Phineas Redux

Phineas Redux is a novel by Anthony Trollope, first published in 1873 as a serial in The Graphic. It is the fourth of the "Palliser" series of novels and the sequel to the second book of the series, Phineas Finn.

Quotes

He possessed the rare merit of making a property of his time and not a burden.

Men and not measures are, no doubt, the very life of politics. But then it is not the fashion to say so in public places.

• Let a man be of what side he may in politics, — unless he be much more of a partisan than a patriot, — he will think it well that there should be some equity of division in the bestowal of crumbs of comfort.
  • Ch. 1

• Then he would be penniless, with the world before him as a closed oyster to be again opened, and he knew, — no one better, — that this oyster becomes harder and harder in the opening as the man who has to open it becomes older.
  • Ch. 1

• Of all hatreds that the world produces, a wife’s hatred for her husband, when she does hate him, is the strongest.
  • Ch. 2

• I show Baby, and Oswald shows the hounds. We’ve nothing else to interest anybody.
  • Ch. 2

• She rides to hounds, and talks Italian, and writes for the Times.
  • Ch. 2

• I fancy that he will be a great statesman. After all, Mr. Finn, that is the best thing a man can be, unless it is given him to be a saint and a martyr and all that kind of thing, — which is not just what a mother looks for.
  • Ch. 2

• We all profess to believe when we’re told that this world should be used merely as a preparation for the next; and yet there is something so cold and comfortless in the theory that we do not relish the prospect even for our children.
  • Ch. 2

• “But what made Miss Boreham turn nun?”
  “I fancy she found the penances lighter than they were at home,” said the lord. “They couldn’t well be heavier.”
  • Ch. 3

• Men are so seldom really good. They are so little sympathetic. What man thinks of changing himself so as to suit his wife? And yet men expect that women shall put on altogether new characters when they are married, and girls think that they can do so.
  • Ch. 3

• It is the necessary nature of a political party in this country to avoid, as long as it can be avoided, the consideration of any question which involves a great change.
  • Ch. 4

• Mr. Browborough, whose life had not been passed in any strict obedience to the Ten Commandments, and whose religious observances had not hitherto interfered with either the pleasures or the duties of his life, repeated at every meeting which he attended, and almost to every elector whom he canvassed, the great Shibboleth which he had now adopted — “The prosperity of England depends on the Church of her people.”
  • Ch. 4

• But he could stand up with unabashed brow and repeat with enduring audacity the same words a dozen times over — “The prosperity of England depends on the Church of her people.” Had he been asked whether the prosperity which he promised was temporal or spiritual in its nature, not only would he not have answered, but he would not in the least have understood the question.
  • Ch. 4

• “They’re giving £2 10s. a vote at the Fallgate this minute” said Ruddles to him at a quarter past three.
  “We shall have to prove it.”
  “We can do that, I think,” said Ruddles.
  • Ch. 4

• He too, liked his party, and was fond of loyal men; but he had learned at last that all loyalty must be built on a basis of self-advantage. Patriotism may exist without it, but that which Erie called loyalty in politics was simply devotion to the side which a man conceives to be his side, and which he cannot leave without danger to himself.
  • Ch. 5

• The bucolic mind of East Barsetshire took warm delight in the eloquence of the eminent personage who represented them, but was wont to extract more actual enjoyment from the music of his periods than from the strength of his arguments.
  • Ch. 5

• It seemed, indeed, to Phineas that as Mrs. Low was buckled up in such triple armour that she feared nothing, she might have been less loud in expression her abhorrence of the enemies of the Church. If she feared nothing, why should she scream so loudly?
  • Ch. 6

• He is one of those men who, on marrying, assume that they have at last got a person to do a duty which has always hitherto been neglected.
  • Ch. 6

• When once a woman is married she should be regarded as having thrown off her allegiance to her own sex. She is sure to be treacherous at any rate in one direction.
  • Ch. 7

• “I am sorry for that, — very sorry.”
  “Why so, Lord Chiltern?”
  “Because if you were engaged to him I thought that perhaps you might have introduced him to ride a little less forward.”
  • Ch. 7

• As for offending him, you might as well swear at a tree, and think to offend it.
  • Ch. 7

• Flirting I take to be the excitement of love, without its reality, and without its ordinary result in marriage.
  • Ch. 7

