This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of thefile for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making anentire meal of them. D.W.]
By George Meredith
1897
Meantime the candidates raised knockers, rang bells, bowed, expoundedtheir views, praised their virtues, begged for votes, and greatly andstrangely did the youngest of them enlarge his knowledge of hiscountrymen. But he had an insatiable appetite, and except in relation toMr. Cougham, considerable tolerance. With Cougham, he was like a younghound in the leash. They had to run as twins; but Beauchamp's conjunctwould not run, he would walk. He imposed his experience on Beauchamp,with an assumption that it must necessarily be taken for the law ofBeauchamp's reason in electoral and in political affairs, and this washard on Beauchamp, who had faith in his reason. Beauchamp's earlycanvassing brought Cougham down to Bevisham earlier than usual in thedays when he and Seymour Austin divided the borough, and he inclined toadminister correction to the Radically-disposed youngster. 'Yes, I havegone all over that,' he said, in speech sometimes, in manner perpetually,upon the intrusion of an idea by his junior. Cougham also, Cougham hadpassed through his Radical phase, as one does on the road to wisdom.So the frog telleth tadpoles: he too has wriggled most preposterous oftails; and he has shoved a circular flat head into corners unadapted toits shape; and that the undeveloped one should dutifully listen toexperience and accept guidance, is devoutly to be hoped. Alas!Beauchamp would not be taught that though they were yoked they stood atthe opposite ends of the process of evolution.
The oddly coupled pair deplored, among their respective friends, thedisastrous Siamese twinship created by a haphazard improvident Liberalcamp. Look at us! they said:—Beauchamp is a young demagogue; Coughamis chrysalis Tory. Such Liberals are the ruin of Liberalism; but of suchmust it be composed when there is no new cry to loosen floods. It wastoo late to think of an operation to divide them. They held the heart ofthe cause between them, were bound fast together, and had to go on.Beauchamp, with a furious tug of Radicalism, spoken or performed, pulledCougham on his beam-ends. Cougham, to right himself, defined hisLiberalism sharply from the politics of the pit, pointed to France andher Revolutions, washed his hands of excesses, and entirely oversetBeauchamp. Seeing that he stood in the Liberal interest, the juniorcould not abandon the Liberal flag; so he seized it and bore it ahead ofthe time, there where Radicals trip their phantom dances like shadows ona fog, and waved it as the very flag of our perfectible race. So greatwas the impetus that Cougham had no choice but to step out with himbriskly—voluntarily as a man propelled by a hand on his coat-collar.A word saved him: the word practical. 'Are we practical?' he inquired,and shivered Beauchamp's galloping frame with a violent application ofthe stop abrupt; for that question, 'Are we practical?' penetrates thebosom of an English audi