Gladstone opened a conversation on the state of the Party and the
prospects of the Election. He said: "I believe you are in Chamberlain's
confidence. Can you tell me what he means?" I replied that I was not the
least in Chamberlain's confidence, though he had always been very
friendly to me, and I admired his Programme. "But," I said, "I think
that what he means is quite clear. He has no thought of trying to oust
you from the Leadership of the Liberal Party; but he is determined that,
when you resign it, he, and not Hartington, shall succeed you." This
seemed to give the Chief some food for reflection, and then I ventured
to follow up my advantage. "After all," I said, "Chamberlain has been
your colleague for five years. Surely your best plan would be to invite
him here, and ascertain his intentions from himself." If I had
suggested that my host should invite the Sultan or the Czar, he could
not have looked more surprised. "I have always made a point," he said,
"of keeping this place clear of political transactions. We never invite
anyone except private friends." "Well," I said, "but we are within six
weeks of the Election, and it will never do for us to go to the country
with you and Chamberlain professing two rival policies."
Backed by Mrs. Gladstone, I carried my point, and with my own hand wrote
the telegram inviting Mr. Chamberlain. Unfortunately I had to leave
Hawarden on the 6th of October, so I was not present at the meeting
which I had brought about; but a few days later I had a letter from Mr.
Chamberlain saying that, though his visit had been socially pleasant, it
had been politically useless. He had not succeeded in making Gladstone
see the importance of the Unauthorized Programme, and "if I were to drop
it now," he said, "the stones would immediately cry out."
What then ensued is matter of history. Parliament was dissolved on the
18th of November. When the elections were finished, the Liberal Party
was just short of the numerical strength which was requisite to defeat
a combination of Tories and Parnellites. Lord Salisbury, therefore,
retained office, but the life of his administration hung by a thread.
On the 24th of November, 1884, the great Lord Shaftesbury, moved by the
spirit of prophecy, had written: "In a year or so we shall have Home
Rule disposed of (at all hazards) to save us from daily and hourly
bores." On the 17th of December, 1885, the world was astonished by an
anonymous announcement in two newspapers--and the rest followed suit
next day--that, if Gladstone were returned to power, he would be
prepared to deal, in a liberal spirit, with the demand for Home Rule.
This announcement was an act of folly not easy to explain or condone. We
now know whose act it was, and we know that it was committed without
Gladstone's privity. As Lord Morley says: "Never was there a moment when
every consideration of political prudence more imperatively counselled
silence." But now every political tongue in the United Kingdom was set
wagging, and Gladstone could neither confirm nor deny. Our bewilderment
and confusion were absolute. No one knew what was coming next; who was
on what side; or whither his party--or, indeed, himself--was tending.
One point only was clear: if Gladstone meant what he seemed to mean, the
Parnellites would support him, and the Tories would be turned out. The
new Parliament met on the 21st of January, 1886. On the--, the
Government were defeated on an amendment to the Address, in favour of
Municipal Allotments, and Lord Salisbury resigned. It was a moment of
intense excitement, and everyone tasted for a day or two "the joy of
eventful living."
On the 29th of January, I dined with Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone. The host
was in a grim mood of suppressed excitement, anger, and apprehension.
All day long he had been expecting a summons from the Queen, and it had
not arrived. "It begins to look," he said, "as if the Government meant
after all to ignore the vote of the House of Commons, and go on. All I
can say is that, if they do, the Crown will be placed in a worse
position than it has ever occupied in my lifetime." But after the party
had broken up, Sir Henry Ponsonby arrived with the desired message from
the Queen; and on the 1st of February Gladstone kissed hands, as Prime
Minister for the third time.
"When Gladstone runs down a steep place, his immense majority, like the
pigs in Scripture but hoping for a better issue, will go with him,
roaring in grunts of exultation." This was Lord Shaftesbury's prediction
in the previous year; but it was based on an assumption which proved
erroneous. It took for granted the unalterable docility of the Liberal
Party. I knew little at first hand of the transactions and tumults which
filled the spring and early summer of 1886. At the beginning of February
I was laid low by serious illness, resulting from the fatigue and
exposure of the Election; and when, after a long imprisonment, I was out
of bed, I went off to the seaside for convalescence. But even in the
sick-room I heard rumours of the obstinate perversity with which the
Liberal Government was rushing on its fate, and the admirably effective
resistance to Home Rule engineered by Lord Hartington and Mr.
