There is a tradition in Parliament, adopted also in the United States Senate, that silence is quite becoming to a member during his first session.  Disraeli had a motto to the effect that it is better to be impudent than servile, and in order to teach Parliament that in the presence of personality all rules are waived, he very shortly indulged him in an exceeding spread-eagle speech.  But he had not spoken five minutes before the members began to laugh.  Catcalls, hisses and mad tumult reigned.  The young man in the flaming waistcoat let loose all his oratorical artillery, and the result was bravos and left-handed applause that smothered his batteries.  Again and again he tried to proceed, but his voice was lost in the Clover-Club fusillade.  The Chair was powerless.  At last the speaker saw an opening and roared above the din, “I will now sit down, but you shall yet listen to me!”

Opinions were divided as to whether the House had squelched the Israelitish fop, or whether the fop had tantalized the House into unseemliness.  The young man needed snubbing, no doubt, but the lesson had been given so brutally that sympathy was with the snubbed.  The original intent was to abash him, so he would break down; but this not succeeding, he had simply been clubbed into silence.

Then when Disraeli refused to accept condolences—­merely waiving the whole affair—­and a few days after arose to make some trivial motion, just as though nothing had happened, he made friends.

Any man who shows himself to be strong has friends—­people wish to attach themselves to such a one.  Disraeli showed himself strong in that he held no resentment, and indulged in no recrimination on account of the treatment he had received.  A weak man would have done one of these things:  resigned his seat, demanded an apology from the House, or refused to let his voice again be heard.  Disraeli did neither—­he continued to speak on various occasions, and expressed himself so courteously, so modestly, so becomingly, that the members listened in awe and curiosity.  Then soon it was discovered that beneath the mild and gentle ripple of his speech ran a deep current of earnest truth, tinged with subtle wit.  When he spoke, the loungers came in from the cloakrooms, fearing to miss something that was worth while.

The House of Commons experience taught Disraeli one great truth, and that was this:  the most effective oratory is not bombastic.  Among educated people (or illiterate) the quiet, deliberate and subdued manner is best.  Reserve is a very necessary element in effective speaking.  It is soul-weight that counts, not mere words, words, words.  The extreme deliberation and compelling quality of quiet self-possession in Disraeli’s style dated, according to Gladstone, from the day that Parliament tried to laugh him down.  After that if any one wanted to hear him they had to come to him, and he took good care that those who did come did not go away empty.  He never explained the evident, illustrated the obvious, nor expatiated on the irrelevant.