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252
BEFORE THE WAR
tion. Thanks chiefly to the emergence of a
layer of this rich and rotten material one had
hopes in 1914 of some day cultivating a garden
in which artists and writers would flourish
and prophets learn not to be silly. Society
before the war showed signs of becoming what
French society before the Revolution had
been curious, gay, tolerant, reckless, and
reasonably cynical. After the war I suppose
it will be none of these things. Like the eighteenth
century, having learnt its lesson, it
will borrow a sober tone and simpler tastes
from the bourgeoisie.
For the Edwardian culture did not go very
the country gentlefolk and elder business
deep ;
men, the middling professionals and half-pay
officers, never abandoned the Victorian tradition.
They could not but deplore the imprudence
of their too affable leaders, whom,
nevertheless, it was their duty and pleasure
to admire. They knew that Mr. Balfour was
addicted to the plays of Bernard Shaw, that
Anatole France had been entertained at the
Savoy, and that Cunninghame Graham a man
who was once sent to prison for rioting sat
down to dinner at the tables of the nobility.
It made them uneasy and irritable ; it also
made them fancy that they, too, should keep
abreast of the times. So they let their wives
subscribe to some advanced fashion-paper