But anon, when the
voices of his colleagues have become habitual in his ears--when the
strangeness of the room is gone, and the table before him is known
and trusted--he throws off his awe and dismay, and electrifies his
brotherhood by the vehemence of his declamation and the violence of
his thumping. So let us suppose it will be with Harold Smith, perhaps
in the second or third season of his Cabinet practice. Alas! alas!
that such pleasures should be so fleeting! And then, too, there came
upon him a blow which somewhat modified his triumph--a cruel, dastard
blow, from a hand which should have been friendly to him, from one to
whom he had fondly looked to buoy him up in the great course that was
before him. It had been said by his friends that in obtaining Harold
Smith's services the Prime Minister had infused new young healthy
blood into his body. Harold himself had liked the phrase, and had
seen at a glance how it might have been made to tell by some friendly
Supplehouse or the like. But why should a Supplehouse out of Elysium
be friendly to a Harold Smith within it? Men lapped in Elysium,
steeped to the neck in bliss, must expect to see their friends
fall off from them. Human nature cannot stand it. If I want to get
anything from my old friend Jones, I like to see him shoved up into a
high place.
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