• A bull in a china shop is not a useful animal, nor is he ornamental, but there can be no doubt of his energy. The hare was full of energy, but he didn't win the race. The man who stands still is the man who keeps his ground.
  • Ch. 7

• It may, indeed, be assumed that a man who loses his temper while he is speaking is endeavouring to speak the truth such as he believes it to be, and again it may be assumed that a man who speaks constantly without losing his temper is not always entitled to the same implicit faith.
  • Ch. 9

• In former days the Earl had been a man quite capable of making himself disagreeable, and probably had not yet lost the power of doing so. Of all our capabilities this is the one which clings longest to us.
  • Ch. 11

• You men find so many angels in your travels. You have been honester than some. You have generally been off with the old angel before you were with the new, — as far at least as I knew.
  • Ch. 11

• Men when they are true are simple. They are often false has hell, and then they are crafty as Lucifer. But the man who is true judges others by himself, — almost without reflection. A woman can be true as steel and cunning at the same time.
  • Ch. 11

• When you have done the rashest thing in the world it is very pleasant to be told that no man of spirit could have acted otherwise.
  • Ch. 12

• Would it not be better to go home and live at the family park all the year round, and hunt, and attend Quarter Sessions, and be able to declare morning and evening with a clear conscience that the country was going to the dogs? Such was the mental working of many a Conservative who supported Mr. Daubeny on this occasion.
  • Ch. 13

• In former days, when there were Whigs instead of Liberals, it was almost a rule of political life that all leading Whigs sould be uncles, brothers-in-law, or cousins to each other. This was pleasant and gave great consistency to the party; but the system has now gone out of vogue.
  • Ch. 13

• “Why should he do it at all?” asked Phineas.
  “That’s what everybody asks, but the answer seems to be so plain! Because he can do it, and we can’t.”
  • Ch. 13

• A drunkard or a gambler may be weaned from his ways, but not a politician.
  • Ch. 13

• What binds him, Oswald? A man can’t be bound without a penalty.
  • Ch. 14

• Why not? His wife is dead, and he hasn’t got a child, not yet an acre of property. I don’t know who is entitled to break his neck if he is not.
  • Ch. 14

• When one wants to be natural, of necessity one becomes the reverse of natural.
  • Ch. 15

• Lord Chiltern recognizes the great happiness of having a grievance. It would be a pity that so great a blessing should be thrown away upon him.
  • Ch. 15

• “They have been saying ever so long that the old Duke of Omnium means to marry her on his deathbed, but I don’t suppose there can be anything in it.”
  “Why should he put it off for so very inopportune an occasion?” asked Phineas.
  • Ch. 15

• Why is it that when men and women congregate, though the men may beat the women in numbers by ten to one, and through they certainly speak the louder, the concrete sound that meets the ears of any outside listener is always a sound of women’s voices?
  • Ch. 16

• To get away well is so very much! And to get away well is often so very difficult!
  • Ch. 16

• “I haven’t the slightest direction of anything.”
  “Nor have I; but as we clearly can’t get out this way we might as well try the other.”
  • Ch. 16

• He has the power of making the world believe him simply because he has been rich and a duke.
  • Ch. 17

• Perhaps there is nothing so generally remarkable in the conduct of young ladies in the phase of life of which we are now speaking as the facility, — it may almost be said audacity, — with which they do make up their minds.
  • Ch. 18

• She’s a screw, of course, but there isn’t anything carries Chiltern so well. There’s nothing like a good screw. A man’ll often go with two hundred and fifty guineas between his legs, supposed to be all there because the animal’s sound, and yet he don’t know his work. If you like schooling a young ’un, that’s all very well. I used to be fond of it myself.
  • Ch. 19

• Ride at any fence hard enough, and the chances are you’ll get over. The harder you ride the heavier the fall, if you get a fall; but the greater the chance of your getting over.
  • Ch. 19

• But the school in which good training is most practiced will, as a rule, turn out the best scholars.
  • Ch. 20

• A Minister can always give a reason; and, if he be clever, he can generally when doing so punish the man who asks for it. The punishing of an influential enemy is an indiscretion; but an obscure questioner may often be crushed with good effect.
  • Ch. 20

• He had married, let us say for love; — probably very much by chance.
  • Ch. 21

• Late hours, nocturnal cigars, and midnight drinkings, pleasurable through they may be, consume too quickly the free-flowing lamps of youth, and are fatal at once to the husbanded candle-ends of age.
  • Ch. 21

