,
I can't help wishing somebody had a pocket-borough to give you,
Ladislaw. You'd never get elected, you know. And we shall always want
talent in the House: reform as we will, we shall always want talent.
That avalanche and the thunder, now, was really a little like Burke. I
want that sort of thing--not ideas, you know, but a way of putting
them."

"Pocket-boroughs would be a fine thing," said Ladislaw, "if they were
always in the right pocket, and there were always a Burke at hand."

Will was not displeased with that complimentary comparison, even from
Mr. Brooke; for it is a little too trying to human flesh to be
conscious of expressing one's self better than others and never to have
it noticed, and in the general dearth of admiration for the right
thing, even a chance bray of applause falling exactly in time is rather
fortifying. Will felt that his literary refinements were usually
beyond the limits of Middlemarch perception; nevertheless, he was
beginning thoroughly to like the work of which when he began he had
said to himself rather languidly, "Why not?"--and he studied the
political situation with as ardent an interest as he had ever given to
poetic metres or mediaevalism. It is undeniable that but for the
desire to be where Dorothea was, and perhaps the want of knowing what
else to do, Will would not at this time have been meditating on the
needs of the English people or criticising English statesmanship: he
would probably have been rambling in Italy sketching plans for several
dramas, trying prose and finding it too jejune, trying verse and
finding it too artificial, beginning to copy "bits" from old pictures,
leaving off because they were "no good," and observing that, after all,
self-culture was the principal point; while in politics he would have
been sympathizing warmly with liberty and progress in general. Our
sense of duty must often wait for some work which shall take the place
of dilettanteism and make us feel that the quality of our action is not
a matter of indifference.

Ladislaw had now accepted his bit of work, though it was not that
indeterminate loftiest thing which he had once dreamed of as alone
worthy of continuous effort. His nature warmed easily in the presence
of subjects which were visibly mixed with life and action, and the
easily stirred rebellion in him helped the glow of public spirit. In
spite of Mr. Casaubon and the banishment from Lowick, he was rather
happy; getting a g