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