Chamberlain. The Liberal leaders ran down the steep place, but an
important minority of the pigs refused to follow them. The Home Rule
Bill was thrown out on the 8th of June. Parliament was immediately
dissolved. The General Election gave a majority of more than a hundred
against Home Rule; the Government retired and Lord Salisbury again
became Prime Minister.
In those distant days, there was a happy arrangement by which once a
year, when my father was staying with me, Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone dined
with me to meet him. My father and Gladstone had both entered public
life at the General Election of 1832, and my father loved to describe
him as he appeared riding in Hyde Park on a grey Arabian mare, "with his
hat, narrow-brimmed, high up on the centre of his head, sustained by a
crop of thick, curly hair," while a passer-by said: "That's Gladstone.
He is to make his maiden speech to-night. It will be worth hearing." The
annual rencounter took place on the 21st of July, 1886. After dinner,
Gladstone drew me into a window and said: "Well, this Election has been
a great disappointment." I replied that we could certainly have wished
it better, but that the result was not unexpected. To my amazement,
Gladstone replied that it was completely unexpected. "The experts
assured me that we should sweep the country." (I always wish that I
could have had an opportunity of speaking my mind to those "experts.")
Pursuing the subject, Gladstone said that the Queen had demurred to a
second election in six months, and that some of his colleagues had
recommended more moderate courses. "But I said that, if we didn't
dissolve, we should be showing the white feather."
It is no part of my purpose to trace the dismal history of the Liberal
Party between 1886 and 1892. But one incident in that time deserves to
be recorded. I was dining with Lord and Lady Rosebery on the 4th of
March, 1889; Gladstone was of the company, and was indulging in
passionate diatribes against Pitt. One phrase has always stuck in my
memory. "There is no crime recorded in history--I do not except the
Massacre of St. Bartholomew--which will compare for a moment with the
means by which the Union was brought about." When the party was breaking
up, one of the diners said: "I hope Mr. Gladstone won't draw that
parallel, between the Union and the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, on a
public platform, or we shall stand even less well with the thinking
public than we do now."
Parliament was dissolved in June, 1892, and, when the elections were
over, it was found that the Liberal Party, including the Irish, had only
a majority of 40. When Gladstone knew the final figures, he saw the
impossibility of forcing Home Rule through the Lords, and exclaimed: "My
life's work is done." However, as we all remember, he took the
Premiership for a fourth time, and during the Session of 1893 passed a
Home Rule Bill through the House of Commons. The Lords threw it out by
419 to 41, the minority being mainly wage-receivers. Other troubles
there were, both inside the Government and outside it; Mr. Gladstone
told his friends that the Naval Estimates demanded by the Admiralty were
"mad and drunk"; and people began to suspect that the great change was
at hand.
On the 1st of March, 1894, Gladstone made his last speech in the House
of Commons. In that speech he bequeathed to his party the legacy of a
nobly-worded protest against the irresponsible power of the "Nominated
Chamber"; and then, having accomplished sixty-one years of Parliamentary
service, he simply disappeared, without ceremony or farewell. In my
mind's eye I see him now, upright as ever, and walking fast, with his
despatch-box dangling from his right hand, as he passed the Speaker's
Chair, and quitted the scene of his life's work for ever.
In spite of warnings and anticipations, the end had, after all, come
suddenly; and, with a sharp pang of regretful surprise, we woke to the
fact that "our master was taken away from our head to-day." Strong men
were shaken with emotion and hard men were moved to unaccustomed tears,
as we passed out of the emptied House in the dusk of that gloomy
afternoon.
