"My dear doctor, it would not do—not in this session; it would not, indeed." So had spoken to him a half-fledged, but especially esoteric young monster-cub at the Treasury, who considered himself as up to all the dodges of his party, and regarded the army of martyrs who supported it as a rather heavy, but very useful collection of fogies. Dr. Grantly had not cared to discuss the matter with the half-fledged monster-cub. The best licked of all the monsters, the Giant most like a god of them all, had said a word or two to him, and he also had said a word or two to that Giant. Porphyrion had told him that the Bishop Bill would not do; and he, in return, speaking with warm face, and blood in his cheeks, had told Porphyrion that he saw no reason why the bill should not do. The courteous Giant had smiled as he shook his ponderous head, and then the archdeacon had left him, unconsciously shaking some dust from his shoes as he paced the passages of the Treasury Chambers for the last time. As he walked back to his lodgings in Mount Street, many thoughts, not altogether bad in their nature, passed through his mind. Why should he trouble himself about a bishopric? Was he not well as he was, in his rectory down at Plumstead? Might it not be ill for him, at his age, to transplant himself into new soil, to engage in new duties, and live among new people? Was he not useful at Barchester and respected also; and might it not be possible that up there at Westminster he might be regarded merely as a tool with which other men could work? He had not quite liked the tone of that specially esoteric young monster-cub, who had clearly regarded him as a distinguished fogy from the army of martyrs. He would take his wife back to Barsetshire, and there live contented with the good things which Providence had given him.
Those high political grapes had become sour, my sneering friends will say. Well? Is it not a good thing that grapes should become sour which hang out of reach? Is he not wise who can regard all grapes as sour which are manifestly too high for his hand? Those grapes of the Treasury Bench, for which gods and giants fight, suffering so much when they are forced to abstain from eating, and so much more when they do eat, those grapes are very sour to me. I am sure that they are indigestible, and that those who eat them undergo all the ills which the Revalenta
