But when the
emergency arises, Mr. Gladstone is never able to listen to the dictates
of prudence, or selfishness, or peril. He was determined to show the
Tories that if they were going to play the game of obstruction, they
would have to count with him more seriously than they imagine. To his
friends--who doubtless were aghast at the proposition--he announced that
he was going to break through those rules which had been imposed upon
him by a watchful physician and by his age. At eleven o'clock he
announced he would be in the House again, and accordingly, at eleven
o'clock--quietly, unostentatiously, without the welcome of a cheer--he
almost stole to his place on the Treasury Bench. Something about the
figure of Mr. Gladstone compels the concentration of attention upon him
at all times. He seems the soul, the inspiration, the genius of the
House of Commons. He was not, as is usually the case with him in the
evening, in the swallow-tail and large shirt-front of evening dress; he
had the long, black, frock coat, which he usually wears on the great
occasions when he has a mighty speech to deliver. Of course, Mr.
Gladstone was immediately the observed of every eye; but, as I have
said, there was no demonstration--the House of Commons is often silent
at its most sublime moments.
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