T. P. O'Connor

“ He has to fight for his life every moment of its existence. He is climbing not a secure ladder on solid earth, but up a glacier with slipping steps, the abyss beneath, the avalanche above—watchful enemies all round—even among the guides he ought to be able to trust. Do you suppose that every member of the Liberal party loves Mr. Asquith, and is delighted when he displays his great talents? Do you think that none of the gentlemen below the gangway do not believe that in their mute and inglorious breasts, there are no streams of eloquence more copious and resistless? ”

“ It was the first and the last bit of real human naturalness in the whole speech, for Lord Salisbury's manner and delivery are wooden, stiff, awkward and lumbering. He stands upright—except, of course, for that heavy stoop of the shoulders which is one of his characteristics—and rarely moves himself one-hundredth part of an inch. The voice—even, clear, and strong, and yet not penetrating, and still less inspiring—rarely has a change of note; it is delivered with the strange, curious air of a man who is thinking aloud, and has forgotten the presence of any listeners. ”

“ Every face is turned to that of the single pale white solitary figure that stands out from the Treasury Bench, dressed, I may add, in the sober but light grey suit of the summer season, in spite of his being a messenger of such doom to Tory obstruction. There is a hush, but a hush never lasts long in the House of Commons when a great party blow is going to be struck. The nerves of the House, raised to expectancy—tension, almost hysteria, by the joy of the one side, the anger and dread of the other, have a preternatural readiness in catching points, in producing outbursts of feeling. ”

“ The brilliant light of the early days of our century has become dim and cold in those hearts and minds which have not had the power to grow and expand with their ages. But with that splendid sanity of body as well as mind which belongs to him, Mr. Gladstone is the creature of the ending of the nineteenth as of the beginning of the twentieth century. Like the man of Arctic climes, he stands almost at the same moment in the sunset of one great century and the heralding light of the sunrise of another. ”

“ A murmur arose on the Irish Benches; slips of paper were passed up to Mr. Dillon to recall to him the facts of the case; but, either in the hurry and excitement, or because he did not appreciate the situation immediately, Mr. Dillon went on with his speech—unconscious of the abyss that opened up before him. Meantime, Mr. Chamberlain—pale, excited, his face torn with the workings of gratified hatred and coming triumph—sat forward in his seat, his eyeglass shining from afar, eagerness in every look, pose, movement. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Imagine yourself in a country church, the sole visitor in the ghostly silence and the solemn twilight, with spectres all around you in the memorials of the dead and memories of the living, and then fancy the organist silently stealing, also alone, to the organ, and giving out to the evening air some beautifully solemn anthem with all the sadness of death, and none of the exultant joy of resurrection, and then you will get some faint idea of the pent-up emotion which filled every sympathetic heart in the great assembly as the Old Man finally came to the closing words of his great speech. ”

“ It is not easy, in the midst of cyclones, to collect one's thoughts—to choose one's words—to hit straight home with short, emphatic blow. But this feat Mr. Storey accomplished. I have never heard, in my thirteen years' experience of the House of Commons, a speech more admirable in form. Not a word too much, and every sentence linked tight to the other—reasoning, cogent, unanswerable, resistless. And the point above all other things laid bare—are you Liberals going to help the Tories to postpone, if not finally overthrow Home Rule, or are you not? ”

“ He is nothing of the kind. He speaks with a great slowness, grave deliberation, and there are often long and sometimes even trying pauses between his sentences. He could not conceal on this great occasion the anxiety and the seriousness of the situation; but the mind was splendidly clear, the language as well chosen as though he were sitting in a room and holding discourse to a few admiring friends; and what Mr. Sexton had to say was, that he would not go into the same lobby with Chamberlain and Balfour in order to defeat the Government; in short, that he was going to vote with Mr. Gladstone. ”

