were obliged
to vote on Monday, in consequence of having so vigorously preached
allegiance during the previous ten days. As it is, the party voted
pretty well.

(M184) "The assumed laughter of the conservatives," he adds, "showed their
vexation, and _some_ of the radicals showed their cards--that it is not the
eastern question, but the hopes of breaking up the party that really
excites them." The radicals on their part were extremely sore at the
withdrawal of the resolutions. "Your goodness," wrote their leading man to
Mr. Gladstone the following day, "has been abused in the interests of a
section of the party who deserve least at your hands. The current report
in the lobbies last night, spread by these gentlemen, and easily believed
by their friends, was that you had 'caved in.' " Could he not take some
further opportunity of showing that he had not abandoned the policy of
joint intervention, and that the liberal party in the country had no
reason to regret that they rose almost as one man to his call?

At first it was thought that the discussion had done good by impressing
the government with the desire of the country, if not for coercion at
least for real neutrality, and that Lord Beaconsfield had submitted to the
better influences in the cabinet. It soon appeared that this had not
happened. "The fidelity of the party," said Lord Granville, "and the large
majority have given Beaconsfield the lead, of which he has not been slow
to avail himself. It is very serious." The war in the Balkans went on; the
Turks fought with valour and constancy: sufferings on both sides were
frightful. In England the sympathy with the miserable victims of Turkish
misrule became modified by the re-awakened jealousy of Russian power. Mr.
Gladstone held his ground with invincible tenacity against all comers. He
took his share in such parliamentary operations as were possible, but
these operations were necessarily fruitless, and the platform now for the
first time became the effective field for moving national opinion.

Great parties of tourists from the northern and midland towns began to
make it a fashion to go on high pilgrimage to Hawarden, where besides a
fine park they saw the most interesting man in the country, and had a good
chance of hearing an eloquent speech, or watching a tree fall under the
stroke of his vigorous arm. If they brought him the tribute of a casket or
an axe or some cunning walking-stick, he was oblig