Randal bowed, and answered—"No two men of our education can dispute upon the application of knowledge."
Parson, (pricking up his ears.)—"Eh! what to?"
Randal.—"Power, of course."
Parson, (overjoyed.)—"Power!—the vulgarest application of it, or the loftiest? But you mean the loftiest?"
Randal, (in his turn interested and interrogative.)—"What do you call the loftiest, and what the vulgarest?"
Parson.—"The vulgarest, self-interest; the loftiest, beneficence."
Randal suppressed the half disdainful smile that rose to his lip.
"You speak, sir, as a clergyman should do. I admire your sentiment, and adopt it; but I fear that the knowledge which aims only at beneficence very rarely in this world gets any power at all."
Squire, (seriously.)—"That's true; I never get my own way when I want to do a kindness, and Stirn always gets his when he insists on something diabolically brutal and harsh."
Parson.—"Pray, Mr Leslie, what does intellectual power refined to the utmost, but entirely stripped of beneficence, most resemble?"