contemporaries. They go through queer little processes of

definition and generalisation and deduction with the completest

belief in the validity of the intellectual instrument they are

using. They are Realists-Cocksurists-in matter of fact;

sentimentalists in behaviour. The Baileys having got to this

glorious stage in mental development-it is glorious because it has

no doubts-were always talking about training "Experts" to apply the

same simple process to all the affairs of mankind. Well, Realism

isn't the last word of human wisdom. Modest-minded people, doubtful

people, subtle people, and the like-the kind of people William

James writes of as "tough-minded," go on beyond this methodical

happiness, and are forever after critical of premises and terms.

They are truer-and less confident. They have reached scepticism

and the artistic method. They have emerged into the new Nominalism.

Both Isabel and I believe firmly that these differences of

intellectual method matter profoundly in the affairs of mankind,

that the collective mind of this intricate complex modern state can

only function properly upon neo-Nominalist lines. This has always

been her side of our mental co-operation rather than mine. Her mind

has the light movement that goes so often with natural mental power;

she has a wonderful art in illustration, and, as the reader probably

knows already, she writes of metaphysical matters with a rare charm

and vividness. So far there has been no collection of her papers

published, but they are to be found not only in the BLUE WEEKLY

columns but scattered about the monthlies; many people must be

familiar with her style. It was an intention we did much to realise

before our private downfall, that we would use the BLUE WEEKLY to

maintain a stream of suggestion against crude thinking, and at last

scarcely a week passed but some popular distinction, some large

imposing generalisation, was touched to flaccidity by her pen or

mine…

I was at great pains to give my philosophical, political, and social

matter the best literary and critical backing we could get in

London. I hunted sedulously for good descriptive writing and good

criticism; I was indefatigable in my readiness to hear and consider,

if not to accept advice; I watched every corner of the paper, and

had a dozen men alert to get me special matter of the sort that

draws in the unattached reader. The chief danger on the literary

side of a weekly is that it should fall into the hands of some

particular school, and this I watched for closely. It seems

impossible to get vividness of apprehension and breadth of view

together in the same critic. So it falls to the wise editor to

secure the first and impose the second. Directly I detected the

shrill partisan note in our criticism, the attempt to puff a poor

thing because it was "in the right direction," or damn a vigorous

piece of work because it wasn't, I tackled the man and had it out

with him. Our pay was good enough for that to matter a good deal…

Our distinctive little blue and white poster kept up its neat

persistent appeal to the public eye, and before 1911 was out, the

BLUE WEEKLY was printing twenty pages of publishers' advertisements,

and went into all the clubs in London and three-quarters of the

country houses where week-end parties gather together. Its sale by

newsagents and bookstalls grew steadily. One got more and more the

reassuring sense of being discussed, and influencing discussion.

Our office was at the very top of a big building near the end of

Adelphi Terrace; the main window beside my desk, a big undivided

window of plate glass, looked out upon Cleopatra's Needle, the

corner of the Hotel Cecil, the fine arches of Waterloo Bridge, and

the long sweep of south bank with its shot towers and chimneys, past

Bankside to the dimly seen piers of the great bridge below the

Tower. The dome of St. Paul's just floated into view on the left

against the hotel facade. By night and day, in every light and

atmosphere, it was a beautiful and various view, alive as a

throbbing heart; a perpetual flow of traffic ploughed and splashed

the streaming silver of the river, and by night the shapes of things

became velvet black and grey, and the water a shining mirror of

steel, wearing coruscating gems of light. In the foreground the

Embankment trams sailed glowing by, across the water advertisements

flashed and flickered, trains went and came and a rolling drift of

smoke reflected unseen fires. By day that spectacle was sometimes a

marvel of shining wet and wind-cleared atmosphere, sometimes a

mystery of drifting fog, sometimes a miracle of crowded details,

minutely fine.

As I think of that view, so variously spacious in effect, Iam back

there, and this sunlit paper might be lamp-lit and lying on my old

desk. I see it all again, feel it all again. In the foreground is

a green shaded lamp and crumpled galley slips and paged proofs and

letters, two or three papers in manuscript, and so forth. In the

shadows are chairs and another table bearing papers and books, a

rotating bookcase dimly seen, a long window seat black in the