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"I have to go through with it, but it's a hell of utterly
inglorious squabbling. They bait me. They have been fighting
the same fight within themselves that they fight with me.
They know exactly where I am, that I too am doing my job
against internal friction. The one thing before all others
that they want to do is to bring me down off my moral high
horse. And I loathe the high horse. I am in a position of
special moral superiority to men who are on the whole as good
men as I am or better. That shows all the time. You see the
sort of man I am. I've a broad streak of personal vanity. I
fag easily. I'm short-tempered. I've other things, as you
perceive. When I fag I become obtuse, I repeat and bore, I
get viciously ill-tempered, I suffer from an intolerable
sense of ill usage. Then that ass, Wagstaffe, who ought to be
working with me steadily, sees his chance to be pleasantly
witty. He gets a laugh round the table at my expense. Young
Dent, the more intelligent of the labour men, reads me a
lecture in committee manners. Old Cassidy sees HIS opening
and jabs some ridiculous petty accusation at me and gets me
spluttering self-defence like a fool. All my stock goes down,
and as my stock goes down the chances of a good report
dwindle. Young Dent grieves to see me injuring my own case.
Too damned a fool to see what will happen to the report! You
see if only they can convince themselves I am just a prig and
an egotist and an impractical bore, they escape from a great
deal more than my poor propositions. They escape from the
doubt in themselves. By dismissing me they dismiss their own
consciences. And then they can scamper off and be sensible
little piggy-wigs and not bother any more about what is to
happen to mankind in the long run. . . . Do you begin to
realize the sort of fight, upside down in a dustbin, that
that Committee is for me?"
"You have to go through with it," Dr. Martineau repeated.
"I have. If I can. But I warn you I have been near breaking
point. And if I tumble off the high horse, if I can't keep
going regularly there to ride the moral high horse, that
Committee will slump into utter scoundrelism. It will turn
out a long, inconsistent, botched, unreadable report that
will back up all sorts of humbugging bargains and sham
settlements. It will contain some half-baked scheme to pacify
the miners at the expense of the general welfare. It won't
even succeed in doing that. But in the general confusion old
Cassidy will get away with a series of hauls that may run
into millions. Which will last his time--damn him! And that
is where we are. . . . Oh! I know! I know! . . . . I must do
this job. I don't need any telling that my life will be
nothing and mean nothing unless I bring this thing
through. . . .
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