e but he comes to a wrong conclusion.
But since then I have satisfied myself that chance put me into the
right course. It has been, I dare say, the same with you as with me.
We both went into office early, and the anxiety to do special duties
well probably deterred us both from thinking much of the great
question. When a man has to be on the alert to keep Ireland quiet, or
to prevent peculation in the dockyards, or to raise the revenue while
he lowers the taxes, he feels himself to be saved from the necessity
of investigating principles. In this way I sometimes think that
ministers, or they who have been ministers and who have to watch
ministers from the opposition benches, have less opportunity of
becoming real politicians than the men who sit in Parliament with
empty hands and with time at their own disposal. But when a man has
been placed by circumstances as I am now, he does begin to think."

"And yet you have not empty hands."

"They are not so full, perhaps, as you think. At any rate I cannot
content myself with a single branch of the public service as I used
to do in old days. Do not suppose that I claim to have made any grand
political invention, but I think that I have at least labelled my own
thoughts. I suppose what we all desire is to improve the condition of
the people by whom we are employed, and to advance our country, or at
any rate to save it from retrogression."

"That of course."

"So much is of course. I give credit to my opponents in Parliament
for that desire quite as readily as I do to my colleagues or to
myself. The idea that political virtue is all on one side is both
mischievous and absurd. We allow ourselves to talk in that way
because indignation, scorn, and sometimes, I fear, vituperation, are
the fuel with which the necessary heat of debate is maintained."

"There are some men who are very fond of poking the fire," said
Phineas.

"Well; I won't name any one at present," said the Duke, "but I have
seen gentlemen of your country very handy with the pokers." Phineas
laughed, knowing that he had been considered by some to have been
a little violent when defending the Duke. "But we put all that
aside when we really think, and can give the Conservative credit
for philanthropy and patriotism as readily as the Liberal. The
Conservative who has had any idea of the meaning of the name which
he carries, wishes, I suppose, to maintain the differences and the
distances which separate the highly