what line he will take on any but the
most momentous occasions.

For it is among the repulsive effects of this bad temper, which is
supposed to be compatible with shining virtues, that it is apt to
determine a man's sudden adhesion to an opinion, whether on a personal
or impersonal matter, without leaving him time to consider his grounds.
The adhesion is sudden and momentary, but it either forms a precedent
for his line of thought and action, or it is presently seen to have been
inconsistent with his true mind. This determination of partisanship by
temper has its worst effects in the career of the public man, who is
always in danger of getting so enthralled by his own words that he looks
into facts and questions not to get rectifying knowledge, but to get
evidence that will justify his actual attitude which was assumed under
an impulse dependent on something else than knowledge. There has been
plenty of insistance on the evil of swearing by the words of a master,
and having the judgment uniformly controlled by a "He said it;" but a
much worse woe to befall a man is to have every judgment controlled by
an "I said it"--to make a divinity of his own short-sightedness or
passion-led aberration and explain the world in its honour. There is
hardly a more pitiable degradation than this for a man of high gifts.
Hence I cannot join with those who wish that Touchwood, being young
enough to enter on public life, should get elected for Parliament and
use his excellent abilities to serve his country in that conspicuous
manner. For hitherto, in the less momentous incidents of private life,
his capricious temper has only produced the minor evil of inconsistency,
and he is even greatly at ease in contradicting himself, provided he can
contradict you, and disappoint any smiling expectation you may have
shown that the impressions you are uttering are likely to meet with his
sympathy, considering that the day before he himself gave you the
example which your mind is following. He is at least free from those
fetters of self-justification which are the curse of parliamentary
speaking, and what I rather desire for him is that he should produce the
great book which he is generally pronounced capable of writing, and put
his best self imperturbably on record for the advantage of society;
because I should then have steady ground for bearing with his diurnal
incalculableness, and could fix my gratitude as by a strong staple to
that unvarying mon