The Corn-law threatens to be the same.'

'And your Chief--in personal colloquy?'

'He keeps a calm front. I may tell you: there is nothing I would not
confide to you: he has let fall some dubious words in private. I don't
know what to think of them.'

'But if he should waver?'

'It's not wavering. It's the openness of his mind.'

'Ah! the mind. We imagine it free. The House and the country are the
sentient frame governing the mind of the politician more than his ideas.
He cannot think independently of them:--nor I of my natural anatomy. You
will test the truth of that after your omelette and piquette, and marvel
at the quitting of your line of route for Paris. As soon as the mind
attempts to think independently, it is like a kite with the cord cut,
and performs a series of darts and frisks, that have the look of wildest
liberty till you see it fall flat to earth. The openness of his mind is
most honourable to him.'

'Ominous for his party.'

'Likely to be good for his country.'

'That is the question.'

'Prepare to encounter it. In politics I am with the active minority on
behalf of the inert but suffering majority. That is my rule. It leads,