Mr. Gladstone remarked that it was curious that in the old days the Whips could tell to a vote how a division would go. He recollected well, in 1841, a vote of no confidence in Lord Melbourne was moved. The point was going to be decided by one vote. I shall never forget the "Grand Old Man's" graphic description of that vote. There was an old Member who was known to be to all intents and purposes as dead as a door-nail. The excitement was intense to know if that still breathing corpse could be brought to vote. Mr. Gladstone, with other young Tory Members, stood anxiously round the lobby door watching, and just at the critical moment when the vote was to be taken the all but lifeless body was borne along ignorant of all that was going around him, his vote was recorded, and that one vote sealed the fate of a Ministry.
In Mr. Gladstone's opinion, American humour invariably consisted in dealing with magnitudes. He preferred to hear American stories on this side of the Atlantic. He never had been in America, and never intended going. He expressed himself as apprehensive of the effect on the nervous system of the vibration caused by the engines of a steamer travelling at a high speed, but spoke with admiration of the rapid travelling at sea performed by the Continental mail packets, saying that a few days before, returning from the Continent, he had only just settled down to read when he was told to disembark, for the steamer had reached Dover.
I overheard Mr. Gladstone asking the question: "Why is it that when we get a good thing we do not stick to it?" I fully expected him to launch into some huge political question, such as the "Unity of the Empire" or "Universal Franchise." Instead of this, I was somewhat surprised to hear him proceed: "Now, I recollect an excruciatingly funny toy which you wound up, and it danced about in a most comical way. I have watched that little nigger many and many a time, but lately I have been looking everywhere to get one. I have asked at the shops in the Strand and elsewhere, and they show me other things, but not the funny nigger I recollect, so I have given up my search in despair."
I noticed that Mr. Gladstone took champagne at dinner, and after dinner a glass of port. Some conversation arising with reference to the history of wines, the old politician seemed to know more on the subject than anyone else at table; in fact, during the whole evening, there was not a subject touched upon on which he did not give the heads for an interesting essay. The only time Mr. Gladstone mentioned Ireland was in connection with the subject of wines, when he dilated upon the beauties of Newfoundland port, which was to be found in Ireland in the good old days.
In one respect Mr. Gladstone was not an exception among the old, for he seemed fond of dwelling upon the great age which men have attained. He seemed to think that the high pressure at which we live nowadays would show its effect on the longevity of the rising generation, and remarked:
"You young men will have a very bad time of it."
It is curious that very few statesmen indeed have led the House of Commons in their old age. It may be said that Lord John Russell was the first to do so; Lord Palmerston also was very old before he obtained office. And so chatted the Grand Old Man, in the most fascinating and delightful manner. He was always the same on such occasions, entering into the spirit of the entertainment, and, as was his habit, forgetting for the time everything else. When my old friend William Woodall, M.P. for Stoke (Governor-General of the Ordnance in Mr. Gladstone's Government 1885), gave at St. Anne's Mansions his famous "Sandwich Soirées" to his friends, the spacious ballroom on the ground floor packed with his many friends—a characteristic, polyglot gathering of Ministers and Parliamentarians of all kinds, musicians, dramatists, authors, artists, actors, and journalists, who sang, recited, and gave a gratuitous entertainment (for some of these I acted as his hon. secretary, and helped to get together a collection of modern paintings on the walls, besides designing the invitations)—I recollect the greatest success was the Grand Old Man. There was "standing room" only, but a chair was provided for Mr. Gladstone in the centre of the huge circle which had formed around the mesmerist Verbeck. Many guests sat on the floor, to afford those behind a better chance of seeing. The
MR. GLADSTONE SITS ON THE FLOOR. Prime Minister, noticing this, absolutely declined to be an exception, and he squatted "à la Turk" on the floor. I confess this struck me as "playing to the gallery." It certainly was playing to the Press, for Mr. Gladstone's attitude on that occasion was paragraphed all over the country, by means of which fact I have here refreshed my memory. In fact, Mr. Gladstone was always en évidence. When the great statesman dined with Toby, M.P., I was sitting close to him. He had dispensed with his own shirt-collars, and wore quite the smallest, slenderest, and most inconspicuous of narrow, turn-down collars, assumed for that occasion only. "One of Herbert's cast-offs," someone whispered to me. "That's strange," said another guest to me. "Last night at dinner the pin in the back of Gladstone's collar came out, and as he got excited, the collar rose round his head, and we all agreed that 'Furniss ought to have witnessed what he has so often drawn, but never seen.'"