believed that these new citizens, who had just proved themselves worthy of their citizenship, would continue to support, with increasing ardour and devotion, Liberal administrations and Liberal measures.  Above all, we believed that, as our recent achievements were the direct developments of great principles asserted in the past, so they would in turn develop into constitutional changes far more momentous, and that in the fulfilment of those changes lay the only real prospect of human happiness.

This is a fair statement of the mental temper in which young and inexperienced Liberals found themselves in the year 1869.[28] And there was much to encourage us in our complacency.  Gladstone, to whom during the rather dreary reign of exhausted Whiggery we had looked as to our rising star—­the one man who combined Religion and Poetry and Romance with the love of Progress and the passion of Freedom—­had told us that “the great social forces were on our side,” and that our opponents “could not fight against the future.”  Philosophers, like Mill, had told us that all the intelligence, all the science, all the mental courage of the world were with us, and that Toryism was the creed of the intellectually destitute.  Morning after morning a vigorous Press sang its loud hymn of triumph, and assured us that, even if for a moment our chariot-wheels drave rather heavily, still we were going forth conquering and to conquer, and that the future of Liberalism was to be one long series of victories, uninterrupted till the crack of doom.

And then to us, thus comfortably entrenched in self-esteem, there entered the figure, unknown to most, only half-known to any, of a new and most disturbing critic.  Here was a man whose very name breathed Liberalism; for whom speculation had no fears; who had harassed the most hoary conventions with obstinate questionings; who had accepted Democracy as the evolution of natural law; who had poked delicious fun at the most highly-placed impostures, the most solemn plausibilities.  In such a one we might surely have expected to find a friend, an ally, a comforter, a fellow-worker; a preacher of the smooth things which we loved to hear, an encourager of the day-dreams which we had learned from Locksley Hall.  Instead of all this we found a critic—­so gracious that we could not quarrel with him, so reasonable that we found it hard to dispute with him; so absolutely free from pomposity that we could not laugh at him, so genuinely and freshly witty that we could not help laughing with him—­but a critic still.  He thought scorn of our pleasant land, and gave no credence unto our word.  He belittled our heroes; he pooh-poohed our achievements; he cast doubt on our prophecies; he caricatured our aspirations.  He told us that we were the victims of a profound delusion.  He warned us that the great Democracy on which we relied as our unchangeable foundation would give way under our feet.  He pointed out that Labour had no more reason to expect its salvation