ened--the Lords are not crushed--but
the Commons are in a state to contest with them. Hence party battles
upon catchwords--struggles between the two chambers for things of straw.
You who desire progress and movement will find the real affairs of this
great Artificial Empire, in its trade--commerce--colonies--internal
legislation--standing still while the Whigs and the Tories pelt each
other with the quibbles of faction. No I should vote against your Bill!
I am not for popular governments, though I like free states. All the
advantages of democracy seem to me more than counterbalanced by the
sacrifice of the peace and tranquillity, the comfort and the grace, the
dignity and the charities of life that democracies usually entail. If
the object of men is to live happily--not to strive and to fret--not
to make money in the marketplace, and call each other rogues on the
hustings, who would not rather be a German than an American? I own I
regret to differ from you. For--but no matter----"

"For!--what were you about to say?"

"For--then, since you must know it--I am beginning to feel interest
in these questions--excitement is contagious. And after all, if a
man really deem his mother-country in some danger, inaction is not
philosophy, but a species of parricide. But to think of the daily and
hourly pain I should occasion to you, my beloved and ardent Constance,
by shocking all your opinions, counteracting all your schemes, working
against objects which your father's fate and your early associations
have so singularly made duties in your eyes-to do all this is a
patriotism beyond me. Let us glide out of this whirlpool, and hoist sail
for some nook in the country where we can hear gentler sounds than the
roar of the democracy."

Constance sighed, and suffered Godolphin to quit her in silence. But
her generous heart was touched by his own generosity. This is one of
the great curses of a woman who aspires to the man's part of political
controversy. If the man choose to act, the woman, with all her wiles,
her intrigues, her arts, is powerless. If Godolphin were to enter
Parliament a Tory, the great Whig rendezvous of Erpingham House was
lost, and Constance herself a cipher--and her father's wrongs forgotten,
and the stern purpose of her masculine career baffled at the very
moment of success. She now repented that she had ever desired to draw
Godolphin's attention to political matters. She wondered at her own want
of foresight. Ho