‘I certainly,’ said Buckhurst, ‘when I get into the House of Commons, shall speak my mind without reference to any party whatever; and all I hope is, we may all come in at the same time, and then we may make a party of our own.’
‘I have always heard my father say,’ said Vere, ‘that there was nothing so difficult as to organise an independent party in the House of Commons.’
‘Ay! but that was in the Venetian period, Vere,’ said Henry Sydney, smiling.
‘I dare say,’ said Buckhurst, ‘the only way to make a party in the House of Commons is just the one that succeeds anywhere else. Men must associate together. When you are living in the same set, dining together every day, and quizzing the Dons, it is astonishing how well men agree. As for me, I never would enter into a conspiracy, unless the conspirators were fellows who had been at Eton with me; and then there would be no treachery.’
‘Let us think of principles, and not of parties,’ said Coningsby.
‘For my part,’ said Buckhurst, ‘whenever a political system is breaking up, as in this country at present, I think the very best thing is to brush all the old Dons off the stage. They never take to the new road kindly. They are always hampered by their exploded prejudices and obsolete traditions. I don’t think a single man, Vere, that sat in the Venetian Senate ought to be allowed to sit in the present English House of Commons.’
‘Well, no one does in our family except my uncle Philip,’ said Lord Henry; ‘and the moment I want it, he will resign; for he detests Parliament. It interferes so with his hunting.’
‘Well, we all have fair parliamentary prospects,’ said Buckhurst. ‘That is something. I wish we were in now.’
‘Heaven forbid!’ said Coningsby. ‘I tremble at the responsibility of a seat at any time. With my present unsettled and perplexed views, there is nothing from which I should recoil so much as the House of Commons.’
‘I quite agree with you,’ said Henry Sydney. ‘The best thing we can do is to keep as clear of political party as we possibly can. How many men waste the best part of their lives in painfully apologising for conscientious deviation from a parliamentary course which they adopted when they were boys, without thought, or prompted by some local connection, or interest, to secure a seat.’