GLADSTONE OH HORSE BOLE.

Bush Advocate, Volume IX, Issue 796, 24 June 1893, Page 5

GLADSTONE OH HORSE BOLE.

A SKETCH ny AN ADMIRER. ' MrT. P. O'Connor, M.P. for tho Scotland TKvision of Liverpool, writes the following -vivid description of Mr Gladstone's oratorical manner in the delivery of the speech in whioh lie moved the second reading of tho Home Bale Bill. Mr Gladstone, of course, is in his place. I)own ia Brighton, in » pot-hat, antediluvian in age and shape, he has been courting the ireezeof the sea under the hospitable wing of 3Jr Armiatead ; escaping- from the crowds of 1 ltero_ - worshippers, Bnd attending divine ] service sometimes twice in the same day. He fc* 3 not^ been idle in his temporary retreat. When the day comes to record his doings before the accurate Bcales of Omnipotent and Omniscient Justioe, he will stand oat from all other men in the absolute use of every available second of his days of life. It is clear that during his retreat, sa during his hours of official work, his mind ias been busy on the same absorbing and engrossing; subject. He is urmed with a considerable manuscript ; and has THOUGHT OUT HIS SENTENCES, Hfe argument*, ins statements 01 facts with oaronse devotion and thought. This is one of the things which distinguishes iim from other public men of his time. There are men I wot of — and not very big men | either — who are nothing without their audi- j <flee. They deem their dignity abused if there %c 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 forgetf ulness 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 eyea on the memorable night »hen ho 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 uninijiressed? 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 panio, not to depression, not to wounded vanity, but to the appropriateness and the de■mands of an environment, which is something miraoulous. I have already remarked that the infinite variety of his oratory is Shakespearian in its completeness and abundance. The speech on Thursday evening waß an additional proof of this. Comparisons are naturally made between this speech and the speeoh by which he introduced tho bill, and everybody who is compeIsnt thinks that the second speech was the finer and the better of the two. Stories lave triokled through to the public of the anxieties and worries with which Mr Gladstone, was confronted— not from the Irish aide— en 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 fewsleepleFß 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 Bule Bill. There are points to bo finally settled— classes 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 beore the last hour exist — like all perfection — nly in the brains and pages or dramatists And novelists. SUNBURNT, VIGOEOUS, SELF-POSSESSED. It was not unnatural under these circumstances that when Mr Gladstone made his epeeoh introducing the Home Rule Bill there Mould have been on his oheek a pallor deadlier even than that which usually Bite upon Jus brow. That pallor, by the way, I heard iwcently, has been characteristic of him from his earlest years. A schoolfellow from that far off and almost prehistoric 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 blaok eves, and yith a pallid face— the ivory pallor, be it observed, not of delicacy, bnt 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 Thursday evening all this is gone. The fresh, youthful, cheerful man who stands ■before you has DBUNK DEEP OP THE BBEEZES Hat sweep the Front at Brighton; his cheeks have been burned by the blaze of a splendid spring sun ; in the budding, blossoming vital sir around him he has taken some of that eternal hopefulness with which the new birth ot nature in the spring inspires every human' being with any freshness of sensation left,. ■Perclbanoe from bis windows in the Lion Mansion he 'has looked in the evening over the broad expanse of frontierless waters and siaen to the exaltation of the chainless unrest, the tireless and eternal youth, the illimitable breadth of the sea. At all events, he stands before the House visibly younger, Irierhtcr, serener than for many a day. The voice bears traces of the transformation of body and soul which this short visit to the sea has produced. It is soft, mellow, strong. There are none of the descents to pathetic and inaudible whispers which occasionally in the hours of fag and fatiorue have painfully impressed the sympathetic hearer. As Mr Gladstone subdues himself to the temper of the House, the House accommodates itself to the tone of Mr Gladstone. I have heard his. speeoh on the second reading described as a pleasant, delightful, historical leoture. Certainly, no strange? coming to the House would have imagined that these sentences, flowing in a beautiful, even stream, dealt with one of the confliotsof our time which excite the fiercest passion and bitterest blood. It is this •salmness that is now part of Mr Gladstone's strength. It soothes and Mils at the same time. THE NESTOR PATRIOT. The evening was soft and sunny, the air of tho House subdued, and the absence of anything like large numbers prevented outbursts of party passion. And yet all this seemed to leigbten the effectiveness of the scene and the flpeeob. Onoe again one had to think of Mr Gladstone— as posterity will think of him at tins splendid epoch of his career — not as the party politioiau, giving and reoeivinghard "blows— ridinpra 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 oannot help falling into the mood of the hour, and under the fascination of the sneaker. Nuw and_ then they interrupt, but, as a rule, they sit iv 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 oheer. _ At onee — but with gentle good humor, 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 Bhow that even the case of Norway and Sweden doesn't help them a bit. A VIVID GESTUEH. There is another little touoh which will hriag out the perfection aud beauty of *he speech. One of the things which tell the experienced observer that Mr Gladstone is in his best form, ia the exuberance and freedom of his gesture. Whenever he feels a itovongb grip of himself and of the Heuse,

he lets himself go in a way upon whioh ho does not venture in quieter moods. So it was on Thursday night. He was dealing with the question of our colonies and of tho difference whioh had been made in them by the concession of Home Rule. It was while dealing with this question, by the way, that he made ono of those eloquent little asides which bring home to the mind the vastnesa and extent of this great career. ]S' early GO years ago — just think of it, nearly 60 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 oiiioe for the first time as an Under-Secretary. And then he made from Lord Aberdeen a quota, tion in which the Colonial Secretary calls elijrhted attention to the fact that Heligoand is tranquil — the Ringle 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 camoin to which Ihavealluded. Mr Gladstone had another document to rend. By the way even ovor the distance whichdivides the Treasury Bench from the Opposition Benches below the gangway where we Iriehry sit — I could see that the document ( was written in that enormous handwriting , whioh is necessary nowadays when the sight of the l'rime Minister is not equal tc THE UXDIMMED LUSTRE OF THE EAOIVS EYE. This letter, said Mr Gladstone, was not 1 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 edmiration — was determined to play with the subject a little longer. The letter was not directed oven to a Commoner. It was directed to a "Peer"; and as he uttered this saored word, with a delicious affectation of reverence, he raised the index finger of his hand to high heaven, bb though only a reference to a region so exalted could sufficiently manifest the elevation of the personage who had been the reoipient of the letter. The House saw the point, and laughed in great delight. It is on occasions like these that ono sees the immense artistic power whioh lies under all the seriousness and gravity of Mr Gladstone — the thorough exuberance of vitality whioh marks the splendid sanity of Ina healthy nature.