no gain, even loss, if then we only listen more to the worst part of
ourselves; but in itself it is a good thing to silence that din. It
is at least a beginning of good. If anything good is then gained,
it is not a sheepish tendency, but an independent resolve growing
out of our nature. And, after all, when we talk of non-conformity,
it may only be that we non-conform to the immediate sect of thought
or action about us, to conform to a much wider thing in human
nature.

Ellesmere. Ah me! how one wants a moral essayist always at hand to
enable one to make use of moral essays.

Milverton. Your rules of law are grand things--the proverbs of
justice; yet has not each case its specialities, requiring to be
argued with much circumstance, and capable of different
interpretations? Words cannot be made into men.

Dunsford. I wonder you answer his sneers, Milverton.

Ellesmere. I must go and see whether words cannot be made into
guineas: and then guineas into men is an easy thing. These trains
will not wait even for critics, so, for the present, good-bye.



CHAPTER III.



Ellesmere soon wrote us word that he would be able to come down