CENTENARY OF JOHN BRIGHT.

Otago Witness, Issue 3017, 10 January 1912, Page 83

CENTENARY OF JOHN BRIGHT.

THE TRIBUNE OF THE PEOPLE. I saw John Blight for the first time at the proper moment for such a great experience. Just as one should see “Romeo Turd Juliet” for the first time when one is 18, so one should hear a mighty orator in the first impressionable years of life, 1 was - just a little over 19 years of age when 1 heard John Blight. His name had. been familiar to me, of course, already for years. I cannot well say whether the name filled me more with admiration or with terror. Cautious in forming opinions, and trained by years in school and in college to a certain punctiliousness in expression, I read his speeches, even about my own country, with a certain amount of apprehension. The expressions were so bold, the remedies so extreme —as I thought, —and the whole point of view so unique among the British statesmen of the time, that I was not quite sure whether Bright could be altogether right. There was a sort of fearsome joy in reading language from the lips ot an Englishman which in these farou days would be regarded as treasonable if spoken by an Irishman. Besides, I was in the habit of reading daily but one newspaper at the time —what a luxury a penny daily paper was regarded at that time; —and that paper was Conservative* in tone, and it took very good care to reproduce in its columns all the hard things that were then said about John Bright in the English papers. It is hard to make people realise to-day how John Bright used to be spoken about at that period in his career. You might have thought that he was a reckless and revolutionary adventurer —ready to upset everything and to ruin everybody except those who agreed with him, and that he was pugnacious to brutality. Brutality, indeed, was regarded by his opponents as his chief characteristic, and to such a degree that most of the caricatures published of him always represented him as a prize-fighter. Lord George Bentinck — the leader of the Protectionist section which drove Peel out of office after he had carried the Repeal of the Corn Laws —used, indeed, to say of Bright that if he had not been a Quaker, he might have been a prize-fighter. Punch was then, as now, one’s chief source for forming an opinion of how a leading politician looked, with, of course, the slight exaggeration of the caricature; and whenever Bright figured in its pages it was always as a piize-iighter. It is, by the way, one of the curiosities of literature that Punch began by representing Bright with a single eye-glass in his eye—as a matter of fact, Bright never did wear a single eye-glass, but the precedent had been laid down by Punch, and it was a matter of scruple with that distinguished journal not to depart from any precedent even when it was wrong ; and Bright always appeared in Punch with that single eye-glass —or, at least, up to the time when, being respected by all classes, he was given more reverential treatment. And thus the image I had in my mind of Bright, both mentally and physically, was of a man who was brutal in language and brutal in appearance. The frame I expected to find was that of a Tom Sayers ; I expected to see a heavy-jowled, aggressive, and repulsive face, and I expected to listen to a man who spoke the violent rodomontade of a mere demagogue. I put the case thus frankly and crudely in order to enable my readers to realise the better the kind of man that Bright was considered to be at that epoch by large masses of even his own countrymen. I do so for the additional reason that I wish to brmg into contrast with my previous impressions what Bright was really like when at last I saw him in the fiesh.

—A Visit to Limerick.—

It was at a meeting in the historic Irish town of Limerick. Bright had come to Limerick on a visit to the famous American philanthropist, George Peabody, who had a house and a salmon fishery at Castleconnell, a place close by Limerick, and advantage was taken of the occasion by some of his admirers in the city to invito him to a lunch. The lunch took place in a comparatively small hall, and the company was not very large. This was one of the many strange events of that, to me, memorable day. Here was an opportunity of hearing one of the most truly eloquent voices that had ever been heard on this earth, and people did not rush to seize so unique an opportunity! There -was just a goodly gathering—nothing more ; and I am not sure that the company in general was so profoundly affected as I was by the sight and the sounds of that great day. When Bright entered the hall, he fascinated my attention so that I had eyes for nobody but him. I watched his every movement, however insignificant. To this day I can recall how I wondered when I saw him take a glass of claret from the decanter in front of him ; somehow or other the action seemed too human and too small for so mighty a portent of a man. And my first impression was one of strange and delighted surprise. The face which I had expected to see was utterlv unlike the face I actually did see. Instead of being brutal, coarse, and aggressive, it was renurkable—above all the faces I had yet seen—by its extraordinary refinement. The complexion, though healthy, was pale rather than rubicund ; the features were as delicate as though thev had been carved by some great sculptor, or were a cameo from the hand of Benvenuto Cellini. The mouth especially attracted my attention. It was wide —ns the mouths of orators usually are—but, again, its lines were so delicate that it struck you as small and refined. The figure was robust and the height was not great, but it was the robustness of the middle-aged Englishman, not the muscular and frowning strength of the prize-fighter.

