In
passion, in destructive sarcasm, in dramatic force, in the rush and
resistless sweep of language, Mr. Gladstone was more potent in the
dinner hour of that Thursday night than he was ever at any other single
moment in his almost sixty years of triumphant oratory.
[Sidenote: His powers as a mimic.]
Observers are divided as to his temper when he rose. Some onlookers,
observing the tremendous force of voice and language--the broad, ample,
and frequent gestures--the tremulousness that sometimes underlies the
swell of passion--the deadly and startling pallor of the face--thought
that he was suffering from excitement almost touching and perhaps
affrighting to behold; while others thought that the chief and most
impressive feature of this perfect tornado of triumphant eloquence, was
the perfect calm that lay in the heart and bosom of all that storm.
There are two things which will tell you of the omnipotence of an
orator--one is the effect of his speech on foes as well as friends, and
the other is its effect upon himself. Both these evidences were present,
for the Tories seemed to have been swept away by the cyclone as
resistlessly as the Liberals and the Irish, and the Tory paeans in honour
of the Old Man which were to be found in the Tory organs next day only
echoed the bounteous and generous recognition of his matchless powers
which one heard from Tories in the lobbies throughout the evening.
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