Or, as one of Trollope's characters says in Phineas Finn:
"Many who before regarded legislation on the subject as chimerical, will now fancy that it is only dangerous, or perhaps not more than difficult. ...
"Many who before regarded legislation on the subject as chimerical, will now fancy that it is only dangerous, or perhaps not more than difficult. ...
... And so in time it will come to be looked on as among the things possible, then among the things probable;--and so at last it will be ranged in the list of those few measures which the country requires as being absolutely needed. ...
"The first great step was taken long ago - taken by men who were looked upon as revolutionary demagogues, almost as traitors, because they took it. But it is a great thing to take any step that leads us onwards."