In short, John Bright looked rather the descendant of a long line of aristocratic and refined ancestors than even a middleclass Englishman. There was almost femininity in the delicacy of the carving of the face —•serious and even severe as it was, —but a certain bitterness in the tightly-compressed mouth revealed the sterner qualities of the inflexibly honest and absolutely fearless man. —A Wonderful Voice. — The character of the speech was even a greater surprise. Here was no frothy demagogue blurting out nonsense and uttering aggressive and incendiary attacks. The sentences, perfect in form, came with deliberation, and with such slowness that even a poor, inexperienced, young reporter like myself could record them with ease. The manner was almost conciliatory, the tone almost conversational, the voice low and gentle, with that under-swell which was on of the most marvellous qualities of that extraordinary organ. For the voice of Bright was unequalled by that of any man I have ever haerd,' except, perhaps, the voice of Salvini, the great Italian actor. Disraeli says somewhere in one of his novels that the greatest voice is the low voice laden with passion, and that is an exact description of the voice of Bright. Indeed, his voice was so marvellous that in after years I could not hear him begin a speech in the House of Commons with the commonplace words —“Mr Speaker, Sir” —without feeling thrills down my back. How can I describe the effect ujaon my young nerves but by saying that I felt exactly as if I were in a great opera house and listening to the intoxicating notes of sime perfect prima donna in some immortal piece of melody such as is to be found in Mozart. Just ns the notes of the prima donna had then the power of transferring me from this solid earth into some region of diviner air such as never was on land or sea, so I listened to Bright as though I were in some narcotised dream, with all my senses exalted by the power of opium. I can only think of that supreme moment in my experiences in the language in which De Quincey describes his dreams in his “Opium Eater.” It was all so beautiful as to be unreal.

I saw him again that same day as he drove away in a carriage at the side of Mr Peabody, and again I was struck by the extraordinary face ; and especially by the expression and by the mouth. I still thought of the face and of the mouth as perfect in their chiselling ; but again, and even more than when I saw him in the hall, I was struck by the severity—even the sternness of the expression—and by the bitterness of the beautiful mouth. Perhaps, now that he was once again alone with his soul, the face wore this severity of expression more than -when it was lit up with the intercourse of his fellow men and with the thought to which he was giving utterance. I never modified my first impressions of Bright in all the many years I saw him in after-life. The character at bottom, with all the sweetness and tenderness there were in it, was essentially severe. It 'was no wonder that Milton was his favourite author, ami the Bible his chief literature. He was a survival of the stern days and the stern men w r ho dethroned and executed Charles I and found their leader in Oliver Cromwell. If ever there were a man in modern English history who embodied in his person, in his mind, and in his temperament, • —The English Puritan,—

it was John Bright. Pleasant he could be ; his heart overflowed with tenderness ; his affections were deep ; and he loved animals so much that he could not pass a dog in the street without stopping to speak to it, and all through his last illness a favourite little dog lay on his bed. But at bottom the character was severe and stern. Every man in the gregarious life of the House of Commons is constantly compelled to have social intercourse -with even hie strongest political opponents ; and Bright, I dare say, could be quite pleasant in such intercourse, even with political opponents. But, as a rule, he was seen only with those who belonged to the same political faith as himself; and he never really liked a political opponent. In attacking politicians and policies which he disapproved, the language of Bright is not the decorous and euphemistic language of most modern conflict; it is the burning wrath of one of the ancient prophets whose thunders against the enemies of the true faith reverberates in the pages of the Old Testament to all future ages. He was rarely playful, though playfulness is one of the favourite arts of the House of Commons man. When he struck an opponent his scorn was like icy sleet ; or, shall I rather say, like some dash of vitriol that burned. With all the love of peace and hatred of war which were parts of his upbringing and of his own personal conviction, he never turned his other cheek to the smiter. Either in speech or in letter he paid back any unjust attack upon him with such deadly retort that few people ever cared to assail him a second time. A political opponent was stupid enough, shortly after the Crimean war and the terrible conflicts which it involved, to suggest that the softening of the brain which threatened him was a punishment from heaven for his wicked and unpatriotic conduct. Bright retorted that it was an affliction which not even Omnipotence could inflict on the noble lord—for it was a noble lord who had assailed him. Another opponent who had made some shameful attacks upon him was told that he was one of the men who tried to reach through dirt to dignity. With a look or a tone he could slay even rt doughty opponent. He had a rich vein of humour, but, as a rule, it was not kindlv humour—it was satire that scorched and humiliated. —Qualities of Oratory.-

What were the qualities that made the ora ton- of Bright so supreme? I put in the first place his extraordinary voice.

