never needed any man's eloquence to give him that. But the substitution
of sentiment for reason, in the proper place for reason, affected him
"as musicians are affected by a false note." It was the combination of
this intellectual integrity with extraordinary warmth and simplicity in
the affections that made the point of his personality. The snobs and
servile apologists of the _regime_ he resisted seem to think they can
atone for being hard-hearted by being soft-headed. He reversed, if ever
a man did, that relation in the organs. The opposite condition really
covers all that can be said of him in this brief study; it is the clue
not only to his character but to his career.
If rationalism meant being rational (which it hardly ever does) he might
at every stage of his life be called a red-hot rationalist. Thus, for
instance, he very early became a Socialist and joined the Fabian
Society, on the executive of which he played a prominent part for some
years. But he afterwards gave the explanation, very characteristic for
those who could understand it, that what he liked about the Fabian sort
of Socialism was its hardness. He meant intellectual hardness; the fact
that the society avoided sentimentalism, and dealt in affirmations and
not mere associations. He meant that upon the Fabian basis a Socialist
was bound to believe in Socialism, but not in sandals, free love,
bookbinding, and immediate disarmament. But he also added that, while he
liked their hardness, he disliked their moderation. In other words, when
he discovered, or believed that he discovered, that their intellectual
hardness was combined with moral hardness, or rather moral deadness, he
felt all the intellectual ice melted by a moral flame. He had, so to
speak, a reaction of emotional realism, in which he saw, as suddenly as
simple men can see simple truths, the potterers of Social Reform as the
plotters of the Servile State. He was himself, above all things, a
democrat as well as a Socialist; and in that intellectual sect he began
to feel as if he were the only Socialist who was also a democrat. His
dogmatic, democratic conviction would alone illustrate the falsity of
the contrast between logic and life. The idea of human equality existed
with extraordinary clarity in his brain, precisely because it existed
with extraordinary simplicity in his character. His popular sympathies,
unlike so many popular sentiments, could really survive any intimacy
with the populace; they followed the poor not only at public meetings
but to public houses. He was literally the only man I ever knew who was
not only never a snob, but apparently never tempted to be a snob. The
fact is almost more important than his wonderful lack of fear; for such
good causes, when they cannot be lost by fear, are often lost by favour.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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