Pullman herald. [volume] (Pullman, W.T. [Wash.]) 1888-1989, 1888-12-15
GLADSTONE rALKlNa.
he Is the Most Fascinating Conversation
aIiaA in the World.

/ alist in the World.
There remains to this generation one
talker who may be likened to Macau-
lay. / mean Mr.. Gladstone. To write
about living celebrity as freely as
about one who already belongs to his
tory is impossible; it is equally impos-
sible to give in few sentences com
plete account of Mr.. Gladstone's char
acteristics as talker. / name him
not as type, but as an anti-type. His
manner belongs to a period that is
past, il that can be said to belong to
any period which is in fact entirely in
dividual. If / liken him to Macaulay,
it is because he also has in degree
that habit of monologue which Macau-
lay had, and with him other less ia
nous personages of his time. His talk
is a stream; stream like the Oxus in
Arnold's verse:
Trimming and bright and large"
Nor does anybody. like Horace's rus
tic, wait for it to flow out; it is astream
you would like to flow on forever.
Macaulay 1 never heard; he had car
ried his talk elsewhither before came
to England. Mr.. Gladstone | have
heard often, and if Macaulay was at
all like him all the jealous criticism OF
his contemporaries who survived him,
and who say he would now be thought
bore is sheer nonsense. But
there must have been points of
contrast between the methods of
these two great takers not less sharp
than between the men themselves.
Roughly speaking, Macaulay passed
his life among books, Mr.. Gladstone
has passed his in affairs. Man of the
world In one sense he is not; but pre-
eminently man of affairs, of English
affairs, all his life long engaged in the
transaction OF the weightiest public
business. His conversation reflects
the habit of mind which all this con-
tinuing experience has formed. No
one ever lived who knew the political
history OF his own time so well, and
no English statesman ever had so
many interests outside of statesman
ship, literary, religious and the rest.
There is no subject on which he will
not talk. His memory is the marvel
of every body who has been his asso-
ciate or acquaintance. Scarce topic
can be started on which he has not a
store of facts. He takes little thought
of his audience or of what may be
supposed to interest them. His sub
ject interests him, and it never occurs
to him that it may not interest others.
And he is quite right. In his hands,
whatever it may be, it is interesting.
He has been known to discourse to
his neighbor through the greater part
of long dinner on the doctrine of
copyright and of international copy
right. His neighbor was a beautiful
woman, who cares no more for copy
right than for the Cherokees. She
listened to him throughout with I'M
failing delight.
There was a critical moment in the
history of Mr.. Gladstone's Government
from 1880 to 1885 when the fate of his
ministry seemed likely to turn on the
success or failure of the expedition for
the rescue of Gordon. He was stay
ing in house in Scotland-It was the
time of the third Midlothian campaign
and grave news had just come from
the Soudan. Whoever listened to him
at dinner would have said that the
Prime Minister had never heard of the
Soudan. The red sunsets of that sum-
mer were being discussed and the
scientific guess that they were caused
by the Java earthquake of the year
before Off went Mr.. Gladstone on
earthquakes. The Dutch Government
had sent out commission of inquiry;
eighteen months had passed.; the COM
mission had made no report, and Mr..
Gladstone's Impotence to be in pos
session of the report OF the commits
sion of the Dutch Government on the
Java earthquake was uncomfortable.
He wanted the facts; he wanted the
theory of this CONFUSION of nature; he
wanted the statistics of the loss of life
and the destruction of property. They
had been promised; they had not been
given. DID any body know when they
were likely to be given or from what
other sourse they could be obtained?
The cares Of an empire sat so lightly
on these Atlantean shoulders that for
half an hour This problem of the Java
earthquake entirely possessed his
mind; that, and that only, was OF con-
Germ to him or to the human race in
general. What choice have you but
to give yourself up to the influence OF
an intellect so commanding, with this
amazing power of being totally alb
isorbed in the one subject on which it
is fixed for the time heingg There is
but one word for such talk, the fascin-
alton of it is irresistible. London Cor.
Boston Herald.
George Was an Old Settler.
1 : III IL. ~ =