"
"What do I think of you?"
"That I'm a poor creature, generally half asleep, shallow-pated,
slow-blooded, ignorant, useless, and unambitious."
"Certainly unambitious, Mr. Maule."
"And that word carries all the others. What's the good of ambition?
There's the man they were talking about last night,--that Irishman."
"Mr. Finn?"
"Yes; Phineas Finn. He is an ambitious fellow. He'll have to starve,
according to what Chiltern was saying. I've sense enough to know I
can't do any good."
"You are sensible, I admit."
"Very well, Miss Palliser. You can say just what you like, of course.
You have that privilege."
"I did not mean to say anything severe. I do admit that you are
master of a certain philosophy, for which much may be said. But you
are not to expect that I shall express an approval which I do not
feel."
"But I want you to approve it."
"Ah!--there, I fear, I cannot oblige you."
"I want you to approve it, though no one else may."
"Though all else should do so, I cannot."
"Then take the task of curing the sick one, and of strengthening
the weak one, into your own hands.
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