ch a journey, when the business
of the Session was over, and a little change of air needed, he could
have enjoyed the thing in a moderate way, looking about him, passing
on, and knowing that it was good for him to be there at that moment.
But he had none of that passion for mountains and lakes, none of
that positive joy in the heather, which would have compensated many
another man for the loss of all that Mr Palliser was losing. His mind
was ever at home in the House of Commons, or in that august assembly
which men call the Cabinet, and of the meetings of which he read from
week to week the simple records. Therein were mentioned the names of
those heroes to whom Fortune had been so much kinder than she had
been to him; and he envied them. He took short, solitary walks, about
the town, over the bridges, and along the rivers, making to himself
the speeches which he would have made to full houses, had not his
wife brought ruin upon all his hopes. And as he pictured to himself
the glorious successes which probably never would have been his had
he remained in London, so did he prophesy to himself an absolute and
irremediable downfall from all political power as the result of his
absence,--having, in truth, no sufficient cause for such despair. As
yet, he was barely thirty, and had he been able to judge his own case
as keenly as he could have judged the case of another, he would have
known that a short absence might probably raise his value in the
estimation of others rather than lower it. But his personal annoyance
was too great to allow of his making such calculations aright. So he
became fretful and unhappy; and though he spoke no word of rebuke
to his wife, though he never hinted that she had robbed him of his
glories, he made her conscious by his manner that she had brought him
to this miserable condition.

Lady Glencora herself had a love for the mountains and lakes, but it
was a love of that kind which requires to be stimulated by society,
and which is keenest among cold chickens, picnic-pies, and the flying
of champagne corks. When they first entered Switzerland she was very
enthusiastic, and declared her intention of climbing up all the
mountains, and going through all the passes. She endeavoured to
induce her husband to promise that she should be taken up Mont Blanc.
And I think she would have carried this on, and would have been taken
up Mont Blanc, had Mr Palliser's aspirations been congenial. But they
were not c