al,
never in the clouds. Save me from a viewy man; I could not live with him
for a week, present company always excepted."

"Now, considering how hard I have read, and how little I have talked
this year past, that is hard on me," said Sheffield. "Did not I go to be
one of old Thruston's sixteen pupils, last Long? He gave us capital
feeds, smoked with us, and coached us in Ethics and Agamemnon. He knows
his books by heart, can repeat his plays backwards, and weighs out his
Aristotle by grains and pennyweights; but, for generalizations, ideas,
poetry, oh, it was desolation--it was a darkness which could be felt!"

"And you stayed there just six weeks out of four months, Sheffield,"
answered Reding.

Carlton had now joined them, and, after introductory greetings on both
sides, he too threw himself upon the turf. Sheffield said: "Reding and I
were disputing just now whether Nicias was a party man."

"Of course you first defined your terms," said Carlton.

"Well," said Sheffield, "I mean by a party man, one who not only belongs
to a party, but who has the _animus_ of party. Nicias did not make a
party, he found one made. He found himself at the head of it; he was no
more a party man than a prince who was born the head of his state."

"I should agree with you," said Carlton; "but still I should like to
know what a party is, and what a party man."

"A party," said Sheffield, "is merely an extra-constitutional or
extra-legal body."

"Party action," said Charles, "is the exertion of influence instead of
law."

"But supposing, Reding, there is no law existing in the quarter where
influence exerts itself?" asked Carlton.

Charles had to explain: "Certainly," he said, "the State did not
legislate for all possible contingencies."

"For instance," continued Carlton, "a prime minister, I have understood,
is not acknowledged in the Constitution; he exerts influence beyond the
law, but not, in consequence, against any existing law; and it would be
absurd to talk of him as a party man."

"Parliamentary parties, too, are recognised among us," said Sheffield,
"though extra-constitutional. We call them parties; but who would call
the Duke of Devonshire or Lord John Russell, in a bad sense, a party
man?"

"It seems to me," said Carlton, "that the formation of a party is
merely a recurrence to the original mode of forming into society. You
recollect Deioces; he formed a party. He gained influence; he laid the
foundation of so