The test would be innocent.

Candidates have swallowed, and daily do swallow, many a worse one.

As might be this doctrine of a great triangle, so is the doctrine of Home Rule.

Why is a gentleman of property to be kept out in the cold by some O'Mullins because he will not mutter an unmeaning shibboleth?
"Triangular?
Yes,--or lozenge-shaped, if you please; but, gentlemen, I am the man for Tipperary." Phineas Finn, having seen, or thought that he had seen, all this, began, from the very first moment of his appointment, to consider painfully within himself whether the genuine services of an honest and patriotic man might not compass some remedy for the present ill-boding ferment of the country.

What was it that the Irish really did want;--what that they wanted, and had not got, and which might with propriety be conceded to them?
What was it that the English really would refuse to sanction, even though it might not be wanted?
He found himself beating about among rocks as to Catholic education and Papal interference, the passage among which might be made clearer to him in Irish atmosphere than in that of Westminster.
Therefore he was away a good deal in these days, travelling backwards and forwards as he might be wanted for any debate.