File:Ancient lights and certain new reflections, being the memories of a young man; (1911) (14596357030).jpg

Identifier: ancientlightscer00ford (find matches)
Title: Ancient lights and certain new reflections, being the memories of a young man;
Year: 1911 (1910s)
Authors: Ford, Ford Madox, 1873-1939
Subjects: Pre-Raphaelitism
Publisher: London : Chapman and Hall, Ltd.
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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s.So they all did. I remember at the time of thegreat Dock Strike, bemg taken to dinner by a Man-chester Labour leader who was anxious to improvemy morals. There were present Prince Krapotkm,Mr. Ben Tillett, Mr. Tom Mann and I think Mr. JohnBurns. The dinner took place at the HolbornRestaurant, and the waiters were frightened outof their lives amidst the marble, the gilding andthe strains of the band. For such a group in thosedays was considered a wildly dangerous gathering.Prince Krapotkin might have a bomb in the tailpockets of his black frock-coat, and as for Messrs.Tillett, Burns and Mann, there was no knowingwhether they would not slay all the customers inthe restaurant with single blows of their enormousfists. We must destroy ! We must destroy ! Mr.Mann exclaimed. On the contrary, Prince Krapotkin replied inlow tones, we must take example of the rabbitand found communistic settlements. So they thundered, and the waiters trembledmore and more, and there were a great many emo- 284
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And again Changes tions going ; as for me, I felt the same emotion ofunworthiness. In those days I had written a fairytale which had met with an enormous, and I supposedeserved, success; and I remember that, as we walkedaway from under the shelter of the restaurant intorrential rains. Prince Krapotkin told me that itwas a very bad, a very immoral book. It dealtentirely with the fortunes of kings, princes, theyoung, the idle or the merely beautiful. And I wasso overwhelmed with the same sense of unworthiness,that, as I was about to sink into the wet pavements,it occurred to me that I might find salvation bywriting a fairy tale all of whose heroes and heroinesshould be Labour leaders. I did indeed write it—that was exactly twenty years ago—and from thatday to this I have never been able to find a publisherfor it. But do not let me be misunderstood. I am not by any means attempting to condemn Mr. of the lecture hall. He got money out of me so that hemight elevate his brother workmen,

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