For there never
really is anything special to be done;--is there, Mr. Erle?"

"I think there is always a little too much zeal about Finn."

"Of course there is. And then with zeal there always goes a thin
skin,--and unjustifiable expectations, and biting despair, and
contempt of others, and all the elements of unhappiness."

"That is a sad programme for your husband."

"He has recuperative faculties which bring him round at last:--but I
really doubt whether he was made for a politician in this country.
You remember Lord Brock?"

"Dear old Brock;--of course I do. How should I not, if you remember
him?"

"Young men are boys at college, rowing in boats, when women have been
ever so long out in the world. He was the very model of an English
statesman. He loved his country dearly, and wished her to be, as he
believed her to be, first among nations. But he had no belief in
perpetuating her greatness by any grand improvements. Let things take
their way naturally,--with a slight direction hither or thither as
things might require. That was his method of ruling. He believed in
men rather than measures. As long as he had loyalty around him, he
could be personally happy, and quite confident as to the country. He
never broke his heart because he could not carry this or that reform.
What would have hurt him would have been to be worsted in personal
conflict. But he could always hold his own, and he was always
happy. Your man with a thin skin, a vehement ambition, a scrupulous
conscience, and a sanguine desire for rapid improvement, is never a
happy, and seldom a fortunate politician."

"Mrs. Finn, you understand it all better than any one else that I
ever knew."

"I have been watching it a long time, and of course very closely
since I have been married."

"But you have an eye trained to see it all. What a useful member you
would have been in a government!"

"But I should never have had patience to sit all night upon that
bench in the House of Commons. How men can do it! They mustn't read.
They can't think because of the speaking. It doesn't do for them to
talk. I don't believe they ever listen. It isn't in human nature to
listen hour after hour to such platitudes. I believe they fall into a
habit of half-wakeful sleeping, which carries them through the hours;
but even that can't be pleasant. I look upon the Treasury Bench in
July as a sort of casual-ward which we know to be necessary, but is
almost too horrid to be co