e with my candour, but follow my counsel.

'"See him, and show him, if you are able, that, all questions of
nationality apart, he may count upon your vote; that there are certain
impracticable and impossible conceits in politics--like repeal, subdivision
of land, restoration of the confiscated estates, and such like--on which
Irishmen insist on being free to talk balderdash, and air their patriotism;
but that, rightfully considered, they are as harmless and mean just as
little as a discussion on the Digamma, or a debate on perpetual motion. The
stupid Tories could never be brought to see this. Like genuine dolts, they
would have an army of supporters, one-minded with them in everything. We
know better, and hence we buy the Radical vote by a little coquetting
with communism, and the model working-man and the rebel by an occasional
gaol-delivery, and the Papist by a sop to the Holy Father. Bear in mind,
Dick--and it is the grand secret of political life--it takes all sort of
people to make a 'party.' When you have thoroughly digested this aphorism,
you are fit to start in the world.

'"If you were not so full of what I am sure you would call your 'legitimate
ambitions,' I'd like to tell you the glorious life we lead in this place.
Disraeli talks of 'the well-sustained splendour of their stately lives,'
and it is just the phrase for an existence in which all the appliances to
ease and enjoyment are supplied by a sort of magic, that never shows its
machinery, nor lets you hear the sound of its working. The saddle-horses
know when I want to ride by the same instinct that makes the butler give
me the exact wine I wish at my dinner. And so on throughout the day, 'the
sustained splendour' being an ever-present luxuriousness that I drink in
with a thirst that knows no slaking.

'"I have made a hit with H.E., and from copying some rather muddle-headed
despatches, I am now promoted to writing short skeleton sermons on
politics, which, duly filled out and fattened with official nutriment,
will one day astonish the Irish Office, and make one of the Nestors of
bureaucracy exclaim, 'See how Danesbury has got up the Irish question.'

'"I have a charming collaborateur, my lord's niece, who was acting as his
private secretary up to the time of my arrival, and whose explanation of a
variety of things I found to be so essential that, from being at first in
the continual necessity of seeking her out, I have now arrived at a point
at which