"Young men are boys at college, rowing in boats, when women have been ever so long out in the world. He was the very model of an English statesman. He loved his country dearly, and wished her to be, as he believed her to be, first among nations. But he had no belief in perpetuating her greatness by any grand improvements. Let things take their way naturally,--with a slight direction hither or thither as things might require. That was his method of ruling. He believed in men rather than measures. As long as he had loyalty around him, he could be personally happy, and quite confident as to the country. He never broke his heart because he could not carry this or that reform. What would have hurt him would have been to be worsted in personal conflict. But he could always hold his own, and he was always happy. Your man with a thin skin, a vehement ambition, a scrupulous conscience, and a sanguine desire for rapid improvement, is never a happy, and seldom a fortunate politician." "Mrs. Finn, you understand it all better than any one else that I ever knew." "I have been watching it a long time, and of course very closely since I have been married." "But you have an eye trained to see it all. What a useful member you would have been in a government!" "But I should never have had patience to sit all night upon that bench in the House of Commons. How men can do it! They mustn't read. They can't think because of the speaking. It doesn't do for them to talk. I don't believe they ever listen. It isn't in human nature to listen hour after hour to such platitudes. I believe they fall into a habit of half-wakeful sleeping, which carries them through the hours; but even that can't be pleasant. I look upon the Treasury Bench in July as a sort of casual-ward which we know to be necessary, but is almost too horrid to be contemplated." "Men do get bread and skilly there certainly; but, Mrs. Finn, we can go into the library and smoking-room." "Oh, yes;--and a clerk in an office can read the newspapers instead of doing his duty. But there is a certain surveillance exercised, and a certain quantity of work exacted. I have met Lords of the Treasury out at dinner on Mondays and Thursdays, but we all regard them as boys who have shirked out of school. I think upon the whole, Mr. Erle, we women have the best of it." "I don't suppose you will go in for your 'rights'." "Not by Act of Parliament, or by platform meeting. I have a great idea of a woman's rights; but that is the way, I think, to throw them away. What do you think of the Duchess's evenings?" "Lady Glen is in her way as great a woman as you are;--perhaps greater, because nothing ever stops her." "Whereas I have scruples."