There came accordingly something like a panic over
the House. Here we were face to face with a Ministerial crisis, with
doom and the abyss and the end of all things. Unexpectedly, in a moment,
without a second's warning, this state of things led to a phenomenon
which belongs to the House of Commons alone. Councils of war are usually
held in the silence and secrecy and beneath the impenetrable walls of
the council chamber. But sudden councils of war, called for by
unexpected events, have to be held in the open in the House of Commons.
The world--the world of strangers, of ambassadors, of peers, of ladies,
of the constituents, and, above all, the world of watchful, scornful,
vindictive enemies--can look on as though the leaders of the parties
were bees working in a glass hive. And it is impossible for even the
best trained men to keep their air and manners in such dread
circumstances from betraying the seriousness and excitement and awe
which the gravity of the events are exciting in them.
[Sidenote: Mr. Gladstone's attitude.]
On the Treasury Bench there was a good deal of excitement, but it was
pretty well repressed: and in the midst of it all is the face of Mr.
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