Explore "The Runagates Club" by John Buchan on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Send not on your soul before To dive from that beguiling shore, And let not yet the swimmer leave His clothes upon the sands of eve. - A. E. Housman
One night we were discussing Souldern, who had died a week before and whose memorial service had been held that morning in St. Margaret's. He had come on amazingly in Parliament, one of those sudden rises which were common in the immediate post-war years, when the older reputations were being questioned and the younger men were too busy making a livelihood to have time for hobbies. His speeches, his membership of a commission where he had shown both originality and courage, and his reputed refusal, on very honourable grounds, of a place in the Cabinet, had given him in the popular mind a flavour of mystery and distinction. The papers had devoted a good deal of space to him, and there was a general feeling that his death -- the result of a motor smash -- was a bigger loss to the country than his actual achievement warranted.