John Morley

His inexhaustible patience, his active attention and industry, his steadfast courage, his talent in debate and the work of parliament; his genius in espying, employing, creating political occasions, all made him, after prolonged conflict…

Gladstone at last launched before parliament the memorable declaration that the time had come when the church of Ireland as a church in alliance with the state must cease to exist.

This was not a mere sounding sentence in a speech; it was one of the heroic acts of his life.

Gladstone (March 28, ’68): “The Irish establishment is a great wrong.

It is the cause of division in Ireland, of alienation between Ireland and England.

The fatal ascendency of race over race is unspeakably aggravated by the ascendency of religion over religion.” But there were many pit-falls, and the ground hid dangerous fire.

He advised the Queen to dissolve the parliament; but at the same time he told her Majesty that if she thought the interests of the country would be better served, he tendered his resignation.

The effect of the bill was not impaired, perhaps it was even heightened; for it convinced the public that its author meant earnest and vigorous business, and the air was instantly alive with the thrill of battle.

For it is undoubted that if the country cares for a thing, the resistance to it of the hereditary House seems to add spice and an element of sport.

Gladstone had rightly divined the state of public feeling about Ireland was shown by the result.

It is not so much a change in men’s thoughts, but a revelation of what they have been thinking.” Heart and soul he flung himself into the labours of his canvass.

The breadth, the elevation, the freshness, the power, the measure, the high self-command of these speeches were never surpassed by any of his performances.

The cause was excellent, but more potent than the cause was the sight of a leader with a resolute will, an unresting spirit of reform, and the genius of political action.

Nevertheless I am driven to the conclusion to take the step to which you invite me, surrendering my inclination and my judgment to your arguments and to the counsel of some whom I have a right to consider my friends....

I am deeply grateful to you for the confidence you are willing to place in me, and for the many kind words you spoke to me yesterday.” In the parched air of official politics the relation of these two towards one another is a peculiar and…

I do not know much, of the interior side of court gossip, but I have a very bad opinion of it, and especially on this ground, that while absolutely irresponsible it appears to be uniformly admitted as infallible.

Gladstone always spoke as one of the best instruments for government that ever were constructed.(174) Nearly everybody in it was a man of talent, character, and force, and showed high capacity for public business.

In one or two cases, conformably to the old Greek saying, office showed the man; showed that mere cleverness, apart from judgment and discretion is only too possible, and that good intention only makes failure and incapacity in carrying…

It forms one of the best vindications of the cabinet system, and of the powers of the minister who created, guided, controlled, and inspired it.

I feel myself by the side of this arduous undertaking a small creature; but where the Almighty sends us duties, He also sends the strength needful to perform them.” To Mr.

The Almighty seems to sustain and spare me for some purpose of His own, deeply unworthy as I know myself to be.

I feel like a man with a burden under which he must fall and be crushed if he looks to the right or left or fails from any cause to concentrate mind and muscle upon his progress step by step.

This absorption, this excess, this constant ἄγαν is the fault of political life with its insatiable demands, which do not leave the smallest stock of moral energy unexhausted and available for other purposes....

It has been a special joy of this December that our son Stephen is given to the church, “whose shoe latchet I am not worthy to unloose.

Anybody could pulverise the Irish church in argument, and to show that it ought to be disestablished and disendowed was the easiest thing in the world.