unrivalled?

The word or two which his daughter had said to him, declaring
that she still took pride in her lover's love, and then this new
misfortune on Gerald's part, upset him greatly. He almost sickened of
politics when he thought of his domestic bereavement and his domestic
misfortunes. How completely had he failed to indoctrinate his
children with the ideas by which his own mind was fortified and
controlled! Nothing was so base to him as a gambler, and they had
both commenced their career by gambling. From their young boyhood
nothing had seemed so desirable to him as that they should be
accustomed by early training to devote themselves to the service of
their country. He saw other young noblemen around him who at eighteen
were known as debaters at their colleges, or at twenty-five were
already deep in politics, social science, and educational projects.
What good would all his wealth or all his position do for his
children if their minds could rise to nothing beyond the shooting
of deer and the hunting of foxes? There was young Lord Buttercup,
the son of the Earl of Woolantallow, only a few months older than
Silverbridge,--who was already a junior lord, and as constant at his
office, or during the Session on the Treasury Bench, as though there
were not a pack of hounds or a card-table in Great Britain! Lord
Buttercup, too, had already written an article in "The Fortnightly"
on the subject of Turkish finance. How long would it be before
Silverbridge would write an article, or Gerald sign his name in the
service of the public?

And then those proposed marriages,--as to which he was beginning to
know that his children would be too strong for him! Anxious as he was
that both his sons should be permeated by Liberal politics, studious
as he had ever been to teach them that the highest duty of those high
in rank was to use their authority to elevate those beneath them,
still he was hardly less anxious to make them understand that their
second duty required them to maintain their own position. It was by
feeling this second duty,--by feeling it and performing it,--that
they would be enabled to perform the rest. And now both Silverbridge
and his girl were bent upon marriages by which they would depart out
of their own order! Let Silverbridge marry whom he might, he could
not be other than heir to the honours of his family. But by his
marriage he might either support or derogate from these honours. And
now, having at first