The Earl of Rosebery, K. G.: An Illustrated Biography

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Hodder & Stoughton, 1900 - 174 pages

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Page 172 - Some Chatterton shall have the luck Of calling Rowley into life! Some one shall somehow run a muck With this old world, for want of strife Sound asleep. Contrive, contrive To rouse us, Waring! Who's alive? Our men scarce seem in earnest now. Distinguished names ! - but 'tis, somehow, As if they played at being names Still more distinguished, like the games Of children.
Page 161 - Even such, this day, among the fresh-stirred hearts of Erin, Thomas Davis, is thy toil!' I sat by Ballyshannon in the summer, And saw the salmon leap; And I said, as I beheld the gallant creatures Spring glittering from the deep, Through the spray, and through the prone heaps striving onward To the calm clear streams above, 'So seekest thou thy native founts of freedom, Thomas Davis, In thy brightness of strength and love!
Page 166 - Cabinet which is given him by his personal arguments, his personal qualities, and his personal weight. But this is not all. All his colleagues he must convince, some he may have to humour, some even to cajole : a harassing, laborious, and ungracious task. Nor is it only his colleagues that he has to deal with : he has to masticate their pledges, given before they joined him, he has to blend their public utterances, to fuse as well as may be all this into the policy of the Government ; for these various...
Page 70 - Prologue — though he cannot but be harrowed by the long agony of the story, and the human anguish of every page, is unable to lay it down ; almost in spite of himself he has to read and to suffer to the bitter end. To me, I confess, it is the most terrible of all novels, more terrible than ' Oliver Twist,' or Victor Hugo's most startling effects, for the simple reason that it is more real.
Page 166 - ... between a Prime Minister in the House of Lords and the Leader of the House of Commons such a confidence is indispensable. Responsibility rests so largely with the one and articulation so greatly with the other, that unity of sentiment is the one necessary link that makes a relation, in any case difficult, in any way possible. The voice of Jacob and the hands of Esau may effect a successful imposture, but can hardly constitute a durable Administration.
Page 17 - I have sent these lads some modern history questions : and Dalmeny promises to do them, that he may thereby induce me to come back — rather a circuitous reason. I would give you a piece of plate if you would get that lad to work ; he is one of those who like the palm without the dust.
Page 60 - From his home in Wales to the Metropolis of Scotland, there has been no village too small to afford a crowd to greet him — there has been no cottager so humble that could not find a light to put in his window as he passed. Mothers have brought their babes to lisp a ' hurrah,' old men have crept forth from their homes to see him before they died.
Page 41 - ... This place affords no news, no subject of entertainment or amusement, for fine men of wit and pleasure about town understand not the language, and taste not the pleasures of the inanimate world. My flatterers here are all mutes. The oaks, the beeches, the chestnuts, seem to contend which best shall please the lord of the manor. They cannot deceive, they will not lie.
Page 130 - there are two supreme pleasures in life. One is ideal, the other real. The ideal is when a man receives the seals of office from his Sovereign. The real pleasure comes when he hands them back.
Page 128 - ... death, — all these were produced in poverty, in a manger, in the cot of the carpenter. They flourished under persecution. Nothing can be so remote from their essence and their spirit as the wealth, or power, or dignities of this world. Establishment and endowment at most represent the gifts of the laity to the temple — the ornaments, the rich essences, the corn and wine and oil, which depend for their merit on the willingness and enthusiasm of the offerers, but which lose all value and all...

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