ill they
themselves become unaware of the magnificence of their own
position, and forget that they are expected to be great.
Little tricks of sword-play engage all their skill. And
the consequence is that there is no reverence now for any
man in the House,--none of that feeling which we used to
entertain for Mr. Mildmay.

Of course I write--and feel--as a discontented man; and
what I say to you I would not say to any other human
being. I did long most anxiously for office, having made
up my mind a second time to look to it as a profession.
But I meant to earn my bread honestly, and give it up,
--as I did before, when I could not keep it with a clear
conscience. I knew that I was hustled out of the object
of my poor ambition by that unfortunate man who has
been hurried to his fate. In such a position I ought to
distrust, and do, partly, distrust my own feelings. And I
am aware that I have been soured by prison indignities.
But still the conviction remains with me that
parliamentary interests are not those battles of gods
and giants which I used to regard them. Our Gyas with
the hundred hands is but a Three-fingered Jack, and I
sometimes think that we share our great Jove with the
Strand Theatre. Nevertheless I shall go back,--and if they
will make me a joint lord to-morrow I shall be in heaven!

I do not know why I should write all this to you except
that there is no one else to whom I can say it. There
is no one else who would give a moment of time to such
lamentations. My friends will expect me to talk to them of
my experiences in the dock rather than politics, and will
want to know what rations I had in Newgate. I went to call
on the Governor only yesterday, and visited the old room.
"I never could really bring myself to think that you did
it, Mr. Finn," he said. I looked at him and smiled, but
I should have liked to fly at his throat. Why did he not
know that the charge was a monstrous absurdity? Talking
of that, not even you were truer to me than your brother.
One expects it from a woman;--both the truth and the
discernment.

I have written to you a cruelly long letter; but when
one's mind is full such relief is sometimes better than
talking. Pray answer it before long, and let me know what
you intend to do.

Yours most affectionately,

PHINEAS FINN.

She did read the le