‘But some one may take the trouble to remind the readers that my victories have been defeats, and that in my last examination but one I got “cautioned.”’ ‘Do you imagine, Mr. Kearney, the House of Commons in any way reflects college distinction? Do you look for senior-wranglers and double-firsts on the Treasury bench? and are not the men who carry away distinction the men of breadth, not depth? Is it not the wide acquaintance with a large field of knowledge, and the subtle power to know how other men regard these topics, that make the popular leader of the present day? and remember, it is talk, and not oratory, is the mode. You must be commonplace, and even vulgar, practical, dashed with a small morality, so as not to be classed with the low Radical; and if then you have a bit of high-faluting for the peroration, you’ll do. The morning papers will call you a young man of great promise, and the whip will never pass you without a shake-hands.’ ‘But there are good speakers.’ ‘There is Bright--I don’t think I know another--and he only at times. Take my word for it, the secret of success with “the collective wisdom” is reiteration. Tell them the same thing, not once or twice or even ten, but fifty times, and don’t vary very much even the way you tell it. Go on repeating your platitudes, and by the time you find you are cursing your own stupid persistence, you may swear you have made a convert to your opinions. If you are bent on variety, and must indulge it, ring your changes on the man who brought these views before them--yourself, but beyond these never soar. O’Connell, who had a variety at will for his own countrymen, never tried it in England: he knew better. The chawbacons that we sneer at are not always in smock-frocks, take my word for it; they many of them wear wide-brimmed hats and broadcloth, and sit above the gangway. Ay, sir,’ cried he, warming with the theme, ‘once I can get my countrymen fully awakened to the fact of who and what are the men who rule them, I’ll ask for no Catholic Associations, or Repeal Committees, or Nationalist Clubs--the card-house of British supremacy will tumble of itself; there will be no conflict, but simply submission.’ ‘We’re a long day’s journey from these convictions, I suspect,’ said Kearney doubtfully. ‘Not so far, perhaps, as you think. Do you remark how little the English press deal in abuse of us to what was once their custom? They have not, I admit, come down to civility; but they don’t deride us in the old fashion, nor tell us, as I once saw, that we are intellectually and physically stamped with inferiority. If it was true, Mr. Kearney, it was stupid to tell it to us.’ ‘I think we could do better than dwell upon these things.’