William Ewart Gladstone
by James Bryce, Viscount Bryce
- Pages
- about 56
- Category
- History
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 62 min at 250 wpm
From the opening
THE circumstances of Mr. Gladstone’s political career help to explain,
or, at any rate, will furnish occasion for the attempt to explain, this
complexity and variety of character. But before we come to his manhood
it is convenient to advert to three conditions whose influence on him has
been profound: the first his Scottish blood, the second his Oxford
education, the third his apprenticeship to public life under Sir Robert
Peel.
Theories of character based on race differences are dangerous, because
they are so easy to form and so hard to test. Still, no one denies that
there are qualities and tendencies generally found in the minds of men of
certain stocks, just as there are peculiarities in their faces or in
their speech. Mr. Gladstone was born and brought up in Liverpool, and
always retained a touch of Lancashire accent. But, as he was fond of
saying, every drop of blood in his veins was Scotch. His father was a
Lowland Scot from the neighborhood of Biggar, in the Upper Ward of
Lanarkshire, where the old yeoman’s dwelling of Gledstanes—“the kite’s
rock”—may still be seen. His mother was of Highland extraction, by name
Robertson, from Dingwall, in Ross-shire. Thus he was not only a Scot,
but a Scot with a strong infusion of the Celtic element, the element
whence the Scotch derive most of what distinguishes them from the
English. The Scot is more excitable, more easily brought to a glow of
passion, more apt to be eagerly absorbed in one thing at a time. He is
also more fond of abstract intellectual effort. It is not merely that
the taste for metaphysical theology is commoner in Scotland than in
England, but that the Scotch have a stronger relish for general
principles. They like to set out by ascertaining and defining such
principles, and then to pursue a series of logical deductions from them.
A short sample. Read the whole book
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