Produced by Al Haines A MODERN SYMPOSIUM BY G. LOWES DICKINSON "LIFE LIKE A DOME OF MANY-COLOURED GLASS STAINS THE WHITE RADIANCE OF ETERNITY" LONDON GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD MUSEUM STREET FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1905 REPRINTED 1930 REPRINTED 1934 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY UNWIN BROTHERS LTD., WOKING FRATRUM SOCIETATI FRATRUM MINIMUS THE SPEAKERS LORD CANTILUPE A TORY ALFRED REMENHAM A LIBERAL REUBEN MENDOZA A CONSERVATIVE GEORGE ALLISON A SOCIALIST ANGUS MACCARTHY AN ANARCHIST HENRY MARTIN A PROFESSOR CHARLES WILSON A MAN OF SCIENCE ARTHUR ELLIS A JOURNALIST PHILIP AUDUBON A MAN OF BUSINESS AUBREY CORYAT A POET SIR JOHN HARINGTON A GENTLEMAN OF LEISURE WILLIAM WOODMAN A MEMBER OF THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS GEOFFRY VIVIAN A MAN OF LETTERS A MODERN SYMPOSIUM SOME of my readers may have heard of a club known as the Seekers. It is now extinct; but in its day it was famous, and included a number of men prominent in politics or in the professions. We used to meet once a fortnight on the Saturday night, in London during the winter, but in the summer usually at the country house of one or other of the members, where we would spend the week-end together. The member in whose house the meeting was held was chairman for the evening; and after the paper had been read it was his duty to call upon the members to speak in what order he thought best. On the occasion of the discussion which I am to record, the meeting was held in my own house, where I now write, on the North Downs. The company was an interesting one. There was Remenham, then Prime Minister, and his great antagonist Mendoza, both of whom were members of our society. For we aimed at combining the most opposite elements, and were usually able, by a happy tradition inherited from our founder, to hold them suspended in a temporary harmony. Then there was Cantilupe, who had recently retired from public life, and whose name, perhaps, is already beginning to be forgotten. Of younger men we had Allison, who, though still engaged in business, was already active in his socialist propaganda. Angus MacCarthy, too, was there, a man whose tragic end at Saint Petersburg is still fresh in our minds. And there were others of less note; Wilson, the biologist, Professor Martin, Coryat, the poet, and one or two more who will be mentioned in their place.