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Trollope, Anthony, 1815-1882

"Phineas Finn The Irish Member"

Monk.
"Everybody tells me so; and yet I feel quite certain that I shall
never come back,--never come back with a seat in Parliament. As my
old tutor, Low, has told me scores of times, I began at the wrong
end. Here I am, thirty years of age, and I have not a shilling in the
world, and I do not know how to earn one."
"Only for me you would still be receiving ever so much a year, and
all would be pleasant," said Mr. Monk.
"But how long would it have lasted? The first moment that Daubeny got
the upper hand I should have fallen lower than I have fallen now. If
not this year, it would have been the next. My only comfort is in
this,--that I have done the thing myself, and have not been turned
out." To the very last, however, Mr. Monk continued to express his
opinion that Phineas would come back, declaring that he had known no
instance of a young man who had made himself useful in Parliament,
and then had been allowed to leave it in early life.
Among those of whom he was bound to take a special leave, the members
of the family of Lord Brentford were, of course, the foremost. He
had already heard of the reconciliation of Miss Effingham and Lord
Chiltern, and was anxious to offer his congratulation to both of
them. And it was essential to him that he should see Lady Laura.


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