"You would make a great _coup_ in politics with it; it is especially adapted for politics, and has never been tried." "You don't say so," said Broadhem, delighted; "don't go on making one guess as if it was a game. Has it anything to do with the suffrage?" "It has to do with everything," I said; "I don't think I can do it myself; I made a lamentable failure just now by way of a start," and I paused suddenly--"Who am I," I thought, "that I should venture to preach? What act have I done in life which should give weight to my words?" but the fervour was on me, and I could no more check the burning thoughts than the trumpet can control the sound it emits. "Well," he said impatiently. "LIVE THE LIFE." "I don't understand you," said Broadhem. "If you did," I said, "do you suppose I should feel my whole nature yearning as it is? What better proof could I desire that the life has yet to be lived than that you don't understand me? Supposing, now, that you and I actually put into practice what all these friends of your mother profess, and, instead of judging people who go to plays, or play croquet on Sunday, or dance, we tried to live the _inner_ life ourselves. Supposing, in your case, that your own interest never entered your head in any one thing you undertook; supposing you actually felt that you had nothing in common with the people around you, and belonged neither to the world of publicans and sinners, nor to the world of scribes and Pharisees, but were working on a different plane, in which self was altogether ignored--that you gave up attempting to steer your own craft any longer, but put the helm into other hands, and could complacently watch her drive straight on to the breakers, and make a deliberate shipwreck of every ambition in life,--don't you think you would create rather a sensation in the political world? Supposing you could arrive at the point of being as indifferent to the approval as to the censure of your fellow-men, of caring as little for the highest honours which are in their power to bestow now, as for the fame which posterity might award to you hereafter; supposing that wealth and power appeared equally contemptible to you for their own sakes, and that you had no desire connected with this earth except to be used while upon it for divine ends, and that all the while that this motive was actuating you, you were striving and working and toiling in the midst of this busy world, doing exactly what every man round you was doing, but doing it all from a different motive,--it would be curious to see where you would land--how you would be abused and misunderstood, and what a perplexity you would create in the minds of your friends, who would never know whether you were a profound intriguer or a shallow fool. How much you would have to suffer, but what a balance there would be to the credit side! For instance, as you could never be disappointed, you would be the only free man among slaves.