So marvellous was this voice that the late Sir Charles Dilke —quite wrongly, as I think—used to say that if you took away the voice of Bright, there was nothing left in his speeches. There was a great deal besides, though the potency of the voice was undeniably one of the greatest factors in producing such wondrous results os hie speeches created. But, in addition, there was the perfect lucidity and the perfect simplicity of his language'. It used to be remarked that he used more Saxon and fewer Latin words than any of his contemporaries. And, after all, per. feet luciditv and perfect simplicity always represent the hignest form of literary expression. But these things alone would not have been sufficient; the simplicity had now and then to be broken by some great organ-swell of imagery and poetry. And though such passages are rarer in Bright’s oratory than is generally supposed—for most of the speeches are too closely argued to have anything but occasional purple patches —when they did come they earned people off their feet. And all such passages gathered immensely greater force from the even, low voice, with that under-swell in them, in which they were uttered. I doubt if Bright ever raised his voice more than a note beyond ordinary conversation in any of the great speeches he ever made.

Though he made several fine speeches in the early ’eighties, Bright had passed his prime when I entered the House. Things went wrong with him in many ways. He, who had been Ireland’s first and greatest and boldest friend came into fierce collision with the Irish party ; and this embittered and disappointed him. Then came the expedition to Egypt, and this compelled him to leave the Ministry and to part company with Gladstone —for whom he had always entertained strong feelings of friendship. It was little of a sacrifice for Bright to leave office. He often said in the speeches of his preministerial days, and after, that he never had any desire for office; and his instinct w'as right. He had none of the gifts that make a man a good head of a department. It was, perhaps, temperamental, or it may have been from the fierce strenuousneas of his fights in his early days, but, whatever the cause, Bright was indolent. Ho was obsessed by even more than an ordinary amount of the nervousness from which nearly every speaker suffers. He used to tell his friends that he often felt afraid to speak, as he had a feeling that he might fall on the floor of the House after he had risen to his feet—a form of nervousness to which speakers who have overwrought themselves are subject. It is a well-known phenomenon of parliamentary life that when a member falls out of the habit of speaking it grows upon him; it is like creeping paralysis, I once heard Lord Morley say. And it is also a well-known phenomenon of parliamentary life that it is much more difficult to recommence than even to commence—especially when a man has reached such a pinnacle of fame as Bright had, and when, therefore, he has always to rise to his own great level. —Falling Out of Notice.—

Thus it was that Bright gradually began to fall out of notice, and to become an almost unknown figure in the life o| that House which once had been thrilled by his eloquence as it rarely had been thrilled during its many centuries of existence. One result was that Bright was seen more frequently in the smolie rooms of the House than in the House itself. He was a tremendous smoker—as men of indolent habit of body frequently are. You would see him constantly, with a friend or two by ihis, drinking a cup of tea, and then smoking either a cigar or a meerschaum pipe. He talked a good deal, and very splendidly, though, perhaps, rather autocratically. Time, ill-health, and some disappointment lent a certain acidity to his conversation ; and the splendid powers of satire added to the acidity. In spite of all the immense triumphs he had achieved, the gigantic changes in the conditions of his country which he brought about, his conversation gave one the idea that he was rather a disappointed man. He was of too stern a mould, and his character was on too rigid lines, to accommodate himself to changed circumstances; and he had little sympathy with the newer developments, even in his own party. He did not approve of direct labour representatives; be was against any interference of the Stale more than was absolutely necessary; .and in time people began to realise that the man they had denounced for so many years as a red-eyed revolutionary was in reality more staunchly conservative than many of the Conservatives themselves. The final disappoint merit to his career came when he found himself compelled to go against Gladstone on the Home Rule measure; and throughout the prolonged negotiations which preceded the final rejection of the bill he was anxious, and even for a time was supposed to shrink from finally breaking with his party and from Gladstone. It was pathetic to see the two old men—so often side by side in the great conflicts of the past —meeting behind the .Speaker’s chair and exchanging a few words—friendly personally, but not bringing any closer accord in political views. Then came his final illness. It lasted for a considerable time; and it had its fluctuations. But at last the doctor had to tell him that there was no hope. This final message was given to him when the two were alone. The family entered soon after. There was a great gravity in the face, but no sign of fear or regret; and one of his sons told mo that he never appeared to him so gi’eat os at that moment. It was a sombre but a majestic Old age.—T P.’s Weekly.