"Ah!" I said, "I can guess what it is; he is a little too Radical for you, but you must not mind that; depend upon it, an ambitious young peer can't do better than ally himself with the Manchester school. They have plenty of talent, but have failed as yet to make much impression upon the country for lack of an aristocrat. It is like a bubble company in the City; they want a nobleman as chairman to give an air of respectability to the direction. He might perhaps be a prophet without honour if he remained in his own country, so he is quite right to go to Manchester. I look upon cotton, backed by Exeter Hall, as so strong a combination, that they would give an immense start in public life to a young man with great family prestige, even of small abilities; but as Broadhem has good natural talents, and is in the Upper House into the bargain, the move, in a strategical point of view, so far as his future career is concerned, is perfect." "I cannot tell you, Lord Frank," said Lady Ursula, "how distressed I am to hear you talk in this way. As a woman, I suppose I am not competent to discuss politics; and if Broadhem conscientiously believes in manhood suffrage and the Low Church, and considers it his duty before God to lose no opportunity of propagating his opinions, I should be the first to urge his using all the influence which his name and wealth give him in what would then become a sacred duty; but the career that you talk about is not a sacred duty. It is a wretched Will-o'-the-wisp that tempts men to wade through mire in its pursuit, not the bright star fixed above them in the heavens to light up their path. I firmly believe," she went on, as she warmed to her theme, "that that one word 'Career,' has done more to demoralise public men than any other word in the language. It is one embodiment of that selfishness which we are taught from our cradles. Boys go to school with strict injunctions if possible to put self at the top of it. They take the highest honours at the university purely for the sake of self. How can we expect when they get into Parliament that they should think of anything but self, until at last the most conscientious of them is only conscientious by contrast? Who is there that ever tells them that personal ambition is a sin the most hateful in the sight of God, the _first_ and not the last 'infirmity of noble minds'? I know you think me foolish and unpractical, and will tell me mine is an impossible standard; but I don't believe in impossible standards where public morality is concerned. At all events, let us make some attempt in an upward direction; and as a first step I propose to banish from the vocabulary that most pernicious of all words, 'A Career.'"