written, except what it was absolutely necessary to read, and when
his deafness had so increased that he did not hear half of what was
said in debate, it was sufficient for a colleague to whisper a few
words to him, explaining how the matter at issue stood, and he would
rise to his feet and extemporize a long and ingenious argument, or
perhaps retreat with dexterous grace from a position which the
course of the discussion or the private warning of the "whips" had
shown to be untenable. No one ever saw him at a loss either to meet
a new point raised by an adversary or to make the most of an
unexpected incident. Sometimes he would amuse himself by drawing a
cheer or a contradiction from his opponents, and would then suddenly
turn round and use this hasty expression of their opinion as the
basis for a fresh argument of his own. In this particular kind of
debating power, for the display of which the House of Commons--an
assembly of moderate size, which knows all its leading figures
familiarly--is an apt theater, he has been seldom rivaled and never
surpassed. Its only weakness sprang from its superabundance. He
was sometimes so intent on refuting the particular adversaries
opposed to him, and persuading the particular audience before him,
that he forgot to address his reasonings to the public beyond the
House, and make them equally applicable and equally convincing to
the readers of next morning.

As dignity is one of the rarest qualities in literature, so
elevation is one of the rarest in oratory. It is a quality easier
to feel than to describe or analyze. We may call it a power of
ennobling ordinary things by showing their relation to great things,
of pouring high emotions round them, of bringing the worthier
motives of human conduct to bear upon them, of touching them with
the light of poetry. Ambitious writers and speakers incessantly