Ernest Maltravers — Volume 08

"You accept the proposal?"

"Nay,—should I not reject it? Our politics are the same only for the moment, our ultimate objects are widely different. To serve with Mr. ———, I must make an unequal compromise—abandon nine opinions to promote one. Is not this a capitulation of that great citadel, one's own conscience? No man will call me inconsistent, for, in public life, to agree with another on a party question is all that is required; the thousand questions not yet ripened, and lying dark and concealed in the future, are not inquired into and divined; but I own I shall deem myself worse than inconsistent. For this is my dilemma,—if I use this noble spirit merely to advance one object, and then desert him where he halts, I am treacherous to him; if I halt with him, but one of my objects effected, I am treacherous to myself. Such are my views. It is with pain I arrive at them, for, at first, my heart beat with a selfish ambition."

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1

Neighbourhood caused the acquaintance and first introduction.

2

To will the same thing and not to will the same thing, that at length is firm friendship.