Having successfully eluded all these disqualifications, paid a large sum for the privilege of serving his country, talked himself hoarse on the platforms of his constituency, and finally been returned in triumph to the House of Commons, the private member may consider himself safely launched upon the parliamentary sea. It now remains to be seen whether or not political life comes up to his expectations. If he is energetic, ambitious, and eloquent he will find free scope for his talents on the green benches at Westminster. He will be given a chance of proving his worth upon Select Committees. Here he can serve his apprenticeship in preparation for that glorious day when he may be inspired to thrill and enrapture a delighted assembly with such an outburst of oratory as shall at once establish his claim to the consideration of his party. Then indeed does Fortune seem ready to smile upon the embryo statesman. In imagination he sees himself lounging upon the Treasury bench, his feet cocked up against the historic Table, while he writes a report of the debate for the edification of his Sovereign. To the political enthusiast the prospect is a rosy one. But alas! it is not every man who can aspire to the giddy heights of the front bench. After many a session of laborious days and sleepless nights, after many a recess devoted to the tiresome art known as "nursing" his constituency, after many disappointments and trials, our member may still find himself at the bottom of the parliamentary ladder. Even if he ascends to what Mr. Gladstone would have called "measurable distance" of the top, his tenure is precarious; in the defeat of a Government at a General Election he too may fall. And though his constituents remain loyal and his seat secure, there arrives a day when he begins to weary of the slavery of parliamentary life, of the drudgery of a political career. Like Macaulay, he may at length come to define politics as a pursuit from which the most that those who are engaged in it can expect is that by relinquishing liberal studies and social pleasures, by passing nights without sleep and summers without one glimpse of the beauty of nature, they may attain "that laborious, that invidious, that closely watched slavery which is mocked with the name of power."[93] When this tragic moment arrives, or when through physical infirmity, advancing years, or penury, he wishes to bid a long farewell to the scene of his parliamentary labours, he has still a minor obstacle to contend with. [93] "Edinburgh Review" (October, 1838), vol. lxviii. p. 114. The two happiest days of a statesman's life are said to be the day when he accepts high office and the day when he resigns it (Campbell's "Lives of the Chancellors," vol. i. p. 561). Lord Rosebery defined the acceptance and resignation of office as "the two supreme pleasures--one ideal, the other real."