Sketches in the House: The Story of a Memorable Session (1893)O'Connor, T. P. (Thomas Power)
History
Sketches in the House: The Story of a Memorable Session (1893)
O'Connor, T. P. (Thomas Power)
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1837-1901; Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons; Home rule -- Ireland
overthrow of all the powerful citadel of fraud and cruelty and wrong, of
which he had been one of the chief pillars. And as Mr. Carson was
uttering these words, I saw his profile--which often reveals more of
men's natures than the front face.
[Sidenote: A curious reminiscence.]
I suppose I shall be considered very fantastic--but do you know what I
thought of at that very moment? Some years ago, I stood at Epsom close
to the ropes and saw Fred Archer pass me as he swept like the whirlwind
to the winning-post in the last Derby he ever rode. Between Mr. Carson
and Mr. Fred Archer, especially in the profile, there is a certain and
even a close resemblance; the same long lantern face, the same sunken
cheeks, the same prominent mouth, the same skin dark as the gipsy's.
Never shall I forget the look on Fred Archer's face at the moment when I
saw it--it was but for a second--and yet the impression dwells
ineffaceable upon my memory and imagination. There was a curious mixture
of terror, resolve, hope, despair on the sunken cheeks that was almost
appalling--that look represented, embodied, summed up, as though in some
sudden glimpse of another and a nether world, all the terrible and awful
passions that stormed at the hearts of thousands in the great gambling
panorama all around. And there was something of the same look on the
profile of Mr. Carson--I could almost have pitied him and the party and
traditions and past which he represented as I saw its death-throes
marked on his suffering and fierce face.
But the speech of Mr. Carson was a clever one. Whatever the inner eye
may see in the depths of Mr. Carson's soul, to the outward eye he has an
appearance of a self-possession amounting almost to the offensive. He is
dressed almost as well as Mr. Austen Chamberlain, but, unlike Mr.
Chamberlain's promising lad--who still has much of the graceful shyness
and unsteady nerve of youth--Mr. Carson has all the coolness,
self-assertion, and hardness of the man who has passed through the
fierce and tempestuous conflicts of Irish life. Mr. Carson stands at the
box and leans upon it as though he had been there all his life; he
shoots his cuffs--to use a House of Commons' phrase--as dexterously and
almost as frequently as Mr. Gladstone; his points are stated slowly,
deliberately, with that wary and watchful look of the man who has been
accustomed to utter the words that consigned men to the horrors of
Tullamore. The speech of Thursday evening was a clever speech. It wasn't
broad--it wasn't generous--there was not a note in it above the tone of
the Crown Prosecutor, but it was subtle, well-reasoned--the blows were
happy, and told--and the Tories and Unionists were hugely and justly
delighted.
[Sidenote: The approach of the division.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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