inion of Dr. Shrapnel; and as the
delicate state of her inclinations made her conscious that to give him
the letter covertly would be to betray them to him, who had once, not
knowing it, moved her to think of a possible great change in her life,
she mustered courage to say, 'Captain Beauchamp at my request lent me
the letter to read; I have it, and others written by Dr. Shrapnel.'

Her father hummed to himself, and immediately begged Seymour Austin not
to waste his time on the stuff, though he had no idea that a perusal
of it could awaken other than the gravest reprehension in so rational a
Tory gentleman.

Mr. Austin read the letter through. He asked to see the other letters
mentioned by Cecilia, and read them calmly, without a frown or an
interjection. She sat sketching, her father devouring newspaper columns.

'It's the writing of a man who means well,' Mr. Austin delivered his
opinion.

'Why, the man's an infidel!' Colonel Halkett exclaimed.

'There are numbers.'

'They have the grace not to confess, then.'

'It's as well to know what the world's made of, colonel. The clergy shut
their eyes. There's no treating a disease without reading it; and if we
are to acknowledge a "vice," as Dr. Shrapnel would say of the so-called
middle-class, it is the smirking over what they think, or their not
caring to think at all. Too many time-servers rot the State. I
can understand the effect of such writing on a mind like Captain
Beauchamp's. It would do no harm to our young men to have those letters
read publicly and lectured on-by competent persons. Half the thinking
world may think pretty much the same on some points as Dr. Shrapnel;
they are too wise or too indolent to say it: and of the other half,
about a dozen members would be competent to reply to him. He is the
earnest man, and flies at politics as uneasy young brains fly to
literature, fancying they can write because they can write with a pen.
He perceives a bad adjustment of things: which is correct. He is honest,
and takes his honesty for a virtue: and that entitles him to believe in
himself: and that belief causes him to see in all opposition to him the
wrong he has perceived in existing circumstances: and so in a dream
of power he invokes the people: and as they do not stir, he takes to
prophecy. This is the round of the politics of impatience. The study of
politics should be guided by some light of statesmanship, otherwise it
comes to this wild preaching.

T