Fleet Street was thrilled to the depths of its deepest inkpot last week
when it read in _The Daily Chronicle_ of the historic meeting between
Mr. HAROLD BEGBIE and Mr. W. J. BRYAN in New York. The sensation was
caused not so much by the announcement that Mr. BRYAN "has the long
mouth of the orator, the lips swelling and protruding as he speaks,
thinning and compressing when he is silent," or that "the full and heavy
neck, which seems to be part of the face, is corded with muscles,"
although either of those statements is startling enough. Nor was it Mr.
BEGBIE'S struggle to decide whether he should devote his attention to
the great statesman or to the railway station in which they met, the
statesman being selected only just in time. No, what nearly stopped the
clock of St. Bride's church was this paragraph in Mr. BEGBIE'S record of
the event: "At this point I asked quite innocently, and with a real
desire for information, an obvious but indiscreet question, which Mr.
BRYAN rebuked me for asking, reminding me that he was a member of the
Government."
What a subject for an Academy painting in oils! Or, if MILTON had been
living at this hour, how he would have immortalised the touching scene!
A desire to present to our readers some fuller details of this
world-staggering event prompted us to cable to a few correspondents in
New York. One cables back: "The scene was dramatic in the extreme. The
journalist, his big blue eyes brimming with innocence, gently breathed
his question, when the great statesman shook his shaggy mane and roared
out his rebuke like a lion in pain. The journalist's apologetic gesture
was one of the most delicate things I have ever seen."
Another tells us:--"When Mr. BEGBIE put his question so great a
stillness reigned throughout the crowded railway station that you could
have heard a goods-train shunt." Mr. BRYAN looked long and earnestly at
the journalist, then, placing his hand affectionately on his shoulder,
he said to him in a throbbing voice, "Oh, HAROLD, how can you?"
* * * * *
"THE INCORRIGIBLES."
"The enemy made attacks, but each effort was repulsed with great
laughter."--_Star._
* * * * *
"One recalls in this connection the statement made by Alexander the
Great, that Napoleon's invasion of Russia was defeated not by the
Cossacks, but by Generals January and February."--_Stock Exchange
Gazette._
This reminds us of CÆSAR'S comment on the sack of
Louvain:--"_Magnificens est, sed non bellum._"
* * * * *