ll persuade Colonel Halkett to vote in the Radical
interest.'

'That is the probability with a landed proprietor, ma'am. We must knock,
whether the door opens or not. Like,' the doctor laughed to himself up
aloft, 'like a watchman in the night to say that he smells smoke on the
premises.'

'Surely we may expect Captain Beauchamp to consult his family about so
serious a step as this he is taking,' Rosamund said, with an effort to be
civil.

Why should he?' asked the impending doctor.

His head continued in the interrogative position when it had resumed its
elevation. The challenge for a definite reply to so outrageous a question
irritated Rosamund's nerves, and, loth though she was to admit him to the
subject, she could not forbear from saying, 'Why? Surely his family have
the first claim on him!'

'Surely not, ma'am. There is no first claim. A man's wife and children
have a claim on him for bread. A man's parents have a claim on him for
obedience while he is a child. A man's uncles, aunts, and cousins have no
claim on him at all, except for help in necessity, which he can grant and
they require. None--wife, children, parents, relatives--none has a claim
to bar his judgement and his actions. Sound the conscience, and sink the
family! With a clear conscience, it is best to leave the family to its
own debates. No man ever did brave work who held counsel with his family.
The family view of a man's fit conduct is the weak point of the country.
It is no other view than, "Better thy condition for our sakes." Ha! In
this way we breed sheep, fatten oxen: men are dying off. Resolution
taken, consult the family means--waste your time! Those who go to it want
an excuse for altering their minds. The family view is everlastingly the
shopkeeper's! Purse, pence, ease, increase of worldly goods, personal
importance--the pound, the English pound! Dare do that, and you forfeit
your share of Port wine in this world; you won't be dubbed with a title;
you'll be fingered at! Lord, Lord! is it the region inside a man, or out,
that gives him peace? Out, they say; for they have lost faith in the
existence of an inner. They haven't it. Air-sucker, blood-pump, cooking
machinery, and a battery of trained instincts, aptitudes, fill up their
vacuum. I repeat, ma'am, why should young Captain Beauchamp spend an hour
consulting his family? They won't approve him; he knows it. They may
annoy him; and what is the gain of that? They can't move him; on