• He possessed the rare merit of making a property of his time and not a burden.
  • Ch. 21

• He had never done any good, but he had always carried himself like a duke, and like a duke he carried himself to the end.
  • Ch. 25

• Some people fall to their feet like cats; but you are one of those who never fall at all. Others tumble about in the most unfortunate way, without any great fault of their own.
  • Ch. 25

• They were always together, but I dare say it was Platonic. I believe these kind of things generally are Platonic.
  • Ch. 25

• With her broad face, and her double chin, and her heavy jowl, and the beard that was growing around he lips, she did not look like a romantic woman; but, in spite of appearances, romance and a duck-like waddle may go together.
  • Ch. 25

• Men will love to the last, but they love what is fresh and new. A woman’s love can live on the recollection of the past, and cling to what is old and ugly.
  • Ch. 25

• And, after a fashion, she herself believed what she was saying. Nevertheless, her nature was much nobler than his; and she know that no man should dare to live idly as the Duke had lived.
  • Ch. 25

• Fame is a skittish jade, more fickle even than Fortune, and apt to shy, and bolt, and plunge away on very trifling causes.
  • Ch. 26

• An editor is bound to avoid the meshes of the law, which are always infinitely more costly to companies, or things, or institutions, than they are to individuals.
  • Ch. 27

• No doubt he had acted in direct opposition to the spirit of the injunction, but legal orders are read by the letter, and not by the spirit.
  • Ch. 28

• But Mr. Slide did not know that he was lying, and did not know that he was malicious. The weapon which he used was one to which his hand was accustomed, and he had been lead by practice to believe that the use of such weapons by one in his position was not only fair, but also beneficial to the public.
  • Ch. 28

• Then Lady Chiltern argued the matter on views directly opposite to those which she had put forward when discussing the matter with her husband.
  • Ch. 29

• I don’t know about that. — A poet doesn't want to marry a poetess, nor a philosopher a philosopheress.
  • Ch. 29

• Audacity in wooing is a great virtue, but a man must measure even his virtues.
  • Ch. 30

• The grace and beauty of life will be clean gone when we all become useful men.
  • Ch. 30

• The double pleasure of pulling down an opponent, and of raising oneself, is the charm of a politician’s life.
  • Ch. 31

• Men and not measures are, no doubt, the very life of politics. But then it is not the fashion to say so in public places.
  • Ch. 31

• A man who is supposed to have caused a disturbance between two married people, in a certain rank of life, does generally receive a certain meed of admiration.
  • Ch. 32

• We can generally read a man’s purpose towards us in his manner, if his purposes are of much moment to us.
  • Ch. 32

• “Do you mean to say that the morals of your party will be offended?” said Madame Goesler, almost laughing.
  • Ch. 32

• Upon the present occasion London was full of clergymen. The specially clerical clubs, — the Oxford and Cambridge, the Old University, and the Athenaeum, — were black with them.
  • Ch. 33

• It is out of nature that any man should think it good that his own order should be repressed, curtailed, and deprived of its power. If we go among cab-drivers or letter-carriers, among butlers or gamekeepers, among tailors or butchers, among farmers or grazers, among doctors or attorneys, we shall find in each set of men a conviction that the welfare of the community depends upon the firmness with which they, — especially they, — hold their own.
  • Ch. 33

• But as the clerical pretensions are more exacting than all others, being put forward with an assertion that no answer is possible without breach of duty and sin, so are they more galling.
  • Ch. 33

• We do believe, — the majority among us does so, — that if we live and die in sin we shall after some fashion come to great punishment, and we believe also that by having pastors among us who shall be men of God, we may best aid ourselves and our children in avoiding this bitter end. But then the pastors and men of God can only be human, — cannot be altogether men of God; and so they have oppressed us, and burned us, and tortured us, and hence come to love palaces, and fine linen, and purple, and alas, sometimes, mere luxury and idleness. The torturing and the burning, as also to speak truth the luxury and the idleness, have, among us, been already conquered, but the idea of ascendancy remains.
  • Ch. 33

• Gentlemen lacking substantial sympathy with their leader found it to be comfortable to deceive themselves, and raise their hearts at the same time by the easy enthusiasm of noise.
  • Ch. 33

