The Vintage by E.F. Benson — Read

From this conversation among the three sprang into being the Peloponnesian Senate, than which no more futile apparatus has ever been devised to guide the affairs of a nation. From the first harmony was impossible between the two parties, and the only result it achieved worth mentioning was that it diverted the time and energies of the military leaders from the work to which every muscle should have been strained -- the fall of Tripoli. So far from reconciling the divisions among the soldiers, it merely encouraged partisanship, for it was known that the senate could not agree on any point worth the deliberation.

Petrobey was more than once tempted to resign his seat, but to do that was only to throw the wavering balance of power firmly into the hands of the primates, while between Nicholas and Germanos there ripened, as bitter as a Dead-Sea apple, an enmity only to be reconciled at a death-bed, for Germanos, so Nicholas considered, and did not scruple to say, had deceived both him and his colleague. He had professed the highest, most altruistic aims; what guided his conduct was the most selfish and personal policy. This, it is to be feared, was partly true, though not entirely, for Germanos had been sincere when he opened to the two his scheme for the glory of the church; but finding supremacy, like the fruit of Tantalus, still dangling beyond, but seemingly only just beyond, his reach, and stung intolerably at his failure, the personal motive crept in, and before long usurped the place of the other.