DEAR MR. POBSBY-BURFORD, Though I am myself an ardent Tory, I cannot but
rejoice in the crushing defeat you have just suffered in West Odgetown.
There are moments when political conviction is overborne by personal
sentiment; and this is one of them. Your loss of the seat that you
held is the more striking by reason of the splendid manner in which the
northern and eastern divisions of Odgetown have been wrested from the
Liberal Party. The great bulk of the newspaper-reading public will be
puzzled by your extinction in the midst of our party’s triumph. But
then, the great mass of the newspaper-reading public has not met you.
I have. You will probably not remember me. You are the sort of man who
would not remember anybody who might not be of some definite use to him.
Such, at least, was one of the impressions you made on me when I met
you last summer at a dinner given by our friends the Pelhams. Among the
other things in you that struck me were the blatant pomposity of your
manner, your appalling flow of cheap platitudes, and your hoggish lack
of ideas. It is such men as you that lower the tone of public life. And
I am sure that in writing to you thus I am but expressing what is
felt, without distinction of party, by all who sat with you in the late
Parliament.
The one person in whose behalf I regret your withdrawal into private
life is your wife, whom I had the pleasure of taking in to the aforesaid
dinner. It was evident to me that she was a woman whose spirit
was well-nigh broken by her conjunction with you. Such remnants of
cheerfulness as were in her I attributed to the Parliamentary duties
which kept you out of her sight for so very many hours daily. I do not
like to think of the fate to which the free and independent electors of
West Odgetown have just condemned her. Only, remember this: chattel
of yours though she is, and timid and humble, she despises you in
her heart. I am, dear Mr. Pobsby-Burford, Yours very truly, HAROLD
THISTLAKE.