And the Duke told him also that he was diffident.  Of course he was diffident.  Was it not one and the same thing?  The very pride of which he was accused was no more than a shrinking which comes from the want of trust in oneself.  He was a shy man.  All his friends and all his enemies knew that;—­it was thus that he still discoursed with himself;—­a shy, self-conscious, timid, shrinking, thin-skinned man!  Of course he was diffident.  Then why urge him on to tasks for which he was by nature unfitted?

And yet there was much in his old friend’s letter which moved him.  There were certain words which he kept on repeating to himself.  ‘He cannot be justified in even remembering that he has a self’.  It was a hard thing to say of any man, but yet a true thing of such a man as his correspondent had described.  His correspondent had spoken of a man who should know himself to be capable of serving the State.  If a man were capable, and was sure within his own bosom of his own capacity, it would be his duty.  But what if he were not so satisfied?  What if he felt that any labours of his would be vain, and all self-abnegation useless?  His friend had told him that on that matter he was bound to take the opinion of others.  Perhaps so.  But if so, had not that opinion been given to him very plainly when he was told that he was both proud and diffident?  That he was called upon to serve his country, by good service, if such were within his power, he did acknowledge freely; but not that he should allow himself to be stuck up as a ninepin only to be knocked down!  There are politicians for whom such occupation seems to be proper,—­and who like it too.  A little office, a little power, a little rank, a little pay, a little niche in the ephemeral history of the year will reward many men adequately for being knocked down.

And yet he loved power, and even when thinking of all this allowed his mind from time to time to run away into a dreamland of prosperous political labours.  He thought what it would be to be an all-beneficent Prime Minister, with a loyal majority, with a well-conditioned unanimous cabinet, with a grateful people, and an appreciative Sovereign.  How well might a man spend himself night and day, even to death, in the midst of such labours as these.

Half an hour after receiving the Duke’s letter he suddenly jumped up and sat himself down at his desk.  He felt it to be necessary that he should at once write to his old friend;—­and the more necessary that he should do so at once, because he had resolved that he would do so before he had made up his mind on the chief subject of that letter.  It did not suit him to say either that he would or that he would not do as his friend had advised him.  The reply was made in a very few words.  ‘As to myself,’ he said, after expressing his regret that the Duke should find it necessary to retire from public life—­’as to myself, pray understand that whatever I may do I shall never cease to be grateful for your affectionate and high-spirited counsels.’