Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-08-01
GRAND OLD MAN ON THE STUMP.
A Realistic Pen Photograph of the Great
English Leader.

do not remember ever to have seen
what | consider a good or full de-
scTiption of Gladstone when speaking,
and as speaking is one Of his common
est ayocations in daily life it is curious
that no one has ever endeavored to
reproduce to the minds eye of far dis
/ tant readers pen picture OF one of
/ the most prominent men in all Europe
! when engaged in making a speech.
/ Let me therefore have a try. In the
| first place, it must be borne in mind
/ that Gladstone is a small man, and
that when standing up to address an
audience his low stature is all the more
noticeable. People who are accus-
toned to judge the Grand Old Man
| Chose who never see him) by his pho
| tographs are apt TO think him a large,
tall man. The immense broad head
and width of shoulders naturally give
| the impression of body and frame TO
match. You are quickly undeceived
when you see him. As he stands facing
you, before beginning to speak, you
are struck both by the extreme pallor
of his countenance and the stealthy,
cat-like expression of his features.
The deep-set eyes, the eyebrows di-
verging at an upward angle of forty
FIVE degrees from each other across his
forehead, the long, dark, deep line on
each side of the nose from eve corner
to chin, the firm, clinched lips, and
the eyes which blink in sullen thought,
all combine 70 suggest a temporarily
subdued, but nger-slumbering Ben
gal tiger.
Once he opens his lips, this express
sion vanishes. His face lights up, and
his voice comes forth clear and must
cal. as unlike the voice of an octo-
genarian as a voice can be. 1t has not
its old ring, or its old power, but it
| cannot be called weak voice. There
is never a quaver or querulous shrill-
| ness. never an approach to the piping,
childish treble, or tremulous bass of
our grandfathers, and Gladstone might
be the great-grandfathe of some of u.s.
Though it cannot reach me, save as I
can catch an utterance or two at inter-
! walls, it is the voice of middle-aged
manhood still. On and on he talks,
never hesitating, never stumbling,
never repeating, never stammering,
never at a loss for word. His ease
and fuency make you think his
speeches commonplace. At intervals
of, say, fifty words, he has a curious
facial trick of spreading and tighten
ing his lower lip across his teeth, about
as man does whose teeth are set on
edge, and you listen for the whistling
! inhalation which commonly accom-
panies clinched teeth. This gives his
face hard, sinister, cruel look, for an
| instant. Then it vanishes, to come
again and again until you get so used
to il that you miss it if perchance he
lets too long an interval 90 by. Some
times he scratches his temple with his
bent forefnger, sometimes the top of
his head with his thumb; again, he is
beating time with pointed finger or
| finishing a crushing sentence with a
twirl of it over his head. At other
times he is holding his double eve-
glasses up to his eyes to read some
statistic, or extract, or quotation, and
then taking them down again. Alto
gether, as YOU stand and watch him,
| you cannot realize that you are being
addressed by one of the greatest ora
tors of modern times. His dress con-
sisted Wednesday of black cloth
fIock coat and waistcoaU, the coat worn
open, and the top buttons of the waist
coat left unbuttoned over an expanse
of white shirt bosom; a black silk
handkerchief tied round a not by any
means so large a shirt collar as is gen
| orally given him. Dark-brown tr0us-
ers completed his costume, which was
simplicity itself. Cocbajg1ae's London
! Letter.