Now Cecilia wished for Mr. Austin’s opinion of Dr. Shrapnel; and as the delicate state of her inclinations made her conscious that to give him the letter covertly would be to betray them to him, who had once, not knowing it, moved her to think of a possible great change in her life, she mustered courage to say, ’Captain Beauchamp at my request lent me the letter to read; I have it, and others written by Dr. Shrapnel.’

Her father hummed to himself, and immediately begged Seymour Austin not to waste his time on the stuff, though he had no idea that a perusal of it could awaken other than the gravest reprehension in so rational a Tory gentleman.

Mr. Austin read the letter through.  He asked to see the other letters mentioned by Cecilia, and read them calmly, without a frown or an interjection.  She sat sketching, her father devouring newspaper columns.

‘It’s the writing of a man who means well,’ Mr. Austin delivered his opinion.

‘Why, the man’s an infidel!’ Colonel Halkett exclaimed.

‘There are numbers.’

‘They have the grace not to confess, then.’

’It’s as well to know what the world’s made of, colonel.  The clergy shut their eyes.  There’s no treating a disease without reading it; and if we are to acknowledge a “vice,” as Dr. Shrapnel would say of the so-called middle-class, it is the smirking over what they think, or their not caring to think at all.  Too many time-servers rot the State.  I can understand the effect of such writing on a mind like Captain Beauchamp’s.  It would do no harm to our young men to have those letters read publicly and lectured on-by competent persons.  Half the thinking world may think pretty much the same on some points as Dr. Shrapnel; they are too wise or too indolent to say it:  and of the other half, about a dozen members would be competent to reply to him.  He is the earnest man, and flies at politics as uneasy young brains fly to literature, fancying they can write because they can write with a pen.  He perceives a bad adjustment of things:  which is correct.  He is honest, and takes his honesty for a virtue:  and that entitles him to believe in himself:  and that belief causes him to see in all opposition to him the wrong he has perceived in existing circumstances:  and so in a dream of power he invokes the people:  and as they do not stir, he takes to prophecy.  This is the round of the politics of impatience.  The study of politics should be guided by some light of statesmanship, otherwise it comes to this wild preaching.

These men are theory-tailors, not politicians.  They are the men who make the “strait-waistcoat for humanity.”  They would fix us to first principles like tethered sheep or hobbled horses.  I should enjoy replying to him, if I had time.  The whole letter is composed of variations upon one idea.  Still I must say the man interests me; I should like to talk to him.’