The man who, in one or two Sessions, is on his legs
every moment--who takes a prominent part in every debate--who has become
one of the notabilities of the House--in a year or two's time has sunk
to a silent dweller apart from all the eagerness and fever of debate,
sinks into melancholy and listlessness, and is almost dead before he has
given up his Parliamentary life. Staying power is the rarest of all
Parliamentary powers; Labby has plenty of staying power.
[Sidenote: Sir Charles Dilke.]
Another figure which the new House of Commons is gradually beginning to
understand is Sir Charles Dilke. He is one of the men who seem to have
no interest in life outside politics. When one thinks that he has
wealth, an immense number of subjects in which he can find instruction
and occupation, that he is familiar with the languages, literature, and
life of several countries, it is hard to understand how he could have
had the endurance to go through the hurricane of abuse and persecution
which he has had to encounter in the last seven years. There are traces
in his face of the intense mental suffering through which he has passed;
there are more lines about the eyes than should be in the case of a man
who is just fifty.
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