And
as to the effect of the speech on Mr. Gladstone himself, it was to bring
out a dramatic and mimetic power on which he very rarely ventures, and
which in anybody but a perfect master of the House of Commons might
descend into bad taste and bad tact. I know that Mr. Gladstone is really
triumphant when he brings these qualities into requisition. I remember
the last time he used them with any approach to the abundance of this
occasion was when he was making the great speech which preceded his
defeat in 1885 and the fall of his Government. On that occasion I
remember very well that the Old Man puckered up his forehead into a
thousand wrinkles, turned and twisted that very wonderfully mobile mouth
of his--with its lips so full with strength and at the same time so
sensitive with all the Celtic passion of his Highland ancestry--until
sometimes you almost thought it a pity he had not taken to the Lyceum
and some of the great parts in which Mr. Henry Irving has made his fame.
There was another occasion which dwells in my memory. It was on one of
the nights of the debate on the Coercion Bill. He was describing the
promises of equal laws to Ireland, with the restrictions on Irish
liberty which were contained in the Bill, and as he described
restriction he gradually raised the fingers on one hand, then turned
them spiral fashion until he had pointed the index finger to the roof---
as though he were describing the ascent of a funambulist to the top of
spiral stairs.
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