ldren; its culture, that it grafted on the old aristocratic stem,
must decay with it. When the culture derived from the lower classes is
ready to be grafted in its turn upon the old stem it is possible that
mankind's progress will go backwards a little to find its footing, and
will then take one of its great jumps forward.

5

[Sidenote: _THE SOCIO-POLITICAL PROBLEM_]

The socio-political problem turns out, on ultimate analysis, to be a
wide restatement of the old theological Problem of Pain. Suffering does
not necessarily make a fine character, but the characters that we
recognise as fine could not, apparently, have been so without
suffering. It is possible to say, "I have suffered, and though I am
scarred and seared, yet I know that on the whole I am the better for
that suffering. I do not now wish that I had not had that suffering. I
even desire that those I love shall suffer so much as they can bear,
that their conquest may be the greater, their joys the fuller, and
their life the more intense." Nevertheless, the very next moment, the
same man will try by every means possible to avoid suffering for
himself and for those he loves. That is the dualism which dogs humanity
in the mass no less than in the individual. That lies at the core of
domestic politics. But it may be that the part of our nature which
finds reason to be grateful for past suffering is higher than that part
which seeks to avoid it in the future.

Waste of the benefits of suffering is waste indeed.

IX

SEACOMBE,
_December_.

1

We hired a drosky--one of the little light landaus that they use with a
single horse in this hilly district--and thus we came down from the
station. On the box were the coachman (grinning), a cabin trunk, a
portmanteau, a gaping gladstone bag, and a rug packed with sweaters and
boots. On the front seat, a large parcel of books, a typewriter, a
dispatch case, a grubby moon-faced little friend of Tommy's, Tommy
himself, and Jimmy. On the back seat, Straighty, Dane and myself. The
small boy stood up on the seat, and Dane squatting on his haunches,
overtopped us all.

Down the hill we drove, swerving, wobbling, laughing--a May party in
leafless winter. Dane, in his efforts to lick the children's faces,
tumbled off his perch. We helped him back to his seat amid a chorus of
happy screams. The grub