[Sidenote: The cynical Gorst.]

Sir John Gorst has an icy manner and generally the air of a man who has
not found the world especially pleasant, and delights to take rather a
pessimistic view of things. His great argument was that if this Bill
were carried, young men would not find enough of coin to tempt them into
the Church, and that accordingly it would languish and fade away. To
such a prosaic view of the highest spiritual vocation, the unhappy
Tories listened with ill-concealed vexation, and Gorst once more
increased that distrust of his sincerity in Toryism which perhaps
accounts for the small progress he has made in the ranks of his party.

[Sidenote: Randolph again.]

Throughout the night the debate languished, though there was an
excellent speech from Mr. Stuart Rendel on behalf of the Welsh party.
This was practically the only speech from that side; for perceiving that
the game of the Tories was to talk against time, the Welshmen wisely
declined to aid them, and sate dumb, unless when they snorted defiance
at some absurd claim or fanciful exaggeration on the other side. At ten
minutes past ten, however, quite a different complexion was given to the
whole debate by the rise of Lord Randolph Churchill. He had not yet
recovered his old mastery of himself or the House; but his appearance
was very different from what it was a few nights earlier. There was no
longer that constant trembling of the hands which made it almost painful
to look at him; the voice did not shake painfully, and there was a
certain recurrence of that old self-confidence. But still he was far
from what he used to be. The once resonant voice was somewhat muffled
and hoarse, accompanied by a certain tendency to feverish exaggeration
of language--in fact, the old Fourth Party methods of almost conscious