Look at these men sitting on the same bench and members of the same party--perhaps even with exactly the same great purpose to carry out in public policy, and neither really in the least dishonest nor insincere.

They are talking in the most amicable manner, they pass with all in the world--including themselves--for bosom friends; and yet at a certain moment--in a given situation--they would stab each other in the back without compunction or hesitation, to gain a step in the race for distinction.
[Sidenote: The dearest foes.] Between two other men there intervenes not the space of even a seat; they are cheek by jowl, and touching each other's coat-tails; and yet there yawns between them a gulf of deadly and almost murderous hate which not years, nor forgiveness, nor recollections of past comradeship will ever bridge over.

And look at the House as a whole, and what do you see but a number of fierce ambitions, hatreds, and antipathies, natural and acquired--the play of the worst and the deadliest passions of the human heart?
Above all things, be assured that there is scarcely one in all this assembly whose natural stock of vanity--that dreadful heritage we all have--has not been maximised and sharpened by the glare, the applause, the collisions and frictions of public life.

I have heard it said that even the manliest fellow, who has become an actor, is liable to be filled to a bursting gorge with hatred of the pretty woman who may snatch from him a round of applause; and assuredly every nature is liable to be soured, inflamed, and degraded by those appearances before the gallery of the public meeting, the watchful voters, the echoing Press, and all the other agencies that create and register public fame.
[Sidenote: Blighted hopes.] Think of all this, and then imagine what a Prime Minister does who proposes a scheme which will deprive some dozens of men of an opportunity of public attention for which they have been panting and working perchance for years.

Recollect, furthermore, that the private member may be interested in his proposal with the fanaticism of the faddist--the relentless purpose of the philanthropist, the vehement ardour of the reformer.