ll would never be
carried by the actual Parliament. This was what Will Ladislaw dwelt on
to Mr. Brooke as a reason for congratulation that he had not yet tried
his strength at the hustings.

"Things will grow and ripen as if it were a comet year," said Will.
"The public temper will soon get to a cometary heat, now the question
of Reform has set in. There is likely to be another election before
long, and by that time Middlemarch will have got more ideas into its
head. What we have to work at now is the 'Pioneer' and political
meetings."

"Quite right, Ladislaw; we shall make a new thing of opinion here,"
said Mr. Brooke. "Only I want to keep myself independent about Reform,
you know; I don't want to go too far. I want to take up.
Wilberforce's and Romilly's line, you know, and work at Negro
Emancipation, Criminal Law--that kind of thing. But of course I should
support Grey."

"If you go in for the principle of Reform, you must be prepared to take
what the situation offers," said Will. "If everybody pulled for his
own bit against everybody else, the whole question would go to tatters."

"Yes, yes, I agree with you--I quite take that point of view. I should
put it in that light. I should support Grey, you know. But I don't
want to change the balance of the constitution, and I don't think Grey
would."

"But that is what the country wants,"-said Will. "Else there would be
no meaning in political unions or any other movement that knows what
it's about. It wants to have a House of Commons which is not weighted
with nominees of the landed class, but with representatives of the
other interests. And as to contending for a reform short of that, it
is like asking for a bit of an avalanche which has already begun to
thunder."

"That is fine, Ladislaw: that is the way to put it. Write that down,
now. We must begin to get documents about the feeling of the country,
as well as the machine-breaking and general distress."

"As to documents," said Will, "a two-inch card will hold plenty. A few
rows of figures are enough to deduce misery from, and a few more will
show the rate at which the political determination of the people is
growing."

"Good: draw that out a little more at length, Ladislaw. That is an
idea, now: write it out in the 'Pioneer.' Put the figures and deduce
the misery, you know; and put the other figures and deduce--and so on.
You have a way of putting things. Burke, now:--when I think of Burke