The people may err in their choice; but
common interest and common sentiment are rarely mistaken. But this sort
of virtual representation cannot have a long or sure existence, if it
has not a substratum in the actual. The member must have some relation
to the constituent. As things stand, the Catholic, as a Catholic, and
belonging to a description, has no _virtual_ relation to the
representative,--but the _contrary_. There is a relation in mutual
obligation. Gratitude may not always have a very lasting power; but the
frequent recurrence of an application for favors will revive and refresh
it, and will necessarily produce some degree of mutual attention. It
will produce, at least, acquaintance. The several descriptions of people
will not be kept so much apart as they now are, as if they were not
only separate nations, but separate species. The stigma and reproach,
the hideous mask will be taken off, and men will see each other as they
are. Sure I am that there have been thousands in Ireland who have never
conversed with a Roman Catholic in their whole lives, unless they
happened to talk to their gardener's workmen, or to ask their way, when
they had lost it in their sports,--or, at best, who had known them only
as footmen, or other domestics, of the second and third order: and so
averse were they, some time ago, to have them near their persons, that
they would not employ even those who could never find their way beyond
the stable.
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