Perhaps it was a lover's despair that had precipitated him into the mire
of politics. She conceived the impression that it must be so, and
throughout the day she had an inexplicable unsweet pleasure in inciting
him to argumentation and combating him, though she was compelled to admit
that he had been colloquially charming antecedent to her naughty
provocation; and though she was indebted to him for his patient decorum
under the weary wave of the Reverend Mr. Brisk. Now what does it matter
what a woman thinks in politics? But he deemed it of great moment.
Politically, he deemed that women have souls, a certain fire of life for
exercise on earth. He appealed to reason in them; he would not hear of
convictions. He quoted the Bevisham doctor

'Convictions are generally first impressions that are sealed with later
prejudices,' and insisted there was wisdom in it. Nothing tired him, as
he had said, and addressing woman or man, no prospect of fatigue or of
hopeless effort daunted him in the endeavour to correct an error of
judgement in politics--his notion of an error. The value he put upon
speaking, urging his views, was really fanatical. It appeared that he
canvassed the borough from early morning till near midnight, and nothing
would persuade him that his chance was poor; nothing that an entrenched
Tory like her father, was not to be won even by an assault of all the
reserve forces of Radical pathos, prognostication, and statistics.

Only conceive Nevil Beauchamp knocking at doors late at night, the sturdy
beggar of a vote! or waylaying workmen, as he confessed without shame
that he had done, on their way trooping to their midday meal; penetrating
malodoriferous rooms of dismal ten-pound cottagers, to exhort bedraggled
mothers and babes, and besotted husbands; and exposed to rebuffs from
impertinent tradesmen; and lampooned and travestied, shouting speeches to