On the 6th of March, 1894, Gladstone wrote to me as follows, in reply to
my letter of farewell:
"My speculative view into the future shows me a very mixed spectacle,
and a doubtful atmosphere. I am thankful to have borne a part in the
emancipating labours of the last sixty years; but entirely uncertain
how, had I now to begin my life, I could face the very different
problems of the next sixty years. Of one thing I am, and always have
been, convinced--it is not by the State that man can be regenerated, and
the terrible woes of this darkened world effectually dealt with. In
some, and some very important, respects, I yearn for the impossible
revival of the men and the ideas of my first twenty years, which
immediately followed the first Reform Act. But I am stepping out upon a
boundless plain.
"May God give you strength of all kinds to perform your appointed work
in the world."
FOOTNOTES:
[37] The British troops entered Cairo on the 14th of September, 1882.
[38] Better known as "Billy Johnson," the famous Eton Tutor.
[39] The Right Hon. J. W. Lowther.
[40] Afterwards the Right Hon. John Burns, M.P., President of the Local
Government Board.
[41] Afterwards Lord St. Aldwyn.
XII
ORATORY
[Greek: esti d' ouch ho logos tou rhêtoros, Aischinê, timion, oud'
ho tonos tês phônês, alla to tauta proaireisthai tois pollois, kai
to tous autous misein kai philein, housper an hê patris.]
DEMOSTHENES. _De Corona_.
The important thing in public speaking is neither the diction nor
the voice. What is important is that the speaker should have the
same predilections as the majority, and that his country's friends
and foes should be also his own.
I hope that I shall not be reproached with either Pedantry or Vanity
(though I deserve both) if, having begun so classically, I here
introduce some verses which, when I was a boy at Harrow, my kind Head
Master addressed to my Father. The occasion of these verses was that the
recipient of them, who was then Sergeant-at-Arms in the House of Commons
and was much exhausted by the long Session which passed the first Irish
Land Act, had said in his haste that he wished all mankind were dumb.
This petulant ejaculation drew from Dr. Butler the following
remonstrance:
Semper ego auditor? Requies data nulla loquelæ
Quæ miseras aures his et ubique premit?
Tot mala non tulit ipse Jobas, cui constat amicos
Septenos saltem conticuisse dies.
"Si mihi non dabitur talem sperare quietem,
Sit, precor, humanum sit sine voce genus!"
Mucius[42] hæc secum, sortem indignatus iniquam,
(Tum primum proavis creditus esse minor)
Seque malis negat esse parem: cui Musa querenti,
"Tu genus humanum voce carere cupis?
Tene adeo fatis diffidere! Non tibi Natus
Quem jam signavit Diva Loquela suum?
En! ego quæ vindex 'mutis quoque piscibus' adsum,
Donatura cycni, si ferat hora, sonos,
Ipsa loquor vates: Patriæ decus addere linguæ
Hic sciet, ut titulis laus eat aucta tuis.
Hunc sua fata vocant; hunc, nostro numine fretum,
Apta jubent aptis ponere verba locis.
Hunc olim domus ipsa canet, silvæque paternæ,
Curiaque, et felix vatibus Herga parens.
Nec lingua caruisse voles, quo vindice vestræ
Gentis in æternum fama superstes erit."
H. M. B.,
Aug., 1870.
The prophecy has scarcely been fulfilled; but it is true that from my
earliest days I have had an inborn love of oratory. The witchery of
words, powerful enough on the printed page, is to me ten times more
powerful when it is reinforced by voice and glance and gesture. Fine
rhetoric and lofty declamation have always stirred my blood; and yet I
suppose that Demosthenes was right, and that, though rhetoric and
declamation are good, still the most valuable asset for a public speaker
is a complete identification with the majority of his countrymen, in
their prejudices, their likings, and their hatreds.
If Oratory signifies the power of speaking without premeditation,
Gladstone stands in a class by himself, far above all the public
speakers whom I have ever heard. The records of his speaking at Eton and
Oxford, and the reports of his earliest performances in Parliament,
alike give proof that he had, as Coleridge said of Pitt, "a premature
and unnatural dexterity in the combination of words"; and this developed
into "a power of pouring forth, with endless facility, perfectly
modulated sentences of perfectly chosen language, which as far surpassed
the reach of a normal intellect as the feats of an acrobat exceed the
capacities of a normal body."
