They began henceforward to prepare for a firm stand against the 'brutal and ferocious communism of the day,' as they phrased it.

And as they were in many ways still very powerful, or seemed so to be; they still hoped by means of brute force to regain some of what they had lost, and perhaps in the end the whole of it.

It was said amongst them on all hands that it had been a great mistake of the various governments not to have resisted sooner; and the liberals and radicals (the name as perhaps you may know of the more democratically inclined part of the ruling classes) were much blamed for having led the world to this pass by their mis-timed pedantry and foolish sentimentality: and one Gladstone, or Gledstein (probably, judging by this name, of Scandinavian descent), a notable politician of the nineteenth century, was especially singled out for reprobation in this respect.

I need scarcely point out to you the absurdity of all this.

But terrible tragedy lay hidden behind this grinning through a horse-collar of the reactionary party.