MEN I HAVE PAINTED
Booth to the English Irving, or among the Italians, headed by Salvini, had a tithe of his facial play. I have seen him turn suddenly from a ministering into an avenging angel. With his grandchild, Dorothy Drew, on one knee and the black pomeranian on the other, his countenance would light up, as though he were possessed of all the beatitudes. When speaking of the wrongs of nations or of peoples, his righteous frown might have bespoken the minister of divine vengeance.
I did not know the extent and variety of his more subtle expressions. Indeed, I am inclined to think that subtle emotions played but a small part in his large nature, the extremes of affection and of hatred being the dominating impulses of one who lived but in two spheres, a public and a private, the former for and with the people, the other in and for the family.
I happened to be in the House of Commons and was sitting in the small gallery just above the floor of the House when Mr. Gladstone rose to attack Mr. Chamberlain, after the Home Rule split. He was magnificent; his thin silvery hair was so lighted up that it looked like a great mass of white. Thrusting his fingers through it with a majestic gesture, he began: "There is an office in the Church of Rome presided over by the Devil's Advocate whose duty it is to defend the Satanic Majesty from attack; and if there is a man in this House, aye, even in this country, qualified for the office, it is the Right Hon. Member for Birmingham. (Applause and laughter.)
The reason for supposing, as some have done, that Mr. Gladstone was a small man, is that he always sat on the Front Treasury or Opposition Bench beside or near Sir William Harcourt, whose bulk overarched every one
60