His voice was flexible and melodious (in singing it was a baritone);
though his utterance was perceptibly marked by a Lancastrian "burr"; his
gestures were free and graceful, though never violent; every muscle of
his face seemed to play its part in his nervous declamation; and the
flash of his deep-set eyes revealed the fiery spirit that was at work
within. It may be remarked in passing that he considered a moustache
incompatible with effective speaking--"Why should a man hide one of the
most expressive features of his face?" With regard to the still more
expressive eyes, Lecky ruefully remarked that Gladstone's glance was
that of a bird of prey swooping on its victim.
Lord Chief Justice Coleridge told me that he had once asked Gladstone if
he ever felt nervous in public speaking. "In opening a subject," said
Gladstone, "often; in reply never," and certainly his most triumphant
speeches were those in which, when winding up a debate, he recapitulated
and demolished the hostile arguments that had gone before. One writes
glibly of his "most triumphant" speeches; and yet, when he was among us,
he always delivered each Session at least one speech, of which we all
used to say, with breathless enthusiasm, "That's the finest speech he
ever made." On the platform he was incomparable. His fame as an orator
was made within the walls of Parliament; but, when he ceased to
represent the University of Oxford, and was forced by the conditions of
modern electioneering to face huge masses of electors in halls and
theatres and in the open air, he adapted himself with the utmost ease to
his new environment, and captivated the constituencies as he had
captivated the House. His activities increased as his life advanced. He
diffused himself over England and Wales and Scotland. In every
considerable centre, men had the opportunity of seeing and hearing this
supreme actor of the political stage; but Midlothian was the scene of
his most astonishing efforts. When, on the 2nd of September, 1884, he
spoke on the Franchise Bill in the Waverley Market at Edinburgh, it was
estimated that he addressed thirty thousand people.
"Beneath his feet the human ocean lay,
And wave on wave flowed into space away,
Methought no clarion could have sent its sound
Even to the centre of the hosts around;
And, as I thought, rose the sonorous swell,
As from some church-tower swings the silvery bell.
Aloft and clear, from airy tide to tide,
It glided, easy as a bird may glide;
To the last verge of that vast audience sent,
It played with each wild passion as it went;
Now stirred the uproar, now the murmur stilled:
And sobs or laughter answered as it willed:"[43]
It is painful to descend too abruptly from such a height as that: but
one would be giving a false notion of Gladstone's speaking if one
suggested that it was always equally effective. Masterly in his appeal
to a popular audience, supernaturally dexterous in explaining a
complicated subject to the House of Commons, supremely solemn and
pathetic in a Memorial Oration, he was heard to least advantage on a
social or festive occasion. He would use a Club-dinner or a
wedding-breakfast, a flower-show or an Exhibition, for the utterance of
grave thoughts which had perhaps been long fermenting in his mind; and
then his intensity, his absorption in his theme, and his terrible
gravity, disconcerted hearers who had expected a lighter touch. An
illustration of this piquant maladroitness recurs to my memory as I
write. In 1882 I was concerned with a few Radical friends in founding
the National Liberal Club.[44] We certainly never foresaw the palatial
pile of terra-cotta and glazed tiles which now bears that name.[45] Our
modest object was to provide a central meeting-place for Metropolitan
and provincial Liberals, where all the comforts of life should be
attainable at what are called "popular prices." Two years later,
Gladstone laid the foundation-stone of the present Club-house, and, in
one of his most austere orations, drew a sharp contrast between our poor
handiwork and those "Temples of Luxury and Ease" which gaze in haughty
grandeur on Pall Mall. We had hoped to provide what might seem like
"luxury" to the unsophisticated citizen of Little Pedlington; and, at
the least, we meant our Club to be a place of "ease" to the Radical
toiler. But Gladstone insisted that it was to be a workshop dedicated to
strenuous labour; and all the fair promises of our Prospectus were
trodden under foot.[46]
I have often heard Gladstone say that, in the nature of things, a speech
cannot be adequately reported. You may get the words with literal
precision, but the loss of gesture, voice, and intonation, will
inevitably obscure the meaning and impede the effect. Of no one's
speaking is this more true than of his own. Here and there, in the
enormous mass of his reported eloquence, you will come upon a fine
peroration, a poetic image, a verse aptly cited, or a phrase which can
be remembered. But they are few and far between--_oases_ in a wilderness
of what reads like verbiage. Quite certainly, his speeches, in the mass,
are not literature, as those found to their cost who endeavoured to
publish them in ten volumes.
