Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 2.djvu/100

 70 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND CHAP, ing ail erroneous acquiescence in the policy of the . ^^^' day ; for, besides that lie was honest and fearless — besides that, with a ringing voice, he had all the clearness and force which resulted from his great natural gifts, as well as from his one-sided method of thinking— he had the advantage of being generally able to speak in a state of sincere anger. In former years, whilst their minds were disciplined by the almost mathematic exactness of the reasonings on which they relied, and when they were acting in concert with the shrewd traders of the north who had a very plain object in view, these two orators had shown with what a strength, with what a masterly skill, with what patience, with what a high courage, they could carry a great scientific truth through the storms of politics. They had shown that they could arouse and govern the assenting thousands who listened to them with delight — that they could bend the House of Com- mons — that they could press their creed upon a Prime jNIinister, and put upon his mind so hard a stress that, after a while, he felt it to be a torture and a violence to his reason to have to make stand against them. Xay, more : each of these two gifted men had proved that he could go bravely into the midst of angry opponents — could show them their fallacies one by our — destroy their favourite theories before their very faces, and triumphantly argue them down. Now, these two men were honestly devoted to the cause of peace. They honestly believed that the impending war with Russia was a needless war. There was no