“Yes, there are people on every hand, excellent people, I have not a doubt; but they neither suit me, nor _I them_. Their ways are not mine, nor are their ideas, their instincts, nor their prejudices. The world, my dear Mr. M’Kinlay, is, unfortunately, wider than a Welsh county, though they will not believe it here.” “You mean, then, Sir Within, that they are local, and narrow-minded in their notions?” “I don’t like to say that, any more than I like to hear myself called a libertine; but I suppose, after all, it is what we both come to.” The air of self-accusation made the old envoy perfectly triumphant, and, as he passed his hand across his brow and smiled blandly, he seemed to be recalling to mind innumerable successes of the past. “To say truth, diplomacy is not the school for dévots.” “I should think not, indeed, Sir,” said M’Kinlay. “And that is what these worthy folk cannot or will not see. Wounds and scars are the necessary incidents of a soldier’s life; but people will not admit that there are moral injuries which form the accidents of a minister’s life, and to which he must expose himself as fearlessly as any soldier that ever marched to battle. What do these excellent creatures here--who have never experienced a more exciting scene than a cattle-show, nor faced a more captivating incident than a Bishop’s visitation--know of the trials, the seductions--the irresistible seductions of the great world? Ah, Mr. M’Kinlay, I could lay bare a very strange chapter of humanity, were I to tell even one-fourth of my own experiences.” “And an instructive one too, I should say, Sir.” “In one sense, yes; certainly instructive. You see, Mr. M’Kinlay, with respect to life, it is thus: Men in your profession become conversant with all the material embarrassments and difficulties of families; they know of that crushing bond, or that ruinous mortgage, of the secret loan at fifty per cent., or the drain of hush-money to stop a disclosure, just as the doctor knows of the threatened paralysis or the spreading aneurism; but we men of the world--men of the world _par excellence_--read humanity in its moral aspect; we study its conflicts, its trials, its weakness, and its fall--I say fall, because such is the one and inevitable end of every struggle.” “This is a sad view, a very sad view,” said M’Kinlay, who, probably to fortify himself against the depression he felt, drank freely of a strong Burgundy. “Not so in one respect. It makes us more tolerant, more charitable. There is nothing ascetic in our judgment of people--we deplore, but we forgive.” “Fine, Sir, very fine--a noble sentiment!” said the lawyer, whose utterance was not by any means so accurate as it had been an hour before.