cause he thinks
differently to you, should he be a brute? But just the same words are
spoken if the positions be reversed. It is only the mouths that change
places.

I am afraid my views incline toward the Tory side. I cannot help it, I
was bought over long ago. You _must_ feel an interest as to the
successful candidate when the result means either a tip all round or a
thundery atmosphere for the rest of the day. Men take an adverse poll
as a personal affront and vent their feelings on their families. The
tipping was quite an understood thing when I was younger, now it is
given up, and joy is shown in a less substantial way, I regret to say.
Unfortunately the thunder storms are not events of the past as well.

Politicians have such a narrow way of looking at things. The other
side can do nothing right while they themselves are absolutely
faultless! If a Tory wishes to confer an opprobrious epithet on a
person he calls him a Radical, and _vice versa_; the opposite faction
is capable of any enormity? This reminds me of the old Scotchman who
on being asked his opinion of a man who had first murdered and then
mutilated his victim, answered in a shocked voice, "What do I think?
Well, I think that a maun who'd do all that would whistle on the
Sawbuths!" "Such a man must be a Home Ruler," my father would have
said.

In having a guest with opposite views at your dinner table, what
agonies do you not suffer? I have gone through those dreadful meals
trembling at every word that drops from the man's lips. Try as you
may, turn the conversation how you will, there is sure to be some
allusion, some statement that sets on fire all the host's enthusiasm,
and it does not take long before the poor guest is entirely
annihilated and subdued--unless indeed he is as hot on his side as the
other is on his; then indeed all we can do is to sit and hear it out.
To attempt to stem such a torrent would be the act of a lunatic. We
only feel thankful that "pistols for two and coffee for one" is a
thing of the past.

The General Elections are dreadful times; nothing but canvassing goes
on night after night for weeks beforehand. Conversation is entirely
restricted to the coming event--if you mention a word about anything
apart from it, you are considered absolutely profane, and are treated
as a pariah for the next few days.

It is interesting, I admit, and the election day itself is positively
exciting. You cannot help catching the malady at ti