Considering that I had Cecil's own assurance that my Quintessence
of Ibsenism rescued him from Rationalism, and that it was written in
1889 (I abandoned Rationalism consciously and explicitly in 1881) I
consider John Prothero's introduction of me to your readers as a
recently converted Materialist Rationalist to be a most unnatural
act; and it would serve her right if I never spoke to her again.

Rationalism is the bane of the Church. A Roman priest always wants
to argue with you. A Church of England parson flies in terror from an
argument, a fundamentally sensible course. George Fox simply knocked
arguers out with his "I have experimental knowledge of God." St.
Thomas Aquinas was like me: he knew the worthlessness of
ratiocination because he could do it so well, and yet despaired of
the Inspirationists in practical life because they did it so badly.

J.K.P. doesn't know her way about in this controversy; and I cannot
take up her challenge.

What makes me uneasy about the prospectus is that you drag in
anti-prohibition. You might as well have declared for Brighter London
at once, or said that the paper would be printed at the office of the
_Morning Advertiser_. You run the risk of the money coming from The
Trade. However, _non olet_. Only, remember the fate of all the
editors--Gardiner, Donald, Massingham, etc., etc.--who have written
without regard to their proprietors. The strength of your position is
that they can hardly carry on with your name in the title without
you. But they can kill the paper by stopping supplies if it does not
pay; and the chances are that it will not. I have never had a
farthing of interest on my shares in the New Statesman, and don't
expect I ever shall. Therefore keep your list of shareholders as
various and as uncommercial as you can: get Catholic money rather
than beer money.

As I am the real patentee of the Distributive State, and the D.S.
is Socialism; and as, furthermore, the Church must remain at least
neutral on Prohibition, as in the United States, where a Catholic
priest has just set a praiseworthy example of neutrality by bringing
about a record cop of bootleggers, and as the success of Prohibition
is so overwhelming that it is bound to become a commonplace of
civilization, you must regard it as at least possible that you will
some day make the paper Socialist and