I could
scarcely believe my eyes when at nine o'clock on that day I came down to
the almost empty House--in these evening sittings the House always looks
about as cheerful as a theatre at mid-day--and saw Mr. Gladstone on the
Treasury Bench, almost radiant, and evidently full of speech, go, and
spirit. There wasn't really the smallest necessity for his presence.
Nothing stood on the paper save one of those harmless, futile motions
which are discussed with about as much interest by the House generally,
as "abstract love"--to use a bold figure of Labby in a recent debate.
It was a motion which complained that private members did not get
sufficient time. Considering that private members had used their
privileges for some two weeks previously to destroy the very foundation
of all representative Government--namely, that the majority shall
prevail--the complaint seemed a little audacious. Anyhow, a debate upon
it could lead nowhere. But the moment the resolution was proposed, up
stood the Grand Old Man, and delivered a bright, sparkling little
academical address, for all the world like the lecture of a very
_spirituel_ French professor to a parcel of boys from the Quartier
Latin.
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