• He made his point well; but he made it too often. And an attack of that kind, personal and savage in its nature, loses its effect when it is evident that the words have been prepared. A good deal may be done in dispute by calling a man an ass or a knave, — but the resolve to use the words should have been made only at the moment, and they should come hot from the heart.
  • Ch. 33

• A man destined to sit conspicuously on our Treasury Bench, or on the seat opposite to it, should ask the gods for a thick skin as a first gift. The need of this in our national assembly is greater than elsewhere, because the differences between men opposed to each other are smaller.
  • Ch. 33

• When two foes meet together in the same Chamber, one of whom advocates the personal government of an individual ruler, and the other that from of State, which has come to be called a Red Republic, they deal, no doubt, weighty blows of oratory at each other, but blows which never hurt at the moment. They may cut each other’s throats if they can find an opportunity; but they do not bite each other like dogs over a bone. But when opponents are almost in accord, as is always the case with our parliamentary gladiators, they are ever striving to give maddening little wounds through the joints of the harness.
  • Ch. 33

• The apostle of Christianity and the infidel can meet without a chance of a quarrel; but it is never safe to bring together two men who differ about a saint or a surplice.
  • Ch. 33

• “See what we Conservatives can do. In fact we will conserve nothing when we find that you do not desire to have it conserved any longer. ‘Quod minime reris Graiâ pandetur ab urbe.’”
  • Ch. 33

• There would be a blaze and a confusion, in which timid men would doubt whether the constitution would be burned to tinder or only illuminated; but that blaze and that confusion would be dear to Mr. Daubney if he could stand as the centre figure, — the great pyrotechnist who did it all, red from head to foot with the glare of the squibs with which his own hands were filling all the spaces.
  • Ch. 34

• Rights and rules, which are bonds of iron to a little man, are packthread to a giant.
  • Ch. 35

• But the prospect of an explanation, — or otherwise of a flight, — between two leading politicians will fill the House; and any allusion to our Eastern Empire will certainly empty it.
  • Ch. 36

• The vehemence with which his insolence was abused by one after another of those who spoke later from the other side was ample evidence of its success.
  • Ch. 36

• Some few sublime and hot-headed gentleman muttered the word “impeachment.” Others, who were more practical and less dignified, suggested that the Prime Minister “ought to have his head punched.”
  • Ch. 37

• But mad people never die. That’s a well-known fact. They’ve nothing to trouble them, and they live for ever.
  • Ch. 38

• Most of the young men rise now by making themselves thoroughly disagreeable. Abuse a Minister every night for half a session, and you may be sure to be in office the other half, — if you care about it.
  • Ch. 38

• He had a prophecy to make, and prophets have ever been energetic men.
  • Ch. 39

• Now a conjuror is I think a very pleasant fellow to have among us, if we know that he is a conjuror; — but a conjuror who is believed to do his tricks without sleight of hand is a dangerous man.
  • Ch. 39

• The secrets of the world are very marvellous, but they are not themselves half so wonderful as the way in which they become known to the world.
  • Ch. 40

• To oblige a friend by inflicting an injury on his enemy is often more easy than to confer a benefit on the friend himself.
  • Ch. 43

• When the little dog snarls, the big dog does not connect the snarl with himself, simply fancying that the little dog must be uncomfortable.
  • Ch. 43

• It had been known to all the world, — that at every election Mr. Browborough had bought his seat. How should a Browborough get a seat without buying it, — a man who could not say ten words, of no family, with no natural following in any constituency, distinguished by no zeal in politics, entertaining no special convictions of his own? How should such a one recommend himself to any borough unless he went there with money in his hand? Of course, he had gone to Tankerville with money in his hand, with plenty of money, and had spent it like a gentleman.
  • Ch. 44

• The idea of putting old Browborough into prison for conduct which habit had made second nature to a large proportion of the House was distressing to Members of Parliament generally.
  • Ch. 44

• Any one prominent in affairs can always see when a man may steal a horse and when a man may not look over a hedge.
  • Ch. 44

• In political matters it is very hard for a man in office to be purer than his neighbours, — and, when he is so, he becomes troublesome.
  • Ch. 44

• “I know that you have indented to serve your country, and have wished to work for it. But you cannot expect that it should all be roses.”
  “Roses! The nosegays which are worn down at Westminister are made of garlick and dandelions!”
  • Ch. 44

