Commons impose will understand, though they will not cease to
regret, this omission.

Such a record is the best proof of the capacity for initiative which
belonged to him and in which men of high oratorical gifts have often
been wanting. In the Neapolitan case, in the Alabama case, in the
Bulgarian case, no less than in the adoption of the policy of a
separate legislature and executive for Ireland, he acted from his
own convictions, with no suggestion of encouragement from his party;
and in the last instances--those of Ireland and of Bulgaria--he took
a course which seemed to the English political world so novel and
even startling that no ordinary statesman would have ventured on it.

His courage was indeed one of the most striking parts of his
character. It was not the rashness of an impetuous nature, for,
impetuous as he was when stirred by some sudden excitement, he was
wary and cautious whenever he took a deliberate survey of the
conditions that surrounded him. It was the proud self-confidence of
a strong character, which was willing to risk fame and fortune in
pursuing a course it had once resolved upon; a character which had
faith in its own conclusions, and in the success of a cause
consecrated by principle; a character which obstacles did not
affright or deter, but rather roused to a higher combative energy.
Few English statesmen have done anything so bold as was Mr.
Gladstone's declaration for Irish home rule in 1886. He took not
only his political power but the fame and credit of his whole past
life in his hand when he set out on this new journey at seventy-
seven years of age; for it was quite possible that the great bulk of
his party might refuse to follow him, and he be left exposed to
derision as the chief of an insignificant group. It turned out that