The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 by Harry Furniss (new books to read TXT) 📕

"Why, ——" (mentioning the name of the hon. Member), was the reply.

"What a horrible-looking scoundrel!" exclaimed the uncrowned king in his most supercilious manner, and then began to talk of something else.

He was a study as fascinating to the artist as to the politician, and no portrait ever drawn by pen or pencil can hand down to future generations the mysterious subtlety in the personality of the all-powerful leader.

He was as puzzling to the Parliamentary artist as he was to the politician: he never appeared just as one expected him. When I first made a sketch of him he had short hair, a well-trimmed moustache, shortly-cut side whiskers, a neat-fitting coat and trousers, and well-shaped boots. He then let his beard and hair grow, and his coat and trousers seemed to grow also—the coat in length and the trousers in width; and his boots grew with the rest—they were ugly and enormous. His hat didn't grow, but it was out of date. Then he would cut his beard and hair again, wear a short coat, a sort of pilot jacket, and eventually a long black coat. So that if a drawing was not published at once it would have been out of date.

Some artists have been flattering enough to take my sketches as references for Parliamentarians, but others depended on photographs, and for years I have seen Mr. Parnell represented with the neatly-trimmed moustache and closely-cut side whiskers. A propos of this, I may mention here how mistakes often become [Pg 180] perpetuated. John Bright, for instance, was generally represented in political sketches with an eye-glass. This was a slip made by an artist in Punch many years ago. But ever after John Bright was represented with an eye-glass—which he never wore, except on one occasion just to see how he liked it.

The effect upon the House when Mr. Parnell rose was always dramatic. He sat there during a debate, seldom, if ever, taking a note, with his hat well over his eyes and his arms crossed, in strong contrast to the restlessness of those around him. When he rose, it seemed an effort to lift his voice, and he spoke in a hesitating, ineffective manner. Neither was there much in what he said, but he was Parnell, and the fact that he said little and said it quietly, that what he said was not prepared in consultation with his Whips or with his Party, that in fact he was playing a game in which his closest friends were not consulted, made his rising interesting from the reporters' gallery to the doorkeepers in the Lobby the other side.

Mr. Parnell seemed to have been very little affected by his continued reverses; and perhaps the only visible effect of his loss of power was that the "uncrowned king" of Ireland changed his top-hat to a plebeian bowler, but he did not change his coat. He was always careless about his dress, and his tall, handsome figure looked somewhat ridiculous when he wore a bowler, black frock coat, and his hair as usual unkempt.

The fall of Parnell was one of the most sensational and certainly the most dramatic incident in the history of Parliament.

Mr. Parnell was politically ruined and the Irish Party smashed beyond recovery in the famous Committee Room No. 15, after the disclosures in the Divorce Court in which Mr. Parnell figured as co-respondent. Mr. Parnell had found the Irish Party without a leader, without a programme, without a future. He had by his individual force made it a power which had to be reckoned with, and which practically controlled Parliament. He had been attacked by the most important paper in the world. He had come out of the affair, in the eyes of many, a hero; he [Pg 181] made his Party stronger than their wildest dreams ever anticipated. But his followers little thought that in hiding from them his tactics he had also hidden the weakness which caused his ultimate downfall. Howbeit the Irish Party, whom he held in a hypnotic trance, agreed to stand by him still. Then, suddenly, Mr. Gladstone made his demand for a sacrifice to Mrs. Grundy. His famous letter, written November 24th, 1894, to Mr. Morley, was the death-warrant to Parnellism, and, as it subsequently proved, to Gladstonianism as well.

There was a strange fascination in watching the mysterious Leader of the Irish Party during the crisis, and I took full advantage of my privilege in the House to do so. I was in and about the House early and late, and probably saw more of Mr. Parnell than anyone else not connected with him. It was just before his exposure that I happened to be in an out-of-the-way passage leading from the House, making a little note in my sketch-book on a corner of the building, when Mr. Parnell walked out. He stood close by, not observing me, and was occupied for a minute in taking letters out of the pocket on the right side of his overcoat: they were unopened. He looked at them singly; now and then he would tap one on the other, as much as to say, "I wonder what is in that?" Then he passed it over with the others and put them all into the pocket on the left side of his overcoat, and strolled off to catch his train to Brighton. That incident, as I subsequently found out, was the cause of much of his trouble; for I was informed, when I mentioned it to a great friend of Mr. Parnell's and of mine—Mr. Richard Power—that about that time he had written him important letters which might have saved him if they had been attended to in time.

But those who saw the fallen chief during the sittings in Committee Room No. 15, when, through the letter of Mr. Gladstone to which I have referred, he was denounced, and had to fight with his back to the wall, can never forget his tragic figure during that exciting time. No one knew better than he that the tactics of his lieutenant would be cunning and perhaps treacherous; so this lazy, self-composed man suddenly awoke as [Pg 182] a general who finds himself surprised in the camp, and determines to keep watch himself. Every day he took by right the chair at the meetings. Had he not been present, who knows that it would not have been wrested from him? In the early afternoon I saw him more than once walk with a firm step, with an ashy pale face, his eyes fixed straight in front of him, through the yard, through the Lobby, up the stairs, and into Room 15, accompanied by his secretary, Mr. Campbell. The members of his Party, on their arrival, found him sitting where they had left him the night before. I recollect one morning, as he passed where I was standing, he never moved his head, but I heard him say to Mr. Campbell, "Who's that? what does he want?" in a sharp, nervous manner. He never seemed to recognise anyone, or wish them to recognise him. His one idea was to face the man who wished to fight him in the little ring they had selected in the Committee Room No. 15.