Chamberlain's renewal of the attack, and, if he had been left free to
exercise his own judgment, would have allowed the whole thing to lapse
into the nothingness into which every such charge finally falls. On this
Monday night Mr. Chamberlain was in his most venomous mood. He had come
down to the House with the set determination to get up a row somehow or
other. There was evil in his eye; there was rancour in his voice; there
was the hoarse rage which always shows in him whenever he feels that he
has been beaten. His judgment is so shallow--his temper so rash and
violent--that some people think he actually counted that the Government
would never have dared to interfere with his obstructive plan of
campaign, and that he would have been permitted to bury the Bill under
the vast hedge of amendments. To him, then, the strong and drastic
action of the preceding week had come as a painful and most exasperating
surprise.
[Sidenote: Joe's weakness.]
It is one of the many bad turns that Joe's temper does him to always
lead him into overdoing his part. The wild outbursts of his venom--the
ferocity which he puts into his personal attacks--these things have the
effect of producing a certain amount of reaction; and thus his blows
often suffer from the very violence with which they are dealt.
Pages:
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345