I begin to wonder what the fascination is which attracts men, who could sit over their tea and their book in their own cool, quiet room, to breathe bad air, hear bad speeches, lounge up and down the long gallery, and doze uneasily on the green benches till three in the morning. Thank God, these luxuries are not necessary for me. My pen is sufficient for my support, and my sister’s company is sufficient for my happiness. Only let me see her well and cheerful, and let offices in Government and seats in Parliament go to those who care for them. If I were to leave public life to-morrow, I declare that, except for the vexation which it might give you and one or two others, the event would not be in the slightest degree painful to me. Sir George Trevelyan, in his _Life of Lord Macaulay_, not only corroborates his uncle as to the inexplicability of the charm of the House of Commons, but gives also from personal experience a still more forbidding description of what he calls “the tedious and exhaustive routine” of an M.P.’s life: Waiting the whole evening to vote, and then walking half a mile at a foot’s-pace round and round the crowded lobbies; dining amidst clamour and confusion, with a division twenty minutes long between two of the mouthfuls; trudging home at three in the morning through the slush of a February thaw; and sitting behind Ministers in the centre of a closely packed bench during the hottest week of the London summer. If this were all that was to be said, it would, indeed, be hard to understand why a seat in the House of Commons should be regarded as an object to be sighed for, and schemed for, and fought for, and paid for by thousands of very astute and able men. The constituencies are not engaged at the General Election in fastening this burden upon unwilling shoulders. How incomprehensible, then, is the action of these who, having had experience of the hard and thankless lot of the Member of Parliament, its mental strain, its physical discomforts, yet labour unceasingly night and day during the weeks of the General Election to induce the electors to send them back again to the dreary round of routine tasks at Westminster. Indeed, Macaulay himself felt keenly the loss of his seat for Edinburgh in 1847, though at the time he was absorbed in his _History of England_; and in 1852, with his great work still uncompleted, he was delighted to be returned again to Parliament by his old constituency. But the truth is, we have been given thus far only the dark side of the picture. There is a silver lining also to the cloud. The life of a representative of the people has of course its compensations.