brain has to finally decide this question.  And the image presented to that very creature of clay was this:  “Here is a man who is my Foreign Secretary; as such, he has every day of his life to deal with questions which affect my interests in the most direct way; to fight for my purse, my future, my Empire; and he has to do so with his brain matched against the brains of the astutest men in the world—­the diplomatic representatives of other Powers.  And all this he has to do with the sense that behind the smooth language of diplomacy, the unbroken and even voices of diplomatic representatives, there stand ironclads and mighty armies—­bloodshed, wholesale, and hideous death—­the tiger spirit and powers of war.  And I see that the man who has all these complex problems to solve—­these trained gamblers to watch—­these sinister Powers to confront and think of—­is a man of cold temper, of frigid understanding, of a power of calm calculation in face of all the perils and all the emotions and all the sentiment of the perplexing Irish problems; and to him Home Rule has come as a set, sober choice of possible policies for the interest of our Empire.”  Such an attitude—­exalted by the even, though powerful, the cold, though penetrating voice—­the face impassive and inscrutable—­the eye, steady, unmoving, and unreadable—­all this, I say, was just the kind of thing to produce an immense impression on those who are ready only to accept Home Rule as the policy that pays best.

[Sidenote:  Even the Peers impressed.]

And certainly the House of Lords was wonderfully impressed by this attitude.  There was no applause, except now and then from those skeleton ranks that lay behind Lord Rosebery, but then there was in the whole air that curious and almost audible silence—­to use a conscious paradox—­which conveys to the trained ear clearer sounds of absorption and attention than the loudest cheers.  And then you began to forget the badinage of the earlier sentences—­you forgave the frigidity and self-repression—­you became strongly fascinated by the mobile face, inscrutable eyes, and the voice penetrated to your innermost ear; he gave you an immense sense of a clear, masterful, and resolute mind and character.  And, finally, towards the end, when, to a certain extent, Lord Rosebery let himself go, there was a ring not of ordinary emotion, but of the passion of a great Minister who was fully conscious of the Imperial and supreme responsibility of a Foreign Minister, who was able to look great and even complex facts straight in the face, who had the courage to face the disagreeable solution of a troublesome and perilous problem.  And, in spite of its lethargy, its hatred of his opinions, the House of Lords felt this also, and there was something of awe in the silence with which it listened to the ringing words of warning with which the speech concluded.  And its attitude showed more.  It was, so to speak, a soul’s awakening; it was the discovery of having found at last a man who could sway, impress, and strike its imagination.