ing home, but Mr. G. seemed not to care. He found both the
churches at St. Jean and at Fuentarabia very noteworthy, though the latter
very popish, but both, he felt, "had a certain association with grandeur."
_Sunday, Dec. 27._--After some quarter of an hour of travellers' topics, we
plunged into one of the most interesting talks we have yet had. _Apropos_
of I do not know what, Mr. G. said that he had not advised his son to
enter public life. "No doubt there are some men to whom station, wealth,
and family traditions make it a duty. But I have never advised any
individual, as to whom I have been consulted, to enter the H. of C."
_J. M._--But isn't that rather to encourage self-indulgence? Nobody who
cares for ease or mental composure would seek public life?
_Mr. G._--Ah, I don't know that. Surely politics open up a great field for
the natural man. Self-seeking, pride, domination, power--all these passions
are gratified in politics.
_J. M._--You cannot be sure of achievement in politics, whether personal or
public?
_Mr. G._--No; to use Bacon's pregnant phrase, they are too immersed in
matter. Then as new matter, that is, new details and particulars, come
into view, men change their judgment.
_J. M._--You have spoken just now of somebody as a thorough good tory. You
know the saying that nobody is worth much who has not been a bit of a
radical in his youth, and a bit of a tory in his fuller age.
_Mr. G._ (laughing)--Ah, I'm afraid that hits me rather hard. But for
myself, I think I can truly put up all the change that has come into my
politics into a sentence; I (M168) was brought up to distrust and dislike
liberty, I learned to believe in it. That is the key to all my changes.
_J. M._--According to my observation, the change in my own generation is
different. They have ceased either to trust or to distrust liberty, and
have come to the mind that it matters little either way. Men are
disenchanted. They have got what they wanted in the days of their youth,
yet what of it, they ask? France has thrown off the Empire, but the
statesmen of the republic are not a great breed. Italy has gained her
unity, yet unity has not been followed by thrift, wisdom, or large
increase of public virtue or happiness. America has purged herself of
slavery, yet life in America is material, prosaic,--so say some of her own
rarest sons. Don't think that I say all these things. But I know able and
high-minded men who suffer from this
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