[Sidenote: The dearest foes.]
Between two other men there intervenes not the space of even a seat;
they are cheek by jowl, and touching each other's coat-tails; and yet
there yawns between them a gulf of deadly and almost murderous hate
which not years, nor forgiveness, nor recollections of past comradeship
will ever bridge over. And look at the House as a whole, and what do you
see but a number of fierce ambitions, hatreds, and antipathies, natural
and acquired--the play of the worst and the deadliest passions of the
human heart? Above all things, be assured that there is scarcely one in
all this assembly whose natural stock of vanity--that dreadful heritage
we all have--has not been maximised and sharpened by the glare, the
applause, the collisions and frictions of public life. I have heard it
said that even the manliest fellow, who has become an actor, is liable
to be filled to a bursting gorge with hatred of the pretty woman who may
snatch from him a round of applause; and assuredly every nature is
liable to be soured, inflamed, and degraded by those appearances before
the gallery of the public meeting, the watchful voters, the echoing
Press, and all the other agencies that create and register public fame.
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