For speeches which are literature we must go to John Bright; but then
Bright's speaking was not spontaneous, and therefore, according to the
definition suggested above, could not be reckoned as Oratory. Yet, when
delivered in that penetrating voice, with its varied emphasis of scorn
and sympathy and passion; enforced by the dignity of that noble head,
and punctuated by the aptest gesture, they sounded uncommonly like
oratory. The fact is that Bright's consummate art concealed the
elaborate preparation which went to make the performance. When he was
going to make a speech, he was encompassed by safeguards against
disturbance and distraction, which suggested the rites of Lucina. He was
invisible and inaccessible. No bell might ring, no door might bang, no
foot tread too heavily. There was a crisis, and everyone in the house
knew it; and when at length the speech had been safely uttered, there
was the joy of a great reaction.
My Father, unlike most of the Whigs, had a warm admiration for Bright;
and Bright showed his appreciation of this feeling by being extremely
kind to me. Early in my Parliamentary career, he gave me some hints on
the art of speech-making, which are interesting because they describe
his own practice. "You cannot," he said, "over-prepare the substance of
a speech. The more completely you have mastered it, the better your
speech will be. But it is very easy to over-prepare your words. Arrange
your subject, according to its natural divisions, under three or four
heads--not more. Supply each division with an 'island'; by which I mean
a carefully-prepared sentence to clinch and enforce it. You must trust
yourself to swim from one 'island' to another, without artificial aids.
Keep your best 'island'--your most effective passage--for your
peroration; and, when once you have uttered it, sit down at once. Let no
power induce you to go on."
Anyone who studies Bright's speeches will see that he exactly followed
his own rule. The order and symmetry are perfect. The English is simple
and unadorned. Each department of the speech has its notable phrase; and
the peroration is a masterpiece of solemn rhetoric. And yet after all
what Demosthenes said is true of these two great men--the Twin Stars of
Victorian Oratory. Each had all the graces of voice and language, and
yet each failed conspicuously in practical effect whenever he ran
counter to the predilections and passions of his countrymen. Gladstone
succeeded when he attacked the Irish Church, and denounced the
abominations of Turkish misrule: he failed when he tried to palliate his
blunders in Egypt, and to force Home Rule down the throat of the
"Predominant Partner." Bright succeeded when he pleaded for the Repeal
of the Corn Laws and the extension of the Suffrage: he failed when he
opposed the Crimean War, and lost his seat when he protested against our
aggression on China. It must often fall to the lot of the patriotic
orator thus to set himself against the drift of national sentiment, and
to pay the penalty. No such perils beset the Demagogue.
I should not ascribe the title of orator to Mr. Chamberlain. He has
nothing of the inspiration, the poetry, the "vision splendid," the
"faculty divine," which make the genuine orator. But as a speaker of the
second, and perhaps most useful, class, he has never been surpassed.
His speaking was the perfection of clearness. Each argument seemed
irresistible, each illustration told. His invective was powerful, his
passion seemed genuine, his satire cut like steel and froze like ice.
His perception of his hearers' likes and dislikes was intuitive, and was
heightened by constant observation. His friends and his enemies were
those whom he esteemed the friends and the enemies of England; and he
never committed the heroic but perilous error of setting himself against
the passing mood of national feeling. He combined in rare harmony the
debating instinct which conquers the House of Commons, with the power of
appeal to popular passion which is the glory of the Demagogue.