"Farebrother says, he doesn't believe Brooke would get elected if the

opportunity came: the very men who profess to be for him would bring

another member out of the bag at the right moment."

"There's no harm in trying. It's good to have resident members."

"Why?" said Lydgate, who was much given to use that inconvenient word

in a curt tone.

"They represent the local stupidity better," said Will, laughing, and

shaking his curls; "and they are kept on their best behavior in the

neighborhood. Brooke is not a bad fellow, but he has done some good

things on his estate that he never would have done but for this

Parliamentary bite."

"He's not fitted to be a public man," said Lydgate, with contemptuous

decision. "He would disappoint everybody who counted on him: I can see

that at the Hospital. Only, there Bulstrode holds the reins and drives

him."

"That depends on how you fix your standard of public men," said Will.

"He's good enough for the occasion: when the people have made up their

mind as they are making it up now, they don't want a man--they only

want a vote."

"That is the way with you political writers, Ladislaw--crying up a

measure as if it were a universal cure, and crying up men who are a

part of the very disease that wants curing."

"Why not? Men may help to cure themselves off the face of the land

without knowing it," said Will, who could find reasons impromptu, when

he had not thought of a question beforehand.

"That is no excuse for encouraging the superstitious exaggeration of

hopes about this particular measure, helping the cry to swallow it

whole and to send up voting popinjays who are good for nothing but to

carry it. You go against rottenness, and there is nothing more

thoroughly rotten than making people believe that society can be cured

by a political hocus-pocus."

"That's very fine, my dear fellow. But your cure must begin somewhere,

and put it that a thousand things which debase a population can never

be reformed without this particular reform to begin with. Look what

Stanley said the other day--that the House had been tinkering long

enough at small questions of bribery, inquiring whether this or that

voter has had a guinea when everybody knows that the seats have been

sold wholesale. Wait for wisdom and conscience in public

agents--fiddlestick! The only conscience we can trust to is the

massive sense of wrong in a class, and the best wisdom that will work

is the wisdom of balancing claims. That's my text--which side is

injured? I support the man who supports their claims; not the virtuous

upholder of the wrong."




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