This is one of the things which distinguishes him from other public men of his time. There are men I wot of—and not very big men either—who are nothing without their audience. They deem their dignity abused if there be not the crowded bench, the cheering friends, the prominent and ostentatious place. Not so Mr. Gladstone. Perhaps it is the splendid robustness of his nerves, perhaps the absorption in his subject to the forgetfulness of himself; whatever it is, he faces this small, distrait, perhaps even depressed, audience with the same zest as though he were once again before that splendid gathering which met his eyes on the memorable night when he brought in his Home Rule Bill. Who but he could fail to have noticed the contrast, and noticing, who but he could remain so loftily unobservant and unimpressed?
In splendid form.
But then Mr. Gladstone has too much of that splendid oratorical instinct not to fashion and shape his speech to the change in the surroundings. He has an impressionability—not to panic, not to depression, not to wounded vanity, but to the appropriateness and the demands of an environment, which is something miraculous. I have already remarked, that the infinite variety of his oratory is Shakespearian in its completeness and abundance. The speech on April 6th was an additional proof of this. Comparisons were naturally made between this speech and the speech by which he introduced the Bill, and everybody who was competent thought that the second speech was the finer and better of the two. Stories have trickled through to the public of the anxieties and worries with which Mr. Gladstone was confronted—not from the Irish side—on the very night before he had to bring forth this prodigious piece of legislative work. It is these small worries that to many Statesmen are the grimmest realities and the most momentous and effective events of their inner lives. It is reported that one of the few sleepless nights which have ever disturbed the splendidly even and sane and healthy tenor of this tempestuous and incessantly active life, was the night before the introduction of the Home Rule Bill. There are points to be finally settled—clauses to be ultimately fixed—phrases to be polished or pared at the eleventh hour in all human affairs. Measures finally settled and fixed for weeks before the last hour exist—like all perfection—only in the brains and pages of dramatists and novelists.
Sunburnt, vigorous, self-possessed.
It was not unnatural under these circumstances that when Mr. Gladstone made his speech introducing the Home Rule Bill there should have been on his cheek a pallor deadlier even than that which usually sits upon his brow. That pallor, by the way, I heard recently, has been characteristic of him from his earliest years. A schoolfellow from that far-off and almost pre-historic time when our Grand Old Man was a thin, slim, introspective and prematurely serious boy at Eton, tells to-day that the recollection he has of the young Gladstone is of a slight figure, never running, but always walking with a fast step, with earnest black eyes, and with a pallid face—the ivory pallor, be it observed, not of delicacy, but of robustness. Still there was on that Home Rule night, a pallor that had the deadlier hue of sleeplessness, worry, over-anxiety—the hideous burden of a great, weighty, and complex speech to deliver.
On April 6th all this was gone. The fresh, youthful, cheerful man who stood up in his place had drunk deep of the breezes that sweep The Front at Brighton; his cheeks were burned by the blaze of a splendid spring sun; in the budding, blossoming vital air around him he had taken some of that eternal hopefulness with which the new birth of nature in the spring inspires every human being with any freshness of sensation left. Perchance from his windows in the Lion Mansion he had looked in the evening over the broad expanse of frontierless waters, and risen to the exaltation of the chainless unrest, the tireless and eternal youth, the illimitable breadth of the sea. At all events, he stood before the House visibly younger, brighter, serener than for many a day.
The voice bore traces of the transformation of body and soul which this short visit to the sea has produced. It was soft, mellow, strong. There were none of the descents to pathetic and inaudible whispers which occasionally in the hours of fag and fatigue have painfully impressed the sympathetic hearer. As Mr. Gladstone subdued himself to the temper of the House, the House accommodated itself to the tone of Mr. Gladstone. I have heard his speech on the second reading described as a pleasant, delightful, historical lecture. Certainly, no stranger coming to the House would have imagined that these sentences, flowing in a beautiful, even stream, dealt with one of the conflicts of our time which excite the fiercest passion and bitterest blood. It is this calmness that is now part of Mr. Gladstone's strength. It soothes and kills at the same time.
The Nestor-patriot.
The evening was soft and sunny, the air of the House subdued, and the absence of anything like large numbers prevented outbursts of party passion. And yet all this seemed to heighten the effectiveness of the scene and the speech. Once again one had to think of Mr. Gladstone—as posterity will think of him at this splendid epoch of his career—not as the party politician, giving and receiving hard blows—riding a whirlwind of passion—facing a hurricane of hate—but as the Nestor-patriot of his country, telling all parties alike the gospel that will lead to peace, prosperity, and contentment. The Tories, doubtless, see none of this; but even they cannot help falling into the mood of the hour, and under the fascination of the speaker. Now and then they interrupt, but, as a rule, they sit in respectful and awed silence. Whenever they do venture on interruption, the old lion shows that he is still in possession of all that power for a sudden and deadly spring, which lies concealed under the easy and tranquil strength of the hour. He happens to mention the case of Norway and Sweden as one of the cases which confirm his contention that autonomy produces friendly relations. He has to confess, that in this case some difficulties have arisen; there is a faint Tory cheer. At once—but with gentle good humour—with an indulgent smile—Mr. Gladstone remarks that he doesn't wonder that the Tories clutch at the smallest straw that helps them to eke out a case against autonomy, and then he proceeds to show that even the case of Norway and Sweden doesn't help them a bit.
A vivid gesture.