There is another little touch which will bring out the perfection and beauty of the speech. One of the things which tell the experienced observer that Mr. Gladstone is in his best form, is the exuberance and freedom of his gesture. Whenever he feels a thorough grip of himself and of the House, he lets himself go in a way upon which he does not venture in quieter moods. He was dealing with the question of our colonies and of the difference which had been made in them by the concession of Home Rule. It was while thus engaged that he made one of those eloquent little asides, which bring home to the mind the vastness and extent of this great career. Nearly sixty years ago—just think of it, nearly sixty years ago—he had been associated with the Government of the Colonies—referring to the time when Lord Aberdeen was his chief, and he held office for the first time as an Under-Secretary. And then he made from Lord Aberdeen a quotation in which the Colonial Secretary calls delighted attention to the fact that Heligoland is tranquil—the single one of all the dependencies of the Crown of which that could be said at that moment.
But it was not at this point that the significant gesture came in, to which I have alluded. Mr. Gladstone had another document to read. By the way—even over the distance which divides the Treasury Bench from the Opposition Benches below the gangway, where we Irishry sit—I could see that the document was written in that enormous hand-writing, which is necessary nowadays when the sight of the Prime Minister is not equal to the undimmed lustre of the eagle eye. This letter, said Mr. Gladstone, was not addressed to him. It was not addressed to a Home Ruler. By this time, curiosity was keenly excited. But Mr. Gladstone—smiling, holding the House in firm attention and rapt admiration—was determined to play with the subject a little longer. The letter was not directed even to the Commoner. It was directed to a "Peer;" and as he uttered this sacred word, with a delicious affectation of reverence, he raised the index finger of his hand to high heaven, as though only a reference to a region so exalted could sufficiently manifest the elevation of the personage who had been the recipient of the letter. The House saw the point, and laughed in great delight. It is on occasions like these that one sees the immense artistic power which lies under all the seriousness and gravity of Mr. Gladstone—the thorough exuberance of vitality which marks the splendid sanity of his healthy nature.
Mr. Birrell.
I always tremble when I see a literary man, and especially a literary man with a high reputation, rise to address the House of Commons. The shores of that cruel assembly are strewn with the wrecks of literary reputations. It was, therefore, not without trepidation that I saw Mr. Augustin Birrell—one of the very finest writers of our time—succeed in catching the Speaker's eye. My misgivings were entirely unnecessary. With perfect ease and self-possession—at the same time with the modesty of real genuine ability—Mr. Birrell made one of the happiest and best speeches of the debate. Now and then, the epigram was perhaps a little too polished—the wit perhaps a trifle too subtle for the House of Commons. But careful preparation always involves this; and every man must prepare until he is able to think more clearly on his legs than sitting down. It was just the kind of speech which was wanted at a moment when the general air is rent with the rhodomontade and tomfoolery of Ulster. Applying to these wild harangues the destructively quiet wit of obiter dicta, Mr. Birrell made the Orangemen look very foolish and utterly ridiculous. Mr, Gladstone was one of Mr. Birrell's most attentive and cordial hearers. Mr. Birrell is going to do great things in the House of Commons.
In penal servitude.
The keen, playful, and penetrating wit of Mr. Birrell did not do anything for Mr. Dunbar Barton. Mr. Barton is—as he properly boasted—the descendant of some of that good Protestant stock that, in the days of the fight over the destruction of the Irish Parliament, stood by the liberties of Ireland. He is a nephew of Mr. Plunket—he inherits the talent which is traditional in the Plunket family, and is said not to be without some of the national spirit that still hides itself in odd nooks and corners of estranged Irish minds. But he has none of the saving grace of his country or family. A solemn voice that seems to come from the depths of some divine despair, and from the recesses of his innermost organs, together with a certain funereal aspect in the close-shaven face, gives him an air that suggests the cypress and the cemetery. But with deadly want of humour, he spoke of the possibility of his spending the remainder of a blameless life in penal servitude, and was deeply wounded when the uproarious and irreverent House refused to take the possibility seriously.
Mr. Stansfeld.
The following Friday was made memorable by a fine speech from Mr. Stansfeld. Full of activity, with undimmed eye, with every mental faculty keen and alert, with every lofty and generous aspiration as fresh as in the days of hot and perilous youth, Mr. Stansfeld yet appears something of a survival in the House of Commons. His appearance, his style of speech, even the framework of his thought, seem to belong to another—in some respects a finer and more passionate period than our own. The long hair combed straight back—the strong aquiline nose—the heavy-lined and sensitive mouth—the subdued tenderness and wrath of the eyes—even the somewhat antique cut of the clothes—suggest the days when the storm and stress of the youthful century were still in men's souls, and were driving them to conspiracy, to prison, to scaffold, to barricades, to bloody fields. There is also a deliberation in the delivery—a sonorousness in the phraseology—that has something of a bygone day. But all this adds to the impressiveness of the address. The fervour is all there, the unalterable conviction, the lofty purpose. There is reason for the warm note of welcome which comes from the Irish benches; for this man—perhaps disappointed—perchance not too well used—stands up to defend his principles with the same utter forgetfulness of self which belongs only to the finest and the truest natures.
Commercial culture.
Mr. Chamberlain has not a wide range of ideas, and his small stock has not been increased by anything like extensive reading. The House was relieved to find after his return to Westminster on the 10th of April that he had just begun to read Tennyson. It is always easy to know when Mr. Chamberlain is making the acquaintance of an author for the first time. Strictly business-like in even his reading, he apparently first thinks of reading a book when he has somewhere seen a quotation from it which might be worked into a speech; the next and almost immediate process is to transfer it to one of his speeches. This is one of the many differences between him and the exhaustless brain and universal reading of Mr. Gladstone. It was, therefore, not much of a surprise to those who had watched Mr. Chamberlain for years, to see that he was making a very bad and poor speech on the second reading of the Home Rule Bill—a speech certainly far inferior to that which he had delivered on the first reading. He had exhausted the poor soil; he had really no more to say. He was unfortunately helped by Mr. Gladstone, who, instead of listening in silence to attacks grown stale by their infinite repetition, attempted to correct some of Mr. Chamberlain's statements. This was especially the case in reference to the famous speech in which Mr. Parnell is spoken of as passing "through rapine to dismemberment." Mr. Chamberlain wished to insist that the language had been applied to all the Irish leaders: Mr. Gladstone insisted that they were applied to Mr. Parnell alone. This controversy between the Prime Minister and Mr. Chamberlain gave a little life to a speech that hitherto had been falling desperately flat, and as such the interruption was a tactical mistake.