Demos

Hubert Eldon has been as good as his word. In all the valley no trace is left of what was called New Wanley. Once more we can climb to the top of Stanbury Hill and enjoy the sense of remoteness and security when we see that dark patch on the horizon, the cloud that hangs over Belwick.

Inheritance, New Wanley socialism, marital collapse, and pastoral restoration form a complete political tragedy with ironic land-close, so plot scores 87.

'If he don’t go to his work,' she said sternly, 'it’s either him or me’ll have to leave this house. If he wants to disgrace us all and ruin himself, he shan’t do it under my eyes.'

Mutimer, Adela, Hubert, Emma, and Mrs Mutimer are individuated by class loyalty and political appetite without flattening into pamphlet types only, so cast scores 86.

A week later; the scene, the familiar kitchen in Wilton Square. Mrs. Mutimer, upon whom time has laid unkind hands since last we saw her, is pouring tea for Alice Rodman, who has just come all the way from the West End to visit her.

Thirty-six chapters of committee and domestic grind; collapse accelerates late, but family councils keep middle tempo social-realist, so pace scores 83.

Wanley consists in the main of one long street; the houses are stone-built, with mullioned windows, here and there showing a picturesque gable or a quaint old chimney. The oldest buildings are four cottages which stand at the end of the street.

Exact social report — stone Wanley, Belwick cloud, thrush after furnaces — cool about ideology without pamphlet haze, so prose scores 87.

You remember that one side of the valley in which stood New Wanley was clad with trees. Through this wood a public path made transverse ascent to the shoulder of the hill, a way little used save by Wanley ramblers in summer time.

Wanley, Belwick, New Wanley, Wilton Square — industrial Midlands as contested pastoral geography, so world scores 88.

Stanbury Hill, remote but two hours’ walk from a region blasted with mine and factory and furnace, shelters with its western slope a fair green valley, a land of meadows and orchard, untouched by poisonous breath.

Pastoral valley beside mine-blast establishes the land at stake before Mutimer's Demos arrives — inviting rather than shocking, so hook scores 85.

Shall I tell you how I felt in talking with him? I seemed to be holding a dialogue with the twentieth century, and you may think what that means.’ ‘Ah, it’s a long way off, Hubert.’ ‘I wish it were farther. The man was openly exultant; he stood for Demos grasping the sceptre.

Socialism as inheritance and demagoguery rather than utopia — New Wanley as class-betrayal study — anticipates political novels of industrial romance, so innov scores 89.

'There _was_ a distance between us, and my ends were other than yours. That is the past; the present is mine to make myself what you would have me. I have no law but your desire—so much I love you.'

New Wanley erased and Adela's deferred passion finally spoken — pastoral restored with emotional close rather than political victory, so ending scores 86.