Gladstone first came into contact with Bismarck,—the genius of popular right, and free government, and settled law of nations, into contact with the genius of force and reason of state and blood and iron—the realist minister of Prussia seemed to be almost as hopeful for European peace as the minister of England.
Morley reflects on the contrasting ideals of Gladstone and Bismarck during their first encounter.
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Happy the man who from out the floods has fled the storm and found the haven; happy too is he who has surmounted toil and trouble.—Bacchae, 902-5.
True merit once resigned, No trick nor feint will serve as well.
For this line of contention he was called an “unpatriotic trumpet of disaster,” and other names commonly bestowed on all men in all countries who venture to say that what chances for the hour to be a popular war is a blunder.
Gladstone protested against the bill as “inequitable, unusual, and unwise,” and it was largely modified in committee.
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