I did not obey your instructions. No—I conformed to the instructions
of truth and nature, and maintained your interest against your
opinions, with a constancy that became me. A representative worthy of
you ought to be a person of stability. I am to look indeed to your
opinions; but to such opinions as you and I must have five years
hence. I was not to look to the flash of the day. I knew that you
chose me, in my place, along with others, to be a pillar of the state,
and not a weathercock on the top of the edifice, exalted for my levity
and versatility, and of no use but to indicate the shiftings of every
fashionable gale.