[Sidenote:  To the slaughter.]

A foredoomed sheep could not have been brought more unwillingly to the slaughter than was Mr. Balfour to the debate on the Vote of Censure.  He had nothing new to say, and unfortunately he felt that as keenly as anybody else.  Every single topic with which he had to deal had been discussed already, until people were positively sick of them—­in short, poor Mr. Balfour was in the position of having to serve up to the House a dish that had been boiled and grilled and stewed, and yet stewed again, until the gorge rose at it in revolt and disgust.  The late Chief Secretary has the susceptibility of all nervous temperaments.  The men are indeed few who have equal power with all kinds of audiences—­with an audience that is friendly and that is hostile.  Still more rare is it to find a man who can face an audience even worse than a downright hostile one, and that is an audience which is indifferent, There are very few men I have known in my Parliamentary experience who could do it.

[Sidenote:  A memory of Parnell.]

Mr. Parnell was one.  I have seen him speak quite comfortably to an audience which consisted of himself, Mr. Biggar, the Minister in attendance, and the Speaker of the House—­in all, four, including himself.  Indeed, he often said to me that he rather liked to have such an audience.  Speaking was not easy or agreeable to him, and his sole purpose for many years in speaking at all was to consume so much time.  Parnell was a man who always found it rather hard to concentrate his mind on any subject unless he was alone and in silence.  This was perhaps one of the many reasons why he kept out of the House of Commons as much as he could.  Anything like noise or disturbance around him seemed to destroy his power of thinking.  For instance, when he was being cross-examined by Sir Richard Webster in the course of the Forgeries Commission, his friends trembled one day because, looking at his face, with its puzzled, far-away look, they knew that he was in one of those moods of abstraction, during which he was scarcely accountable for what he said.  And sure enough he made on that day the appalling statement that he had used certain language for the purpose of deceiving the House of Commons.  He said to me that he liked to speak in an empty House because then he had time to collect his thoughts.  Joe Biggar, his associate, was also able to speak in any circumstances with exactly the same ease of spirit.  To him, speaking was but a means to an end, and whether people listened to him or not—­stopped to hang on his words or fled before his grating voice and Ulster accent—­it was all one to him.  Two other men have the power of speaking always with the same interest and self-possession.  These are Sir Charles Dilke and Mr. O’Connor Power.

[Sidenote:  The Sensitiveness of Mr. Balfour.]