Revolving Lights by Dorothy M. Richardson

The building of the large hall had been brought about by people who gave no thought to the wonder of moving from one space to another and up and down stairs. Yet this wonder was more to them than all the things on which their thoughts were fixed. If they would take time to realise it. No one takes time. No one knows it. But I know it. These seconds of knowing, of being told, afresh, by things speaking silently, make up for the pain of failing to find out what I ought to be doing.

Away behind, in the flatly echoing hall, was the busy planning world of socialism, intent on the poor. Far away in tomorrow, stood the established, unchanging world of Wimpole Street, linked helpfully to the lives of the prosperous classes. Just ahead, at the end of the walk home, the small isolated Tansley Street world, full of secretive people drifting about on the edge of catastrophe, that would leave, when it engulfed them, no ripple on the surface of the tide of London life. In the space between these surrounding worlds was the everlasting solitude; ringing as she moved to cross the landing, with voices demanding an explanation of her presence in any one of them.

"Now that," she quoted, to counter the foremost attack, "is a man who can be trusted to say what he thinks."

That cloaked her before the clamorous silence. She was an observant intelligent woman; approved. He would never imagine that the hurriedly borrowed words meant, to her, nothing but a shadow of doubt cast across the earnest little socialist. But they carried her across the landing. And here, at the head of the stairs, was the show case of cold Unitarian literature. Yet another world. Bright, when she had first become aware of it, with freedom from the problem of Christ, offering, until she had met its inhabitants face to face, a congenial home. Sending her away, at a run, from cold humorous intellectuality. She paused in front of the case, avoiding the sight of the well-known, chilly titles of the books, to read what had gathered in her mind during the evening.

A group of people who had come out just behind her were going down the stairs arguing in high-pitched, public platform voices from the surfaces of their associated minds. Not saying what they thought. Not thinking. Strong and controlled enough to keep within pattern of clever words. Most of them had been born to it. Born on the stage of clever words, which yet meant nothing to them. But to one or two people in the society these words did mean something.

Nothing came after they had passed but the refrain that had been the mental accompaniment of her listening throughout the evening, stepping forth now as part of a high-pitched argumentative to and fro. Her part, if she could join in and shout them all down. Sounding irrelevant and yet coming right down to earth, one small part of a picture puzzle set in place. a clue.

"Any number of barristers," she vociferated in her mind, going on down the shallow stair, "take up journalism. Get into Parliament. On the strength of being both educated and articulate. Weapons, giving an unfair advantage. The easy touch of prominence. Only a good nervous system wanted. They are psychologists. Up to a point. Enough to convince nice busy people, rushing through life without time to bethink themselves. Enough to alarm and threaten and cajole. They can raise storms; in newspapers. And brandish about by name, at their centres, like windmills, kept going by the wind of their psychological cheap-jackery. Yes, sir. Psychological cheap-jackery. Purple-faced John Bull paterfamilias. Paterfamiliarity. Avenging his state by hitting out. With an eye for a pretty face. ".

The little man had no axe to grind. That was the only test. An Englishman, and a barrister, and yet awake to foreign art. His opaque English temperament not weakened by it; but worn a little transparent. He would be silent in an instant before a superior testimony.

He did not count on anything. When Socialism came, he would be placed in an administrative post, and would fill it quietly, working harder than ever.

He brought the future nearer because he already moved within it; by being aware of things most men did not consider; aware of relationships: possibly believing in God, certainly in the soul.

Modern man, individually, is in many respects less capable than primitive man. Evolution is related development. Progress towards social efficiency. Benjamin Kidd.

"These large speculations are most-fatiguing."

"No. When you see truth in them they are refreshing. They are all there is. All I live for now, is the arrival in my mind, of fresh generalisations."

"That is good. But remember also that these things cost life."

"What does it matter what they cost? A shape of truth makes you at the moment want to die, full of gratitude and happiness. It fills everything with a music to which you could die. The next piece of life comes as a superfluity."

"Le superflu; chose nécessaire."

At the foot of the stairs stood the yellow streetlight, framed in the oblong of the doorway. She went out into its shelter. The large grey legal buildings that stood by day a solid, dignified pile against the sky, a whole remaining region of the pride of London, showed only their lower facades, near, gentle frontages of mellow golden light and soft rectangular shadow, just above the brightly gilded surface of the deserted roadway. For a moment she stood listening to the reflection of the fostering light and breathing in the dry warm freshness of the London night air.