the
usually large, open, brilliant eyes--that rapt and far-off gaze which is
always Mr. Gladstone's expression when his mind and heart are full.
There are two kinds of excitement and excitability. The man who bursts
into laughter, or shouts, or tears, suffers less from his overstrained
nerves than he whose face is placid while within are mingled all the
rage, and terror, and tumult of great thoughts, and passions, and hopes.
It struck me that Mr. Gladstone was the victim of suppressed excitement
and overstrained nerves, and that it was only the splendid masculine
will, the great strength of his fine physique, which kept him up so
well.

[Sidenote: The sudden awakening.]

Pallid, heavy-eyed, in a far-off dream--with all the world gazing upon
him with painful concentration of attention and fixed stare--the Great
Old Man sate, keeper still of the greatest and most momentous secret of
his time, and about to make an appearance more historic, far-reaching,
immortal, than any yet in his career. So, doubtless, he would have liked
to remain for a long time still; but, with a start, he woke up, put his
hands to his ear, as is his wont in these latter days when his hearing
is not what it used to be, looked to the Speaker, and then to Mr. John
Morley, and found that, all at once, without one moment's preparation,
he had been called upon by the Speaker to enter on his great and
perilous task. What had happened was this: The Irish members had put a
number of questions on the notice-paper, but, anxious in every way to
spare the Old Man, they quietly left the questions unasked; and so,
when, as he thought, there was still a whole lot of preliminary business
to go through, all was over, and the way was quite clear for his start.
"The First Lord of the Treasury;" so spoke the Speaker--almost
softly--and, in a moment, when he had realized what had taken place, the
Old Man was upright, and the Liberal and Irish members were on their
feet, waving their hats, cheering themselves hoarse. And yet an
undercurrent and audible note of anxiety ran through all the enthusiasm.
The honeymoon of Home Rule is over, and, curiously enough, the very
sense of a great victory after a long struggle has always about it a
solemnity too sad for tears, too deep for joy. The Liberals and the
Irishry stood up; but, even at that hour, there were evidences of the
fissures and chasms which the two great political disruptions-the
disruption in the English Liberal a