"If we are
to stand in white sheets, my right hon. friend would have to wear that
ornamental garment standing in a very conspicuous position."
[Sidenote: and Tragedy.]
And then came the other and the tragic note. Again I have to quote the
exact words to convey the impression and explain the description:--
"If I were in the position of one of those gentlemen--if I had seen the
wrongs and the sufferings of Ireland in former times, if the iron had
entered into my soul as it had entered into theirs, it would have been
impossible. I should not have been more temperate possibly than some of
them under those circumstances of the language I used. (Cheers.)"
It was when he uttered the words, "if the iron had entered into my
soul," that Mr. Gladstone ventured on the bold gesture of striking his
hand against his breast--a simple gesture, and not an uncommon gesture
in itself--but you should have heard the resonant and thrilling
voice--you should have been under the entrancing and almost bewildering
spell beneath which at this moment all the imagination and emotion of
the House lay supine, helpless, and drugged--to have understood the
shiver of feeling which passed through everybody.
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