education, of selective breeding. But you have not spoken of the
Spirit and the Life, or not in the sense in which I would wish to speak
of them. MacCarthy, indeed, I remember, used the words 'the life of
the spirit.' But I could not well understand what he meant, except
that he hoped to attain it by violence; and in that way what I wo