William Ewart Gladstone [7]
Disraeli and Sir John A. Macdonald, in the management of individuals. He had a contempt for the meaner side of human nature which made him refuse to play upon it. He had comparatively little sympathy with many of the pursuits which attract ordinary men; and he was too constantly engrossed by the subjects of enterprises which specially appealed to him to have leisure for the lighter but often very important devices of political strategy. A trifling anecdote, which was told in London about twenty-five years ago, may illustrate this characteristic. Mr. Delane, then editor of the "Times," had been invited to meet the prime minister at a moment when the support of the "Times" would have been specially valuable to the Liberal government. Instead of using the opportunity to set forth his policy and invite an opinion on it, Mr. Gladstone talked the whole time of dinner upon the question of the exhaustion of the English coal-beds, to the surprise of the company and the unconcealed annoyance of the powerful guest. It was the subject then uppermost in his mind, and he either did not think of winning Mr. Delane or disdained to do so. In the House of Commons he was entirely free from airs, or, indeed, from any sort of assumption of superiority. The youngest member might accost him in the lobby and be listened to with perfect courtesy. But he seldom addressed any one outside his own very small group of friends, and more than once made enemies by omitting to notice and show some attention to members of his party who, having been eminent in their own towns, expected to be made much of when they entered Parliament. Having himself plenty of pride and comparatively little vanity, he never realized the extent to which, and the cheapness with which, men can be captured and used through their vanity. And his mind, flexible as it was in seizing new points of view and devising expedients to meet new circumstances, did not easily enter into the characters of other men. Ideas and causes interested him more than personal traits did; his sympathy was keener and stronger for the sufferings of nations or masses of men than with the fortunes of a particular person. With all his accessibility and immensely wide circle of acquaintances, he was at bottom a man chary of real friendship, while the circle of his intimates became constantly smaller with advancing years.
So it befell that though his popularity among the general body of his adherents went on increasing, and the admiration of his parliamentary followers remained undiminished, he had few intimate friends, few men in the House of Commons who linked him to the party at large and rendered to him those confidential personal services which count for much in keeping a party in hearty accord and enabling the commander to gage the sentiment of his troops. Thus adherents were lost who turned into dangerous foes--lost for the want not so much of tact as of a sense for the need and use of tact in humoring and managing men.
If, however, we speak of parliamentary strategy in its larger sense, as covering familiarity with parliamentary forms and usages, the powers of seizing a parliamentary situation and knowing how to deal with it, the art of guiding a debate and choosing the right moment for reserve and for openness, for a dignified retreat, for a watchful defense, for a sudden rattling charge upon the enemy, no one had a fuller mastery of it. His recollection of precedents was unrivaled, for it began in 1833 with the first reformed Parliament, and it seemed as fresh for those remote days as for last month. He enjoyed combat for its own sake, not so much from any inborn pugnacity, for he was not disputatious in ordinary conversation, as because it called out his fighting force and stimulated his whole nature. "I am never nervous in reply," he once said, "though I am sometimes nervous in opening a debate." And although his impetuosity sometimes betrayed him into imprudence when he was taken unawares, no one could be more wary or guarded when a crisis arrived whose gravity he had foreseen.
So it befell that though his popularity among the general body of his adherents went on increasing, and the admiration of his parliamentary followers remained undiminished, he had few intimate friends, few men in the House of Commons who linked him to the party at large and rendered to him those confidential personal services which count for much in keeping a party in hearty accord and enabling the commander to gage the sentiment of his troops. Thus adherents were lost who turned into dangerous foes--lost for the want not so much of tact as of a sense for the need and use of tact in humoring and managing men.
If, however, we speak of parliamentary strategy in its larger sense, as covering familiarity with parliamentary forms and usages, the powers of seizing a parliamentary situation and knowing how to deal with it, the art of guiding a debate and choosing the right moment for reserve and for openness, for a dignified retreat, for a watchful defense, for a sudden rattling charge upon the enemy, no one had a fuller mastery of it. His recollection of precedents was unrivaled, for it began in 1833 with the first reformed Parliament, and it seemed as fresh for those remote days as for last month. He enjoyed combat for its own sake, not so much from any inborn pugnacity, for he was not disputatious in ordinary conversation, as because it called out his fighting force and stimulated his whole nature. "I am never nervous in reply," he once said, "though I am sometimes nervous in opening a debate." And although his impetuosity sometimes betrayed him into imprudence when he was taken unawares, no one could be more wary or guarded when a crisis arrived whose gravity he had foreseen.