London Days: A Book of Reminiscences

by Arthur Warren

It was only his greyness that acknowledged age. His voice was as deep and rich as ever it had been, his bearing as alert, his movements as graceful. He seemed to say, "It is impossible to grow old, but, as I cannot live forever, let us get on with the work in hand." His capacity for believing that the moon is made of green cheese, and, what was more important, of making others believe it, was boundless. What was the spell he cast upon his hearers? Even when he was in Opposition, perhaps because of that, for he was best then, the House of Commons would be crowded when he spoke. I have seen him at such a time switch on his green-cheese oratory and hold the House for an hour or two, tense, expectant, submissive under the spell. When he finished, great cheering would rise from both sides,—from his followers because they were charmed, or overwhelmed, and, being of his party, believed in the green-cheese theory and were ready to eat the cheese; from his opponents because they too were charmed, or all but overwhelmed, and for the moment forgot that fealty to their own party should have left the other side of the House to do the cheering. If a vote could have been taken when Gladstone ended his speech, the House would have been unanimous for cheese. But parliamentary procedure permits, or compels, a leading opponent to reply, and the reply broke the spell and recalled several hundred Britons to their partisan duties.

It was always amusing to watch Gladstone's face when he came before an enthusiastic audience either in the outer world or within the House of Commons. As the cheers of welcome increased, he would look about him in a puzzled way, as if he were wondering what caused the demonstration, as if he were asking himself, "What have I done to be dragged from obscurity?" It has often been said that "he could have been a great actor." But he was one. It has also been said that he would have been a great archbishop. But archbishops in his time led such tame lives that Mr. Gladstone would have been discontented with the episcopal lot. It is easy, though, to imagine him cursing magnificently with bell, book, and candle. He was a great performer.

His detachments were even more remarkable than the attachments of other men. No subject absorbed him save when he was working on it. That is another way of saying that his power of concentration was absolutely under control at all times. He would turn from the subject which he had dropped for the day to another subject which he would work at for half an hour, or six weeks, or six years, or a lifetime, and give all his energies to the task in hand, and yet be ready to concentrate at a minute's notice on whatever might turn up. They say he had no sense of humour. Perhaps they mean that he was not witty. Perhaps he did n't appreciate jokes. It is not always easy to know what "they" mean by a sense of humour. I have known Gladstone to keep the House of Commons laughing for a quarter of an hour by sheer exercise of the comic spirit, although it must be said that he did not often exercise this. But when he did it, there was purpose in it. The tragedy, that is to say, the serious business of the hour, was to follow. Seeing Gladstone in his great moments was like seeing Edwin Booth as Richelieu; you had similar thrills, smiles, and satisfaction.

Very few persons outside his family knew him really well, no matter how long they might have been associated with him in public work. All the men who knew him that I knew agreed in one thing, however much they disagreed in others,—he had the spirit and the manner of command. A public gathering, a cabinet council, a dinner party were equally his. It will be remembered that he addressed Queen Victoria as if she were a public meeting, and she did n't like it. But that illustrates what I mean when saying that he was not interested in persons but in causes, or subjects; he was not interested in a dinner party but in what he had to tell it. The other guests—his hosts, too—might have been disembodied spirits, but it was he who would "communicate" with them, not they with him. He would detach himself from them as easily as from politics.

He made his own "atmosphere", and it was often far removed from politics. Thus, at the approach of the political crisis of 1886, just before the House was to vote on his first Home Rule Bill, he was staying with his wife at Lord Aberdeen's house at Dollis Hill. A friend of mine, not a political personage, was of the house party, and he told me how the G.O.M. would drive out from town alone, after dark, in an open carriage, and forget the fate of governments, especially his own, although that fate was to be decided within a few hours.

Entering the drawing-room, he said, "While driving out here from the House last evening I counted twenty-eight omnibuses going in one direction. To-day being Saturday, I thought the number would be larger than that, and I estimated thirty-five. I counted thirty-six." And then he discoursed on the increasing business of passenger transportation in the metropolis. Not a word about politics.

On the following afternoon (Sunday) the members of the Cabinet and other prominent partisans went out to Dollis Hill for an informal consultation with the Prime Minister. They were uneasy in their minds. The vote would be taken next day, and they might find themselves out of office,—as indeed they did for the six years following. The afternoon being fine, they walked in the garden and discussed the perils of the situation, and waited for Mr. Gladstone to summon them, or to come and join them. They continued to walk and wait. But Mr. Gladstone did not appear, nor did he summon any one. But the Secretary for Ireland thought that he might be engaged with the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and the Home Secretary thought that he might be with the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Still Gladstone did not send word, and the political mountains waited for Mahomet. Concluding that the old gentleman was fatigued and had gone to his room for a nap, they began to retreat homeward. They left singly, and by twos and threes, after some hours of vain waiting. By and by the Gladstones appeared and told their host that they had had "a charming afternoon." They had strolled to the garden gate and had stopped to look at the view. The country road enticed them. They came to a pretty church, and as service was about to begin, they entered and remained for the benediction. They had returned slowly, but highly edified. The next day Gladstone met his foes and was cast into the cold shades of opposition. Doubtless he had expected this, but, doubtless, he had not expected to be cast so deep,—six years' deep.

I remember what a former ally of his had said to me just before the Manchester Conference: "No, I am not going to Manchester. I don't agree with Gladstone's Irish policy, but I know that if I were to go to Manchester I would shout with the rest." Those were days when the world had sunk far into the morasses of parliamentary talk. All things were to be settled by talking and voting and pious intentions. A complacent faith in Democracy was to save the world, if, indeed, the world were not already saved by it. In English-speaking countries it had become little short of dishonourable to praise naval and military valour; and reliance upon force as the defence of a nation was thought to be unchristian. Democracy was to be shielded by its own virtue. We have heard that since the Great War, too. It is the old story of an old dream. Envy, hatred, and malice had departed from the world. There would be no more cause for great wars. The era of perpetual peace was about to dawn. Nations were to put their trust in a parliamentary God, a Deity of Congresses. When every one voted, there would be a new heaven on a new earth. The credulous invented a new kind of treason of which any one was accused when he expressed, publicly, doubts of the sanity of a democracy which could not see that the voter unprepared to defend his "sacred vote" by arms was risking his privilege, his goods, his kith and kin, was imperilling his right to live as a freeman. He had put his faith in words. Mr. Gladstone was the nineteenth century's greatest conjuror with words. But he was incapable of demanding, as Woodrow Wilson did, that a nation should be "neutral in thought", while freedom, the very right to think, was being beaten down. Gladstone would not have blundered like that, you say. But it was not a blunder, it was a crime.