• The sober devil can hide his cloven hoof; but when the devil drinks he loses his cunning and grows honest.
  • Ch. 46

• In these days, — when no palpable and immediate punishment is at hand for personal insolence from man to man, — personal insolence to one man in a company seems almost to constitute an insult to every one present.
  • Ch. 46

• But facts always convince, and another man‘s opinion rarely convinces.
  • Ch. 47

• All history, all romance, all poetry and all prose, taught him that perseverance in love was generally crowned with success, — that true love rarely was crowned with success except by perseverance.
  • Ch. 53

• Making love to a sweet, soft, blushing, willing, though silent girl is a pleasant employment; but the task of declaring love to a stony-hearted, obdurate, ill-conditions Diana is very disagreeable for any gentleman. And it is the more so when the gentleman really loves, — or thinks that he loves, — his Diana.
  • Ch. 53

• I know very well that if you get men who are really, — really swells, for that is what it is, Mr. Low, — and pay them well enough, and so make it really an important thing, they can browbeat any judge and hoodwink any jury.
  • Ch. 54

• “Would that be justice, ladies?” asked the just man.
  “It would be success, Mr. Low, — which is a great deal the better thing of the two.”
  • Ch. 54

• The circumstances seemed to be simple; but they who understood such matters declared that the duration of a trial depended a great deal more on the public interest felt in the matter than upon its own nature.
  • Ch. 57

• Many people talk much, and then very many people talk very much more.
  • Ch. 57

• “Not in the least. I have but one ambition.”
  “And that is — ?”
  “To be the serviceable slave of my country.”
  “A master is more serviceable than a slave,” said the old man.
  “No; no; I deny it. I can admit much from you, but I cannot admit that. The politician who becomes the master of his country sinks from the statesman to the tyrant.”
  • Ch. 58

• Your nature is decimals. I run after units.
  • Ch. 58

• Caveat emptor is the only motto going, and the worst proverb that ever came from the dishonest stony-hearted Rome.
  • Ch. 60

• “I should have thought any dealer would have taken him back for the sake of his character.”
  “Any dealer would; but — I bought him from a gentleman.”
  • Ch. 60

• I never believe anything that a lawyer says when he has a wig on his head and a fee in his hand. I prepare myself beforehand to regard it all as mere words, supplied at so much the thousand. I know he‘ll say whatever he thinks most likely to forward his own views.
  • Ch. 61

• He was essentially a truth-speaking man, if only he know how to speak the truth.
  • Ch. 62

• The property of manliness in a man is a great possession, but perhaps there is none that is less understood, — which is more generally accorded where it does not exist, nor more frequently disallowed where it prevails.
  • Ch. 68

• The natural man will probably be manly. The affected man cannot be so.
  • Ch. 68

• “Isn‘t there some trouble about money?”
  “They wouldn‘t be very rich, Duchess.”
  “What a blessing for them! But then, perhaps, they‘d be very poor.”
  “They would be rather poor.”
  “Which is not a blessing.”
  • Ch. 69

• No doubt there were other first cousins as badly off, or perhaps worse, as to whom the Duchess would care nothing whether they were rich or poor, — married or single; but then they were first cousins who had not had the advantage of interesting the Duchess.
  • Ch. 69

• I don't much admire your taste, my dear, because he‘s a hundred and fifty years old; — and what there is of him comes chiefly from the tailor.
  • Ch. 69

• I doubt whether patriotism can stand the wear and tear and temptation of the front benches in the House of Commons.
  • Ch. 70

• An enemy might at any time become a friend, but while an enemy was an enemy he should be trodden on and persecuted.
  • Ch. 71

• “He is such a gentleman; — and, at the same time, the most abstract and the most concrete man that I know.”
  “Abstract and concrete!”
  “You are bound to use adjectives of that sort now, Miss Palliser, if you mean to be anybody in conversation.”
  • Ch. 74

• He becomes strenuous, energetic, and perhaps eager for what must after all be regarded as success, and at last he fights for a verdict rather than for the truth.
  • Ch. 74

• People go on quarrelling and fancying this and that, and thinking that the world is full of romance and poetry. When they get married they know better.
  • Ch. 76

• “Perhaps I had better tell you the truth, Mr. Gresham.”
  “Oh, certainly,” said the Prime Minister, who knew very well that on such occasions nothing could be worse than the telling of disagreeable truths.
  • Ch. 77