He rested his chin upon his hand and waited for his
companion's reply.
'At your age,' said Mr. Wyvern, smiling half sadly, 'I, too, had a
habit of vehement speaking, but it was on the other side. I was a
badly paid curate working in a wretched parish. I lived among the
vilest and poorest of the people, and my imagination was constantly
at boiling-point. I can only suppose that Westlake has been led to
look below the surface of society and has been affected as I was
then. He has the mind of a poet; probably he was struck with horror
to find over what a pit he had been living in careless enjoyment. He
is tender-hearted; of a sudden he felt himself criminal, to be
playing with beautiful toys whilst a whole world lived only to sweat
and starve. The appeal of the miserable seemed to be to him
personally. It is what certain sects call conversion in religion, a
truth addressing itself with unwonted and invincible force to the
individual soul.'
'And you, too, were a Socialist?'
'At that age and under those conditions it was right and good. I
should have been void of feeling and imagination otherwise. Such
convictions are among relative truths. To be a social enthusiast is
in itself neither right nor wrong, neither praiseworthy nor the
opposite; it is a state to be judged in relation to the other facts
of a man's life.
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