The effect of compromise

Here is a nice little speech on compromise and conscience from the little minister Rufus Lyon in Felix Holt:

Where a great weight has to be moved, we require not so much selected instruments as abundant horse-power. But it is an unavoidable evil of these massive achievements that they encourage a course indiscriminatingness obstructive of more nicely-wrought results, and an exaggerated expectation inconsistent with the intricacies of our fallen and struggling condition. I say not that compromise is unnecessary, but it is an evil attendant on our imperfection; and I would pray every one to mark that, where compromise broadens, intellect and conscience are thrust into narrower room.

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Felix Holt: The Radical, George Eliot, Chapter XVI