You must have got a pretty
deep-down insight into character, Governor, when you came to the top of
things over there, to the top people, I mean.
EX PRES. (_after a pause reflectively_). Yes. it was very
interesting, when one got accustomed to it: highly selected humanity,
representative of things--it was afraid of. There daily sat four of us--if
one counts heads only; but we were, in fact, six, or seven, or eight
characters. And the characters sprang up and choked us. Patriots,
statesmen? oh yes! but also "careerists." Men whose future depends on
the popular vote can't always be themselves--at least, it seemed not; for
we should then have ceased to be "representative," and it was as
representatives that we had come. And so one would sit and listen, and
watch--one person, and two characters. Lloyd George, when his imagination
was not swamped in self-satisfaction, was quite evangelical to listen to--
sometimes. But there he was representative--not of principles, nor of
those visionary sparks which he struck so easily and threw off like
matches, but of a successful election cry for "hanging the Kaiser" and
"making Germany pay." And having got his majority, he and his majority had
become one. But for that, he might--he just might ... yet who can tell?
That tied him. I was alone.
TUMULTY (_coming nobly to the rescue_). Then take this from me,
Governor: for a man all alone you did wonders.
EX-PRES. I did my best; but I failed.
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