 podremos.«
 »Since we cannot get what we like,
 let us like what we can get.«
                                                                Spanish Proverb.
 
While Lydgate, safely married and with the Hospital under his command, felt
himself struggling for Medical Reform against Middlemarch, Middlemarch was
becoming more and more conscious of the national struggle for another kind of
Reform.
    By the time that Lord John Russell's measure was being debated in the House
of Commons, there was a new political animation in Middlemarch, and a new
definition of parties which might show a decided change of balance if a new
election came. And there were some who already predicted this event, declaring
that a Reform Bill would never be carried by the actual Parliament. This was
what Will Ladislaw dwelt on to Mr. Brooke as a reason for congratulation that he
had not yet tried his strength at the hustings.
    »Things will grow and ripen as if it were a comet year,« said Will. »The
public temper will soon get to a cometary heat, now the question of Reform has
set in. There is likely to be another election before long, and by that time
Middlemarch will have got more ideas into its head. What we have to work at now
is the Pioneer and political meetings.«
    »Quite right, Ladislaw; we shall make a new thing of opinion here,« said Mr.
Brooke. »Only I want to keep myself independent about Reform, you know: I don't
want to go too far. I want to take up Wilberforce's and Romilly's line, you
know, and work at Negro Emancipation, Criminal Law - that kind of thing. But of
course I should support Grey.«
    »If you go in for the principle of Reform, you must be prepared to take what
the situation offers,« said Will. »If everybody pulled for his own bit against
everybody else, the whole question would go to tatters.«
    »Yes, yes, I agree with you - I quite take that point of view. I should put
it in that light. I should support Grey, you know. But I don't want to change
the balance of the constitution, and I don't think Grey would.«
    »But that is what the country wants,« said Will. »Else there would be no
meaning in political unions or any other movement that knows what it's about. It
wants to have a house of Commons which is not weighted with nominees of the
landed class, but with representatives of the other interests. And as to
contending for a
