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Mr. Joseph Chamberlain was once speaking to me of the personality of
Gladstone. He related with unusual fervour that the effect of this
personality was incomparable, a thing quite unique in his experience,
something indeed incommunicable to those who had not met the man; yet,
checking himself of a sudden, and as it were shaking himself free of a
superstition, he added resolutely, "But I was reading some of his
speeches in Hansard only the other day, and upon my word there's nothing
in them!"
One may well doubt the judgment of Mr. Chamberlain; but it remains very
obviously true that the personal impression of Gladstone was infinitely
greater than his ideas. The tradition of that almost marvellous
impression still prevails, but solely among a few, and there it is
fading. For the majority of men it is already as if Gladstone had never
existed.
We should be wise, then, to examine the mind, and only the mind, of this
remarkable prelate, and to concern ourselves hardly at all with the
beauty of his life or the bewitchments of his character; for our purpose
is to arrive at his value for religion, and to study his personality
only in so far as it enables us to understand his life and doctrine.
Dr. Gore lives in a small and decent London horse which at all points in
its equipment perfectly expresses a pure taste and a wholly unstudied
refinement. Nothing there offends the eye or oppresses the mind.
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