We did not keep ourselves to ourselves; we aided the working
class organisations in every possible way; and they were jolly glad to
have us. In fact the main difference between us was that we worked for
everybody (permeation) and they worked for their own societies only. The
real reason that we segregated for purposes of thought and study was
that the workers could not go our pace or stand our social habits.
Hyndman and Morris and Helen Taylor and the other bourgeois S.D.F.-ers
and Leaguers were too old for us; they were between forty and fifty when
we were between twenty and thirty."
[17] On this passage Shaw comments, beginning with an expletive, and
proceeding: "I was the only one who had any principles. But surely the
secret of it is that we didn't really want to be demagogues, having
other fish to fry, as our subsequent careers proved. Our decision not to
stand for Parliament in 1892 was the turning point. I was offered some
seats to contest--possibly Labour ones--but I always replied that they
ought to put up a bona fide working man. We lacked ambition."
[18] See "The Great Society," by Graham Wallas (Macmillan, 1914), p.
260.
[19] For a much fuller account of this subject, see Appendix I. A.
[20] See Appendix II.
[21] See Fabian Tract 147, "Capital and Compensation," by Edw. R. Pease.
[22] See "Fabian Essays," p. 51, for the first point, and Fabian Tract
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