"Why, for instance, you said last night that you intended to enter
Parliament."

"Well?"

"And in a few weeks you will be making speeches all over the country
in favour of--well, I don't quite know what--shall we say in favour of
the war?"

"Say so, by all means, if you like."

"And this war, I presume, you believe to be a good thing?"

"Well?"

"Good, that is, not merely for yourself but for the world at large? or
at least for the English or the Boers, or one or other of them? Do you
admit that?"

"Oh," he said, "I am nothing if not frank! At present, we will admit,
I think the war a good thing (whatever that may mean); but what of
that? Very probably I am wrong."

"Very probably you are; but that is not the point. The main thing is,
that you admit that it is possible to be wrong or right at all; that
there is something to be wrong or right about."

"But I don't know that I do admit it, or, at any rate, that I shall
always admit it. Probably, after changing my opinions again and again,