The Liberals and the
Irishry stood up; but, even at that hour, there were evidences of the
fissures and chasms which the two great political disruptions-the
disruption in the English Liberal and in the Irish party--have produced.
On the third bench below the Gangway sate the Liberal Unionists, Mr.
Gladstone's deadliest foes, with pallid-faced, perky-nosed, malignant
Chamberlain at their head, the face distorted by the baffled hate, the
accumulated venom of all these years of failure, apostasy, and outlawry.
Not one of the renegade Liberals stood up, and there they sate, a solid
mass of hatred and rancour. On the Irish side, Mr. Redmond and the few
Parnellites kept up the tradition of their dead leader in his last years
of distrust and dislike of Mr. Gladstone by also remaining seated.
[Sidenote: The speech.]
The first notes of the Old Man suggested he was in excellent form. It is
always easy for those who are well acquainted with him to know when the
Old Man is going to make a great, and when he will deliver only a
moderately good speech. If he is going to do splendidly the tone at the
start is very calm, the delivery is measured, the sentences are long,
and break on the ear with something of the long-drawn-out slowness of
the Alexandrine.
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