’Many young men are, before they have written out a fair copy of their meaning,’ said Mr. Austin.

Cecilia laughed to herself at the vision of the fiery Nevil engaged in writing out a fair copy of his meaning.  How many erasures! what foot-notes!

The arrangement was for Cecilia to proceed to Itchincope alone for a couple of days, and bring a party to Mount Laurels through Bevisham by the yacht on Thursday, to meet Mr. Seymour Austin and Mr. Everard Romfrey.  An early day of the next week had been agreed on for the unmasking of the second Tory candidate.  She promised that in case Nevil Beauchamp should have the hardihood to enter the enemy’s nest at Itchincope on Wednesday, at the great dinner and ball there, she would do her best to bring him back to Mount Laurels, that he might meet his uncle Everard, who was expected there.  At least he may consent to come for an evening,’ she said.  ’Nothing will take him from that canvassing.  It seems to me it must be not merely distasteful . . . ?’

Mr. Austin replied:  ’It ‘s disagreeable, but it’s’ the practice.  I would gladly be bound by a common undertaking to abstain.’

’Captain Beauchamp argues that it would be all to your advantage.  He says that a personal visit is the only chance for an unknown candidate to make the people acquainted with him.’

’It’s a very good opportunity for making him acquainted with them; and I hope he may profit by it.’

‘Ah! pah!  “To beg the vote and wink the bribe,"’ Colonel Halkett subjoined abhorrently: 

       “’It well becomes the Whiggish tribe
        To beg the vote and wink the bribe.”

Canvassing means intimidation or corruption.’

‘Or the mixture of the two, called cajolery,’ said Mr. Austin; ’and that was the principal art of the Whigs.’

Thus did these gentlemen converse upon canvassing.

It is not possible to gather up in one volume of sound the rattle of the knocks at Englishmen’s castle-gates during election days; so, with the thunder of it unheard, the majesty of the act of canvassing can be but barely appreciable, and he, therefore, who would celebrate it must follow the candidate obsequiously from door to door, where, like a cross between a postman delivering a bill and a beggar craving an alms, patiently he attempts the extraction of the vote, as little boys pick periwinkles with a pin.

‘This is your duty, which I most abjectly entreat you to do,’ is pretty nearly the form of the supplication.

How if, instead of the solicitation of the thousands by the unit, the meritorious unit were besought by rushing thousands?—­as a mound of the plains that is circumvented by floods, and to which the waters cry, Be thou our island.  Let it be answered the questioner, with no discourteous adjectives, Thou fool!  To come to such heights of popular discrimination and political ardour the people would have to be vivified to a pitch little short of eruptive:  it would be Boreas blowing AEtna inside them; and we should have impulse at work in the country, and immense importance attaching to a man’s whether he will or he won’t—­enough to womanize him.  We should be all but having Parliament for a sample of our choicest rather than our likest:  and see you not a peril in that?