I have as a rule thought very little of parties as parties, professional politicians and party leaders, and I think less of them as I grow older.

The politician and the auctioneer might be described like the lunatic, the lover and the poet, as "of imagination all compact." One sees more mares' nests than would fill a book; the other pure gold in pinchbeck wares; and both are out for gudgeons.
It is the habit--nay, the business--of the party speaker when he mounts the raging stump to roar his platitudes into the ears of those who have the simplicity to listen, though neither edified nor enlightened; to aver that the horse he rides is sixteen feet high; that the candidate he supports is a giant; and that he himself is no small figure of a man.
Thus he resembles the auctioneer.

But it is the mock auctioneer whom he resembles; his stock in trade being largely, if not altogether, fraudulent.

The success which at the outset of party welfare attended this legalized confidence game drew into it more and more players.

For a long time they deceived themselves almost as much as the voters.