IV

But then Mick wasn’t trying to do anything, but just get through his life, and put as much across other people as they tried to put across him. He was really antisocial, which was what Clifford and his cronies had against him. Clifford and his cronies were not antisocial; they were more or less bent on saving mankind, or on instructing it, to say the least.

There was a gorgeous talk on Sunday evening, when the conversation drifted again to love.

“Blest be the tie that binds Our hearts in kindred something-or-other⁠—”

said Tommy Dukes. “I’d like to know what the tie is.⁠ ⁠… The tie that binds us just now is mental friction on one another. And, apart from that, there’s damned little tie between us. We bust apart, and say spiteful things about one another, like all the other damned intellectuals in the world. Damned everybodies, as far as that goes, for they all do it. Else we bust apart, and cover up the spiteful things we feel against one another by saying false sugaries. It’s a curious thing that the mental life seems to flourish with its roots in spite, ineffable and fathomless spite. Always has been so! Look at Socrates, in Plato, and his bunch round him! The sheer spite of it all, just sheer joy in pulling somebody else to bits.⁠ ⁠… Protagoras, or whoever it was! And Alcibiades, and all the other little disciple dogs joining in the fray! I must say it makes one prefer Buddha, quietly sitting under a bo-tree, or Jesus, telling his disciples little Sunday stories, peacefully, and without any mental fireworks. No, there’s something wrong with the mental life, radically. It’s rooted in spite and envy, envy and spite. Ye shall know the tree by its fruit.”

“I don’t think we’re altogether so spiteful,” protested Clifford.