Potterism | Page 5

such things.'
'You would,' said Clare, who always rose when the twins meant her to.
'Aren't they cautions,' said Mrs. Frank, more good-humouredly.
Mrs. Potter said, 'That's a very interesting idea. I think I must join this society. It would help me in my work. What is it called, children?'
'Oh,' said Jane, and had the grace to look ashamed, 'it really hardly exists yet.'
But as she said it she met the sharp and shrewd eyes of Mr. Potter, and knew that he knew she was referring to the Anti-Potter League.
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Mr. Potter would not, indeed, have been worthy of his reputation had he not been aware, from its inception, of the existence of this League. Journalists have to be aware of such things. He in no way resented the League; he brushed it aside as of no account. And, indeed, it was not aimed at him personally, nor at his wife personally, but at the great mass of thought--or of incoherent, muddled emotion that passed for thought--which the Anti-Potters had agreed, for brevity's sake, to call 'Potterism.' Potterism had very certainly not been created by the Potters, and was indeed no better represented by the goods with which they supplied the market than by those of many others; but it was a handy name, and it had taken the public fancy that here you had two Potters linked together, two souls nobly yoked, one supplying Potterism in fictional, the other in newspaper, form. So the name caught, about the year 1912.
The twins both heard it used at Oxford, in their second year. They recognised its meaning without being told. And both felt that it was up to them to take the opportunity of testifying, of severing any connection that might yet exist in any one's mind between them and the other products of their parents. They did so, with the uncompromising decision proper to their years, and with, perhaps, the touch of indecency, regardlessness of the proprieties, which was characteristic of them. Their friends soon discovered that they need not guard their tongues in speaking of Potterism before the Potter twins. The way the twins put it was, 'Our family is responsible for more than its share of the beastly thing; the least we can do is to help to do it in,' which sounded chivalrous. And another way they put it was, 'We're not going to have any one connecting us with it,' which sounded sensible.
So they joined the Anti-Potter League, not blind to the piquant humour of their being found therein.
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Mr. Potter said to the twins, in his thin little voice, 'Don't mind mother and me, children. Tell us all about the A.P.L. It may do us good.'
But the twins knew it would not do their mother good. It would need too much explanation; and then she would still not understand. She might even be very angry, as she was (though she pretended she was only amused) with some reviewers.... If your mother is Leila Yorke, and has hard blue eyes and no sense of humour, but a most enormous sense of importance, you cannot, or you had better not, even begin to explain to her things like Potterism, or the Anti-Potter League, and still less how it is that you belong to the latter.
The twins, who had got firsts in Schools, knew this much.
Johnny improvised hastily, with innocent gray eyes on his father's, 'It's one of the rules that you mayn't talk about it outside. Anti-Propaganda League, it is, you see ... for letting other people alone....'
'Well,' said Mr. Potter, who was not spiteful to his children, and preferred his wife unruffled, 'we'll let you off this time. But you can take my word for it, it's a silly business. Mother and I will last a great deal longer than it does. Because we take our stand on human nature, and you won't destroy that with Leagues.'
Sometimes the twins were really almost afraid they wouldn't.
'You're all very cryptic to-night,' Frank said, and yawned.
Then Mrs. Potter and the girls left the dining-room, and Frank and his father discussed the disestablishment of the Church in Wales, a measure which Frank thought would be a pity, but which was advocated by the Potter press.
Johnny cracked nuts in silence. He thought the Church insincere, a put-up job, but that dissenters were worse. They should all be abolished, with other shams. For a short time at Oxford he had given the Church a trial, even felt real admiration for it, under the influence of his friend Juke, and after hearing sermons from Father Waggett, Dr. Dearmer, and Canon Adderley. But he had soon given it up, seen it wouldn't do; the above-mentioned priests were not representative; the Church as a whole canted, was hypocritical and Potterish, and must go.

CHAPTER II
ANTI-POTTERS
1
The quest of Potterism, its causes and