Portraits of the Eighties (Classic Reprint)

Angebote / Angebote:

Excerpt from Portraits of the Eighties It is curious, as one tries to bring into a picture gallery some of the chief actors in the Eighties, to find how naturally all the political portraits fall into a regular sequence. All the first half, and more, of the decade, up to 1886 and the new Parliament of that year, is the story of Ireland and of the Home Rule agitation. To be sure, there were by-plays, wherein the scene shifted to Egypt, with Arabi Pasha in a leading role, and later to the national shame of Khartoum and the tragedy of Gordon's death, but the main drama was domestic, in so far as we may speak of Ireland as domesticated. The leading actors are Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Parnell. Hero and villain, I presume most of the audience will regard them, but much depends on the point of view. Then, a little after the middle of the decade, "Puff!" like the magician's blow on the wand, comes the General Election. Like a single candle out goes the Liberal Party, in comes Lord Salisbury. Now the originals of all that were on the scene before the great extinguishing "Puff" seem to me, by comparison, to be easy to realise. I can, at least, form mental visions of them - much mistaken, it may be, but fairly clear in outline. But when it comes to Lord Salisbury, no, I have not, in my mind's eye, the slightest idea of the real man. Of course his massive physical outlines and certain surface manners were strikingly plain, but they count for very little. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.