Public Speaking: Principles and Practice

by Irvah Lester Winter

Sir, all that is changed. He is gone who was "the comfort and support" of that Throne. It has been said that there is nothing which England so much appreciates as the fulfillment of duty. The Prince whom we have lost not only was eminent for the fulfillment of duty, but it was the fulfillment of the highest duty under the most difficult circumstances. Prince Albert was the Consort of his Sovereign—he was the father of one who might be his Sovereign—he was the Prime Councillor of a realm, the political constitution of which did not even recognize his political existence.

Sir, it is sometimes deplored by those who admired and loved him that he was thwarted occasionally in his undertakings, and that he was not duly appreciated. But these are not circumstances for regret, but for congratulation. They prove the leading and original mind which has so long and so advantageously labored for this country. Had he not encountered these obstacles, had he not been subject to this occasional distrust and misconception, it would only have shown that he was a man of ordinary mold and temper. Those who improve must change, those who change must necessarily disturb and alarm men's prejudices. What he had to encounter was only a demonstration that he was a man superior to his age, and therefore admirably adapted for the work of progress. There is one other point, and one only, on which I will presume for a moment to dwell, and it is not for the sake of you, Sir, or those who now hear me, or of the generation to which we belong, but it is that those who come after us may not misunderstand the nature of this illustrious man. Prince Albert was not a mere patron; he was not one of those who by their gold or by their smiles reward excellence or stimulate exertion. His contributions to the cause of State were far more powerful and far more precious. He gave to it his thought, his time, his toil; he gave to it his life. On both sides and in all parts of the House I see many gentlemen who occasionally have acted with the Prince at those council boards where they conferred and consulted upon the great undertakings with which he was connected. I ask them, without fear of a denial, whether he was not the leading spirit, whether his was not the mind which foresaw the difficulty, his not the resources that supplied the remedy; whether his was not the courage which sustained them under apparently overpowering difficulties; whether every one who worked with him did not feel that he was the real originator of those plans of improvement which they assisted in carrying into effect?

But what avail these words? This House to-night has been asked to condole with the Crown upon this great calamity. No easy office. To condole, in general, is the office of those who, without the pale of sorrow, still feel for the sorrowing. But in this instance the country is as heart-stricken as its Queen. Yet in the mutual sensibility of a Sovereign and a people there is something ennobling—something which elevates the spirit beyond the level of mere earthly sorrow. The counties, the cities, the corporations of the realm—those illustrious associations of learning and science and art and skill, of which he was the brightest ornament and the inspiring spirit, have bowed before the Throne. It does not become the Parliament of the country to be silent. The expression of our feelings may be late, but even in that lateness may be observed some propriety. To-night the two Houses sanction the expression of the public sorrow, and ratify, as it were, the record of a nation's woe.

AN APPRECIATION OF MR. GLADSTONE

From an address in the House of Commons

BY ARTHUR J. BALFOUR

I feel myself unequal even to dealing with what is, perhaps, more strictly germane to this address—I mean, Mr. Gladstone as a politician, as a Minister, as a leader of public thought, as an eminent servant of the Queen; and if I venture to say anything, it is rather of Mr. Gladstone, the greatest member of the greatest deliberative assembly, which, so far, the world has seen.

Sir, I think it is the language of sober and unexaggerated truth to say that there is no gift which would enable a man to move, to influence, to adorn an assembly like this that Mr. Gladstone did not possess in a supereminent degree. Debaters as ready there may have been, orators as finished. It may have been given to others to sway as skillfully this assembly, or to appeal with as much directness and force to the simpler instincts of the great masses in the country; but, sir, it has been given to no man to combine all these great gifts as they were combined in the person of Mr. Gladstone. From the conversational discussion appropriate to our work in committees, to the most sustained eloquence befitting some great argument, and some great historic occasion, every weapon of Parliamentary warfare was wielded by him with the success and ease of a perfect, absolute, and complete mastery. I would not venture myself to pronounce an opinion as to whether he was most excellent in the exposition of a somewhat complicated budget of finance or legislation, or whether he showed it most in the heat of extemporary debate. At least this we may say, that from the humbler arts of ridicule or invective to the subtlest dialectic, the most persuasive eloquence, the most cogent appeals to everything that was highest and best in the audience that he was addressing, every instrument which could find place in the armory of a member of this House, he had at his command without premeditation, without forethought, at the moment and in the form which appeared best suited to carry out his purpose.

It may, perhaps, be asked whether I have nothing to say about Mr. Gladstone's place in history, about the judgment we ought to pass upon the great part which he has played in the history of his country and the history of the world during the many years in which he held a foremost place in this assembly. These questions are legitimate questions. But they are not to be discussed by me to-day. Nor, indeed, do I think that the final answer can be given to them—the final judgment pronounced—in the course of this generation. But one service he did—in my opinion incalculable—which is altogether apart from the judgment which we may be disposed to pass on the particular opinions, the particular views, or the particular lines of policy which Mr. Gladstone may from time to time have adopted. Sir, he added a dignity and he added a weight to the deliberations of this House by his genius which I think it is impossible adequately to express.

It is not enough, in my opinion, to keep up simply a level, though it be a high level, of probity and of patriotism. The mere virtue of civic honesty is not sufficient to preserve this assembly from the fate which has overcome so many other assemblies, the products of democratic forces. More than this is required, more than this was given to us by Mr. Gladstone. Those who seek to raise in the public estimation the level of our proceedings will be the most ready to admit the infinite value of those services, and realize how much the public prosperity is involved in the maintenance of the work of public life. Sir, that is a view which, it seems to me, places the services of Mr. Gladstone to this assembly, which he loved so well, and of which he was so great a member, in as clear a light and on as firm a basis as it is possible to place them.