He passed on, drawn again down Constitution Hill, and the Mall, back to the Houses of Parliament and the River.... The night was clear and frosty. He paused on Westminster Bridge, and leant over the parapet, feasting his eyes on that incomparable scene which age cannot wither nor custom stale for the heart of an Englishman. The long front of the Houses of Parliament rose darkly over the faintly moonlit river; the wharves and houses beyond, a medley of strong or delicate line, of black shadow and pale lights, ran far into a vaporous distance powdered with lamps. On the other side St. Thomas's Hospital, and an answering chain of lamps, far-flung towards Battersea. Between, the river, heaving under a full tide, with the dim barges and tugs passing up and down. "The Mississippi, Sir, is dirty water--the St. Lawrence is cold, dirty water--but the Thames, Sir, is liquid 'istory!" That famous _mot_ of a Labour Minister delighted Mark's dreaming sense. The river indeed as it flowed by, between buildings new and old, seemed to be bearing the nation on its breast, to symbolise the ever-renewed life of a great people. What tasks that life had seen!--what vaster issues it had still to see!-- And in that dark building, like a coiled and secret spring ready to act when touched, the Idea which ruled that life, as all life, in the end, is ruled. On the morrow, a few hundred men would flock to that building, as the representatives and servants of the Idea--of that England which lives "while we believe." And the vote behind them?--the political act which chose and sent them there? Its social power, and all its ordinary associations, noble or ignoble, seemed suddenly to vanish, for Winnington, engulfed in something infinitely greater, something vital and primitive, on which all else depended. He hung, absorbed, over the sliding water, giving the rein to reverie. He seemed to see the English Spirit, hovering, proudly watchful, above that high roof beside the dark water-way, looking out to sea, and across the world. What indomitable force, what ichor gleaming fire, through the dark veins of that weary Titan, sustained him there?--amid the clash of alien antagonisms, and the mysterious currents of things? What but the lavished blood and brain of England's sons?--that rude primal power that men alone can bring to their country? Let others solve their own problems! But can women share the male tasks that make and keep _us_ a Nation, amid a jarring and environing host of Nations?--an Empire, with the guardianship of half the world on its shoulders? And if not, how can men rightly share with women the act which controls those tasks, and chooses the men to execute them?