Winston Churchill on William Ewart Gladstone

“I even managed to squeeze into the Distinguished Strangers’ Gallery when Mr. Gladstone wound up the second reading of the Home Rule Bill. Well do I remember the scene and some of its incidents. The Grand Old Man looked like a great white eagle at once fierce and splendid. His sentences rolled forth majestically and everyone hung upon his lips and gestures, eager to cheer or deride. He was at the climax of a tremendous passage about how the Liberal Party had always carried every cause it had espoused to victory. He made a slip. “And there is no cause,” he exclaimed (Home Rule), “for which the Liberal Party has suffered so much or descended so low.” How the Tories leapt and roared with delight! But Mr. Gladstone, shaking his right hand with fingers spread claw-like, quelled the tumult and resumed, “But we have risen again...””