Why, it may be asked, with these gifts, and with so much firmness and energy of character, did he not play an even more conspicuous part in politics, and succeed, after Lord Beaconsfield's death, to the chieftaincy of the Tory party? The answer is to be found partly in the prejudice which still survives in England against legal politicians, partly in certain defects of his own personality. Although sincerely pious, and exemplary in all the relations of domestic life, he was ungenial and unbending in social intercourse. Few equally eminent men of our time have had so narrow a circle of personal friends. There was a dryness, a coldness, and an appearance of reserve and hauteur about his manner which repelled strangers, and kept acquaintanceship from ripening into friendship. To succeed as a political leader, a man must usually (I do not say invariably, because there are a few remarkable instances--Mr. Parnell's would appear to be one of them--to the contrary) at least seem sympathetic; must be able to enter into the feelings of his followers, and show himself interested in them not merely as party followers, but as human beings. There must be a certain glow, a certain effluence of feeling about him, which makes them care for him and rally to him as a personality. Whether Lord Cairns wanted warmth of heart, or whether it was that an inner warmth failed to pierce the cloak of reserve and pride which he habitually wore, I do not attempt to determine. But the defect told heavily against him. He never became a familiar figure to the mass of his party, a person whose features they knew, at whose name they would cheer; and nowadays all leaders, to whatever party they belong, find a source of strength in winning this kind of popularity. The quality which Americans call magnetism is perhaps less essential in England than in the country which distinguished and named it; but it is helpful even in England. Cairns, though an Irishman, was wholly without it.