Mr. Brooke, necessarily, had his agents, who understood the nature of the Middlemarch voter and the means of enlisting his ignorance on the side of the Bill—which were remarkably similar to the means of enlisting it on the side against the Bill. Will stopped his ears. Occasionally Parliament, like the rest of our lives, even to our eating and apparel, could hardly go on if our imaginations were too active about processes. There were plenty of dirty-handed men in the world to do dirty business; and Will protested to himself that his share in bringing Mr. Brooke through would be quite innocent.
But whether he should succeed in that mode of contributing to the majority on the right side was very doubtful to him.
He had written out various speeches and memoranda for speeches, but he had begun to perceive that Mr. Brooke’s mind, if it had the burden of remembering any train of thought, would let it drop, run away in search of it, and not easily come back again.
To collect documents is one mode of serving your country, and to remember the contents of a document is another.
No! the only way in which Mr. Brooke could be coerced into thinking of the right arguments at the right time was to be well plied with them till they took up all the room in his brain. But here there was the difficulty of finding room, so many things having been taken in beforehand.
Mr. Brooke himself observed that his ideas stood rather in his way when he was speaking.
However, Ladislaw’s coaching was forthwith to be put to the test, for before the day of nomination Mr. Brooke was to explain himself to the worthy electors of Middlemarch from the balcony of the White Hart, which looked out advantageously at an angle of the marketplace, commanding a large area in front and two converging streets.