Meavy was more like a poet than a statesman. Slender and romantic, with pointed beard, he had the tired eyes of a man who has persistently cut short his sleep until Nature, in revenge, denies him rest in the few remaining hours he might otherwise snatch. He liked Miss Beadon; she was negative, so did not tax his brain, and he was susceptible, like most men, to her obvious appreciation of his society. Washington Hare, who had the fourth seat in the circle, leading literary critic of the _Times_, was a complete contrast in type to Meavy. Seventy-three years old, gaunt and rugged, his intellect was as mature, his judgment as virile, as that of a man in the prime of life. He called his art a trade, with a grim smile, and loved it passionately. Bad craftsmen fled his presence as if it conjured before them a grim array of the infinitives they had split and the phrases they had worn too well. His voice, breaking in raucously upon a discussion in which he had hitherto taken no part, attracted Mrs. Brand’s attention. "Carlyle summed up the question," he said, "when he called universal history the history of great men who had worked in the world. The nation needs great men just now. Mediocrity and indifference are the curses of the empire. Mediocrity produces cheap content with small successes, and indifference is deadly poison—a kind of gangrene of the soul. Indifference is infectious. Unluckily, the men who catch its breath do not die swiftly. Themselves immeasurably corrupt, they live to corrupt others." "Come now, I can recall the names of three great men, all living," suggested Creagh good-humouredly. "Oh—well—you are indulgent," said Beadon dryly. "Two of them are bitter enemies, and the third celebrated his seventieth birthday lately." "I suppose there are some younger men somewhere," Dora Beadon put in gaily. "Father won’t let them come to our parties because he’s so afraid they will all want to marry me! But surely they exist." "Take our young politicians," Hare continued, ignoring Miss Beadon’s interruption, and warming to his subject as the babble of talk died down. "Not an ounce of stamina in the lot. One particularly young gentleman in the Ministry happens to have pushed himself to the fore, but he won’t stay there. The party, as a whole, is hypnotized by those of its members who have a few sparks of magnetic force. On our own side it’s as bad. We’ve got men of average intelligence, and average intelligence is a most stultifying quality. Two-thirds of sublime folly and a fraction of wisdom produce a better leader than any amount of average intelligence can compass. And as for the sacred fount, immortal fire, food of the gods, call it what you will, that undefined quality that leads men on to dare forlorn hopes and brave martyrdom—the House of Commons would not recognize it if it were there. And yet without it, men are impotent. They themselves move and have their being, but cannot produce life in others."