most approved leader is the man who can harmonise discordant sections, and steer round obvious and pressing difficulties.  Geniality and bonhomie are more valuable qualities than prescience or nobility of aim.  The more representative that government becomes, the more does originality give place to malleability.  The more fluid that the conceptions of a statesman are, the greater that his adaptability is, the more acceptable he becomes.  Since Lord Beaconsfield, with all his trenchant mystery, and Mr. Gladstone, with his voluble candour, there have been no figures of unquestioned supremacy on the political stage.  Even so, the effect in both cases was to a great extent the effect of personality.  The further that these two men retire into the past, the more that they are judged by the written record, the more does the tawdriness of Lord Beaconsfield’s mind, his absence of sincere convictions appear, as well as the pedestrianism of Mr. Gladstone’s mind, and his lack of critical perception.  I have heard Mr. Gladstone speak, and on one occasion I had the task of reporting for a daily paper a private oration on a literary subject.  I was thrilled to the very marrow of my being by the address.  The parchment pallor of the orator, his glowing and blazing eyes, his leonine air, the voice that seemed to have a sort of physical effect on the nerves, his great sweeping gestures, all held the audience spellbound.  I felt at the time that I had never before realised the supreme and vital importance of the subject on which he spoke.  But when I tried to reconstruct from the ashes of my industrious notes the mental conflagration which I had witnessed, I was at a complete loss to understand what had happened.  The records were not only dull, they seemed essentially trivial, and almost overwhelmingly unimportant.  But the magic had been there.  Apart from the substance, the performance had been literally enchanting.  I do not honestly believe that Mr. Gladstone was a man of great intellectual force, or even of very deep emotions.  He was a man of extraordinarily vigorous and robust brain, and he was a supreme oratorical artist.

There is intellect, charm, humour in abundance in the parliamentary forces; there was probably never a time when there were so many able and ambitious men to be found in the rank and file of parliamentarians.  But that is not enough.  There is no supremely impressive and commanding figure on the stage; greatness seems to be distributed rather than concentrated; but probably neither this, nor political conditions, would prevent the generous recognition of supreme genius, if it were there to recognise.