“ The Speaker was also on his feet, and, for a while, his shouts of "Order! Order!" failed to calm the sudden, fierce cyclone. Above the din, voices were shouting, "Name! Name!" with that rancorous and fierce note which the House of Commons knows so well when passion has broken loose, and all the grim depths of party hate are revealed. At last, it was discovered that Lord Cranborne was the culprit, and that when Mr. Asquith, amid universal sympathy and assent, was alluding to the beautiful speech of Mr. Davitt, this most unmannerly of cubs had uttered the word, "Murderer." ”

“ There have been times when if a member of Parliament did venture to enter the House of Commons in a coat prematurely ending in the short tails of the morning coat, or in the tail-less sack-coat, he would have been called up to the Speaker's chair and as severely reprimanded as though he had committed the most atrocious offence—in those far-off days—of wearing a pot-hat. But in these democratic times one can do anything; and low-crowned hats, sack-coats, homespun Irish tweeds, affright and shock the old aristocratic Parliamentary eye. ”

“ At first, when the Old Man sat down, the pause followed that speaks of emotion too deep for prompt expression, and then once again a rush to their feet by the Irishry and the Liberals, loud cheering, and the waving of hats, and all those other manifestations of vehement feeling which alone Mr. Gladstone is privileged to receive. The Tories had kept very quiet; had conducted themselves on the whole very well. Once or twice came a high sniff of disgust, and now and then a younger member could not restrain himself from an exclamation. ”

“ In all such squalid tragedies, men of the Carson type are a necessary portion of the machinery, as necessary as the informer that betrays—as the warder who locks the door—as the hangman who coils the rope. Mark you, all the forms—all the precautions—all the outward seeming of English law and liberty—are in these Irish courts. The outside is just the same as in any court that meets in the Old Bailey; but it is all the mask and the drapery, behind which the real figures are the foregone verdict, the partisan judge—the prepared cell or constructed gallows. ”

“ If one were on the look-out for dramatic and instructive contrast in the House of Commons, one could not do better than study Mr. Morley and Mr. Chamberlain for a week. Mr. Chamberlain—glib, shallow, self-possessed, well-trained by years of public life—debates admirably. Nobody can deny that—not even those who, like myself, find his speaking exasperatingly empty and superficial and foolish. He is master of all his resources; scarcely ever pauses for a word, and when he is interrupted, can parry the stroke with a return blow of lightning-like rapidity. ”

“ To a house thinned by the endless rhodomontade of a dull Orangeman—with a style of elocution to which the House is unaccustomed, and which has almost every fault delivery could have—the speech of Sir John Rigby, the Solicitor-General, was one of the finest and weightiest utterances delivered on the Bill. The massive head, the fine face, the rugged sense and leonine strength in face and figure, lent force to a criticism of extraordinary effectiveness on the attacks levelled against the Bill. ”

“ There is a burst of cheers from the Irish Benches; Sir William Harcourt laughs aloud in his triumph; the composure of the Old Man's face remains unchanged; you see he has gone through a great many things like this; and that great heart and sane mind are prepared for any fate. Mr. Chamberlain says nothing; but looking into the recesses of his amendment paper, attempts to hide the choking rage of disappointment that has come over him at this final defeat of his brightest hopes of trampling his former friend and his former chief in the dust. ”

“ A man of deeds, not words.
Lord Spencer is not an orator. Simple, unadorned, straightforward, he speaks just as he feels; and this lent a singular fascination to a speech which from other lips might have sounded thin and ineffectual, for the speech was nothing less than a revelation into the depths of a nature singularly rich in courage and experience. One cannot help thinking of all that lay behind those plain and unadorned words in which Lord Spencer told the story of his conversion from the policy of coercion to that of self-government. ”

“ There is always something that depresses, as well as something that exhilarates, in the first day of a Session of Parliament. In the months which have elapsed, there have been plenty of events to emphasize the mutability and the everlasting tragedy of human life. Some men have died; figures that seemed almost the immortal portion of the life of Parliament have disappeared into night, and their place knows them no more; others have met the fate, more sinister and melancholy, of changing a life of dignity and honour for one of ignominy and shame. ”