It is a tabernacle
in his soul where only holy thoughts may enter. Outside its impenetrable
and echoless walls are left behind the shouts of faction, the noise of
battle, the rise and fall of the good and ever-enduring fight between
wrong and right. Within that tabernacle Mr. Gladstone has the power of
withdrawing himself at will, just as in the Agora of Athens, and on the
last great day when he discoursed on immortality, and drank the mortal
hemlock, Socrates could withdraw himself, and listen to the inner
whisper of his daemon. All this, I say, you could see in the abstracted,
resigned and composed look of Mr. Gladstone at the moment when his
triumphant enemies, in their summer garb, with their smiling faces, and
strutting walk, entered the House of Commons. If you wanted to see at
once the contrast, not only of the temper of the hour, but the still
greater and more momentous contrast of temperaments, you had only to
look from the face of Mr. Gladstone to that of Mr. Chamberlain. The
contrast of their years--the deeper contrast of their natures--above
all, the profounder contrast of their worlds of thought, training and
environment--all were brought out.
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