"I don't think there is a man among them who makes me feel he is
trustworthy," said Margaret; "unless it is Featherstonehaugh."

I sat taking in this proposition.

"They'll never help us, I feel," said Margaret.

"Us?"

"The Liberals."

"Oh, damn the Liberals!" I said. "They'll never even help
themselves."

"I don't think I could possibly get on with any of those people,"
said Margaret, after a pause.

She remained for a time looking down at me and, I could feel,
perplexed by me, but I wanted to go on with my thinking, and so I
did not look up, and presently she stooped to my forehead and kissed
me and went rustling softly to her room.

I remained in my study for a long time with my thoughts
crystallising out. . . .

It was then, I think, that I first apprehended clearly how that
opposition to which I have already alluded of the immediate life and
the mental hinterland of a man, can be applied to public and social
affairs. The ideas go on--and no person or party succeeds in
embodying them. The reality of human progress never comes to the