But, otherwise, he positively looks younger than he
did when he was a Cabinet Minister. There is colour where there used to
be nothing but deadly pallor--freshness where the long and terrible
drudgery of official life had left a permanent look of fag and
weariness. Sir Charles Dilke has taken up the broken thread of his life
just as if nothing had occurred in that long period of exile and
suffering. He is never out of his place: attends every sitting as
conscientiously as if he were in office and responsible for everything
that is going on; and has his eye on subjects as wide apart as the
parish councils and Newfoundland, army reform and the occupation of
Uganda. It is curious to see, too, how he is regaining that ascendancy
over the House of Commons which he exercised formerly. It is an
ascendancy not due in the least to oratorical power. Sir Charles Dilke
never made a fine sentence or a sonorous peroration in his whole life.
It is that power of acquiring all the facts of the case--of being
thoroughly up in all its merits--in short, of knowing his
business--which impresses the House of Commons, which, after all, though
it may cheer the gibes of a smart and pert debater like Mr.
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