are never
directed to any person around. They seem to gaze into vacancy;
altogether there is something curious, weird, almost uncanny, in this
great, big whale of a man, intoning his monologue with that curious
detachment of eye and manner in the midst of a crowded, brilliant, and
intensely nervous and restless assembly of men and women.

[Sidenote: The pessimism of a recluse.]

And it was not to be wondered at that a speech so delivered--a mere
soliloquy--should fail to be impressive. It was too far and away
unreal--had too little actuality to reach the poor humble breasts that
were panting for excitement and exhortation. But once throughout it all
was there a touch of that somewhat sardonic humour that sometimes
delights even Lord Salisbury's political foes. Replying to the very
clever speech of Lord Ribblesdale, Lord Salisbury described the speech
as a confession, and all confessions, he added, were interesting, from
St. Augustine to Rousseau, from Rousseau to Lord Ribblesdale. That, I
say, was the solitary gleam. For the rest, it was an historical
essay--with very bad history and worse conclusions; and the whole spirit
was as bad as it could be. The Irish were still the enemy such as they
appear in the bloody pages of Edmund Spenser, or in the war
proclamations and despatches of Oliver Cromwell; and yet I cannot feel
that Lord Salisbury's language could be resented as, say, the same
language would be from Mr. Chamberlain. It all sounded so like the
dreamings of a student and recluse--discussing the problem without much
passion--without even malignity--but with that strange frankness of the
unheard and unechoed musings of the closet.

[Sidenote: A muttered soliloquy.]

Finally, the speech also had the narrowness, shallowness, and unreality
of the hermit's soliloquy. In the main, there was no insight. A
logic-chopper, a dialectician--even in some respects a musing
philosopher--such Lord Salisbury is; but breadth, depth, clear
vision--of that there was not a trace in the whole speech. And then you
went back in memory to the other speech--so clear, so broad-directed,
yet uttered by a man who looked straight before him and all around
him--who felt the presence in his every nerve of that assembly there
which he was addressing; who lived and saw instead of dreaming--and you
could come to no other conclusion than that of the two leaders of the
House of Lords, the young man was the statesman and the man of action as
wel