effect produced by his
reappearance. Gracious, but modestly reserved, he spoke little, listened
beautifully. Many of the questions which agitated all around him had
grown up into importance since his day of action; nor in his retirement
had he traced their progressive development, with their changeful
effects upon men and parties. But a man who has once gone deeply into
practical politics might sleep in the Cave of Trophonius for twenty
years, and find, on waking, very little to learn. Darrell regained the
level of the day, and seized upon all the strong points on which men
were divided, with the rapidity of a prompt and comprehensive intellect,
his judgment perhaps the clearer from the freshness of long repose and
the composure of dispassionate survey. When partisans wrangled as to
what should have been done, Darrell was silent; when they asked what
should be done, out came one of his terse sentences, and a knot was
cut. Meanwhile it is true this man, round whom expectations grouped and
rumour buzzed, was in neither House of Parliament; but that was rather a
delay to his energies than a detriment to his consequence.

Important constituencies, anticipating a vacancy, were already on the
look-out for him; a smaller constituency, in the interim, Carr Vipont
undertook to procure him any day. There was always a Vipont ready to
accept something, even the Chiltern Hundreds. But Darrell, not without
reason, demurred at re-entering the House of Commons after an absence of
seventeen years. He had left it with one of those rare reputations
which no wise man likes rashly to imperil. The Viponts sighed. He would
certainly be more useful in the Commons than the Lords, but still in the
Lords he would be of great use. They would want a debating lord, perhaps
a lord acquainted with law in the coming CRISIS,--if he preferred the
peerage? Darrell demurred still. The man's modesty was insufferable; his
style of speaking might not suit that august assembly: and as to law,
he could never now be a law lord; he should be but a ci-devant advocate,
affecting the part of a judicial amateur.

In short, without declining to re-enter public life, seeming, on the
contrary, to resume all his interest in it, Darrell contrived with
admirable dexterity to elude for the present all overtures pressed upon
him, and even to convince his admirers, not only of his wisdom, but
of his patriotism in that reticence. For certainly he thus managed to
exercise a ve