‘Don’t speak any more,’ she said, bending over and touching his somewhat feverish brow with her lips. ‘I shall be here to-morrow. We are going home now. Good-night.’
Dr Joy was at the door, waiting to enter.
‘Will you look at him, doctor, and tell me how he is before I go?’ said Madge softly. The doctor went in, and after feeling his patient’s pulse, returned.
‘He has been a little excited. Don’t leave for half an hour, and I will send a message to you.’
In half an hour Mrs Picton brought her the message: Philip was sleeping.
SOME PARLIAMENTARY MAIDEN SPEECHES.
There have probably been very few members of parliament who have risen in their place for the first time without an unpleasant nervous tremor. Even if a parliamentary neophyte be not, as the familiar phrase has it, ‘unaccustomed to public speaking,’ he has certainly been unaccustomed to such an audience; and to hear himself called upon by the Speaker to address the first legislative assembly in the world, is an ordeal which is none the less trying because it has been voluntarily courted. Seeing that in past times so large a number of those returned to parliament have been comparatively unpractised speakers, the fact that absolute break-downs in maiden speeches are rare must be attributed to the sympathetic encouragement which the House always accords to the new member. Audiences at St Stephen’s are fastidious, but they are also kindly; the maiden speech which is a notorious failure is generally made such by over-confident fluency rather than by nervous hesitation; and, to mention one example only, Lord Beaconsfield’s early fiasco, the story of which has been told a hundred times, was not due to nervous timidity, but to the ambition of a young and clever man, conscious of power, to achieve a parliamentary reputation by a single coup.
There are, of course, a few early failures on record which cannot be thus accounted for. The maiden speech of Sheridan, who was destined to become one of the greatest of British orators, was not exactly a break-down, but its escape from being such was very narrow. In Sheridan’s case, the audience was more than usually sympathetic, for his literary reputation had excited curiosity and interest; but his indistinctness of utterance and hesitancy of manner impressed his hearers with the belief that, great as were his mental powers, he had not the physical qualifications for effective speech, and that—to quote the words of one verdict—‘nature never intended him for an orator.’ Woodfall, the celebrated parliamentary reporter, was fond of telling how, at the conclusion of his speech, Sheridan came up to him, and asked with evident anxiety what he thought of his first attempt. Woodfall’s reply was: ‘I am sorry to say I do not think this is your line; you had much better have stuck to your former pursuits.’ This was discouraging; but Sheridan was not easily discouraged; and his subsequent career justified the confident boldness of his reply to the depreciatory estimate: ‘It is in me, however, and it shall come out!’
The failure of another distinguished man of letters, Joseph Addison, was much more complete. He sat for Malmesbury, in the House of Commons which was elected in 1708, and rose once to make a speech; but his diffidence completely silenced him, and he never made a second attempt. In the Irish parliament, where Lord Wharton’s influence procured him a seat for the borough of Cavan, he made another failure, the story of which is told by Mr O’Flanagan, whom we quote at second-hand from Mr G. H. Jenning’s Anecdotal History of the British Parliament, a capital compilation, to which we acknowledge a general indebtedness. ‘On a motion before the House,’ writes Mr O’Flanagan, ‘Addison rose, and having said, “Mr Speaker, I conceive,” paused, as if frightened by the sound of his own voice. He again commenced, “I conceive, Mr Speaker,” when he stopped, until roused by cries of “Hear, hear,” when he once more essayed with, “Sir, I conceive.” Power of further utterance was denied, so he sat down amidst the scarcely suppressed laughter of his brother-members.’
The name of Addison recalls that of Steele; and one of the most interesting incidents in Steele’s first brief parliamentary career was the maiden speech of his young friend Lord Finch, which began as a break-down, and ended as a success. In Queen Anne’s time, shortly after Steele’s election for Stockbridge, a motion was made to expel him from parliament, on the ground that in one of his periodical publications he had ‘maliciously insinuated that the Protestant succession in the House of Hanover was in danger under Her Majesty’s administration.’ It so happened that very shortly before this time a libel directed against Lord Finch’s sister had been scathingly denounced and exposed in Steele’s paper the Guardian; and the young nobleman felt that he could not be silent when Steele in his turn was attacked. He leaped to his feet, determined to do his best; but though his heart was in the right place, he found it very difficult to get his words there, and after managing to get out a few confused sentences, he sat down, utterly discomfited. The failure would have been unredeemed, had it not been that as he resumed his seat he exclaimed: ‘It is strange I cannot speak for this man, when I would readily fight for him.’ The words were heard all over the House; and Lord Finch’s audience, though hostile to Steele, was one which could be trusted to respond at once, the moment an appeal was made to its chivalrous instincts. From both sides of the House came a spontaneous burst of cheering, which so encouraged the young speaker, that he rose again to his feet; and this time made a telling and eloquent speech, which was the beginning of a successful parliamentary career.