Morley is a fine platform speaker, but as yet he is not nearly as
good a debater as Mr. Chamberlain. He stumbles, hesitates, finds it hard
often to get the exact word he wants. And yet who cannot listen to him
for ten minutes without a sense of a great mind--and what to me is
better, a fine character behind it all? This man has thought
out--possibly in travail of spirit--and his creed--though it may not be
the exultant cheerfulness of natures richer in muscle than in
thought--is one for which he will fight and sacrifice, and not yield. In
short, the thinness of Mr. Chamberlain--the depths of Mr. Morley--these
are the things which one will learn from hearing them speak even once.
I have said that Mr. Morley is not as good a debater as Mr. Chamberlain;
but if Mr. Chamberlain be wise, he will call his watch-dogs off Mr.
Morley, for he is being badgered into an excellent debater. Every night
he improves in his answers to questions. Tersely, frigidly--though
there is the undercurrent of scorn and sacred passion in most of what he
says--Mr. Morley meets the taunts and charges of the Russells, and the
Macartneys, and the Carsons, and never yet has he been beaten in one of
those hand-to-hand fights.
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