Some eminent Victorians: Personal recollections in the world of art and letters

by J. Comyns Carr

“These opponents of ours,” he said, “many of them in Parliament openly, and many of them secretly in the Press, have charged us with being the promoters of a dangerous excitement. They say we are the source of the danger which threatens; they have absolutely the effrontery to charge me with being the friend of public disorder. I am one of the people. Surely if there be one thing in a free country more dear than another, it is that any one of the people may speak openly to the people. If I speak to the people of their rights, and indicate to them the way to secure them, if I speak of their danger and the monopolies of power, am I not a wise counsellor, both to the people and to their rulers? Suppose I stood at the foot of Vesuvius or Etna, and, seeing a hamlet or a homestead planted on its slope, I said to the dwellers in that hamlet or in that homestead, ‘You see that vapour which ascends from the summit of the mountain? That vapour may become a dense black smoke that will obscure the sky. You see that trickling of lava from the crevices or fissures in the side of the mountain? That trickling lava may become a river of fire. You hear that muttering in the bowels of the mountain? That muttering may become a bellowing thunder, the voice of a violent convulsion that may shake half a continent. You know that at your feet is the grave of great cities for which there is no resurrection, as history tells us; that dynasties and aristocracies have passed away and their name has been known no more for ever.’ If I say this to the dwellers upon the slope of the mountain, and if there comes hereafter a catastrophe which makes the world to shudder, am I responsible for that catastrophe? I did not build the mountain, or fill it with explosive materials. I merely warned the men who were in danger.”

As these words stand on the printed page it is not possible to gather from them their extraordinary influence upon the packed masses of the crowded hall. Throughout the whole passage his hearers were held as though by magnetic influence; and as he passed from image to image of the long metaphor he had adopted, there was a hushed stillness that was almost oppressive.

Never prodigal of gesture, his slightest movement became for that reason the more significant and dramatic. The greater part of his speech had been delivered with the tips of his fingers just touching the table before him, content, for all accompaniment to the words he uttered, to rely upon the swiftly changing expression of his leonine face, which seemed to mirror in its noble dignity the very soul and spirit of the man.

But when he came to the words, “You hear that muttering in the bowels of the mountain?” he raised his hand to his ear, and at the call of that simple gesture it seemed to us who listened to him as though he had summoned into the very hall itself the sound he had only suggested in words. The effect was as though the building in which we sat was actually threatened, and it was with a sense almost of relief that the deafening cheers broke forth as he brought this noble vindication of his own character to an end.

It is said that Bright’s speeches were always very carefully prepared, and that in particular his perorations were verbally committed to memory. If this be so, it forms the very highest tribute to his intuitive sense of the true functions of an orator, for there is not one of all the many splendid conclusions of his speeches which might not, as it was uttered, have been forged in the white heat of the moment.

No preparation, whatever labour it may have involved, ever tempted him to depart from that strict simplicity of language which formed his crowning gift as a speaker. What, for instance, could be more instinct with the mood of the moment, more directly inspired by the passionate enthusiasm of the men he addressed, than that wonderful ending to his speech in Glasgow delivered only two months before the address in St. James’s Hall at which I was present.

“If a class has failed,” he said, “let us try the nation. That is our faith, that is our purpose, that is our cry: let us try the nation. This it is which has called together this countless number of people who demand a change, and as I think of it, and of these gatherings sublime in their vastness and in their resolution, I think I see, as it were, above the hill-tops of time, the glimmerings of the dawn of a better and a nobler day for the country and for the people that I love so well.”

However careful in his custom of preparation, there were certainly occasions when Mr. Bright could speak with equal effect on the spur of the moment. A splendid example of his power in this respect was afforded at that same meeting at St. James’s Hall when, on the conclusion of Mr. Bright’s address, some indiscreet remarks were offered by Mr. Ayrton, which seemed to imply a reproach against the Queen for her indifference towards the movement that was then in progress.

Without a moment’s pause Mr. Bright rose in sudden indignation, and in a few passionate sentences vindicated the character of his sovereign.

“But Mr. Ayrton referred further,” he said, “to a supposed absorption of the sympathies of the Queen with her late husband, to the exclusion of sympathy for and with the people. I am not accustomed to stand up in defence of those who are possessors of crowns, but I could not sit here and hear that observation without a sense of wonder and of pain. I think there has been, by many persons, a great injustice done to the Queen in reference to her desolate and widowed position. And I venture to say this: that a woman—be she the Queen of a great Realm, or be she the wife of one of your labouring men—who can keep alive in her heart a great sorrow for the lost object of her life and affection, is not at all likely to be wanting in a great and generous sympathy with you.”