"Unquestionably," said Constance.

"Unquestionably!--Well, I question it. I foresee a more even balance of
parties--nothing else. When parties are evenly balanced states tremble.
In good government there should be somewhere sufficient power to carry on,
not unexamined, but at least with vigour, the different operations of
government itself. In free countries, therefore, one party ought to
preponderate sufficiently over the other. If it do not--all the state
measures are crippled, delayed, distorted, and the state languishes while
the doctors dispute as to the medicines to be applied to it. You will
find by your Bill, not that the Tories are destroyed, but that the Whigs
and the Radicals are strengthened--the Lords are not crushed--but the
Commons are in a state to contest with them. Hence party battles upon
catchwords--struggles between the two chambers for things of straw. You
who desire progress and movement will find the real affairs of this great
Artificial Empire, in its trade--commerce--colonies--internal
legislation--standing still while the Whigs and the Tories pelt each other
with the quibbles of faction. No I should vote against your Bill! I am
not for popular governments, though I like free states. All the
advantages of democracy seem to me more than counterbalanced by the
sacrifice of the peace and tranquillity, the comfort and the grace, the
dignity and the charities of life that democracies usually entail. If the
object of men is to live happily--not to strive and to fret--not to make
money in the marketplace, and call each other rogues on the hustings, who
would not rather be a German than an American? I own I regret to differ
from you. For--but no matter----"

"For!--what were you about to say?"

"For--then, since you must know it--I am beginning to feel interest in