“I see that Pope’s definition is still true, ‘Party is the madness of the many for the gain of the few.’”
“No, it is not true. Madness is a wrong word applied to the many: the many are sane enough; they know their own objects, and they make use of the intellect of the few in order to gain their objects. In each party it is the many that control the few who nominally lead them. A man becomes Prime Minister because he seems to the many of his party the fittest person to carry out their views. If he presume to differ from these views, they put him into a moral pillory, and pelt him with their dirtiest stones and their rottenest eggs.”
“Then the maxim should be reversed, and party is rather the madness of the few for the gain of the many?
“Of the two, that is the more correct definition.”
“Let me keep my senses and decline to be one of the few.”
Kenelm moved away from his cousin’s side, and entering one of the less crowded rooms, saw Cecilia Travers seated there in a recess with Lady Glenalvon. He joined them, and after a brief interchange of a few commonplaces, Lady Glenalvon quitted her post to accost a foreign ambassadress, and Kenelm sank into the chair she vacated.
It was a relief to his eye to contemplate Cecilia’s candid brow; to his ear to hearken to the soft voice that had no artificial tones, and uttered no cynical witticisms.
“Don’t you think it strange,” said Kenelm, “that we English should so mould all our habits as to make even what we call pleasure as little pleasurable as possible? We are now in the beginning of June, the fresh outburst of summer, when every day in the country is a delight to eye and ear, and we say, ‘The season for hot rooms is beginning.’ We alone of civilized races spend our summer in a capital, and cling to the country when the trees are leafless and the brooks frozen.”
“Certainly that is a mistake; but I love the country in all seasons, even in winter.”
“Provided the country house is full of London people?”