Page:Sybil (1845 Volume 1).djvu/103

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
TWO NATIONS.
89

their midnight dreams. Then we must not forget the numberless instances in which the coming event is deemed to supply the long-sought opportunity of distinction, or the long-dreaded cause of utter discomfiture; the hundreds, the thousands, who mean to get into parliament, the units who dread getting out. What a crashing change from lounging in St. James's street to sauntering on Boulogne pier; or, after dining at Brookes' and supping at Crockford's, to be saved from destruction by the friendly interposition that sends you in an official capa- city to the marsupial sympathies of Sydney or Swan River!

Now is the time for the men to come forward who have claims; claims for spending their money, which nobody asked them to do, but which of course they only did for the sake of the party. They never wrote for their party, or spoke for their party, or gave their party any other vote than their own; but they urge their claims,—to something; a commissionership of anything, or a consulship anywhere; if no place to be had, they are ready to take it out in dig-