121] VIEWS OF PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. 667

"solved neither to stand mor sit for any place; and this 1887.
*osolution will certainly be adhered to for a year, probably Zr. 53.
for the rest of my working days. I am not sulking or
hamming, but acting from motives of a personal nature,
*d which no political considerations will be sufficiently
Powerful to overcome. If half a dozen constituencies were
offer to return me free of expense I should decline them
UT shall be glad, should you at any time hear of any
Movement in my favour, if you will discourage it, without
giving me occasion to offer explanations which are painful
to me, The truth is I cannot leave home for forty-eight
hours, and preserve that tranquillity and elasticity of spirit
Which jg necessary to success in public life. Under the
*ircumstances, I am therefore useless anywhere but in my
family, There might have been a state of things, indeed
there hag been, when I sacrificed every domestic consideration
 for public duty; but there is now no motive or justifitation
 for my doing 80.”
The actual life of the House of Commons which has in-Vincible
 attractions for so many men, seems to have had no
Particular charm to Cobden. At the beginning of the
Session of 1857 he described to a friend the disagreeable
“fect upon him of bad air and long speeches. “I don’t
know whether you feel yourself similarly affected by the
Mr of the House, but after sitting there for two or
three hours I find my head useless for any other purpose
but aching. I find my brain throbbing, as though it were
*eady to burst ; and the pain returns upon me as soon as I
Wake in the morning. It seems as if the air were dried
nd cooked to such an extent as to rob it of its vital pro-Perties.
 My reasoning powers are in abeyance while under
the roof of the House, and if the symptoms continue and
10 remedy he called for by others, likely to effect a change,
U shall seriously consider whether I ought to continue to