Chapter 11

II., pp. 526, 527).]

During the whole of 1872 it was not easy to find a platform on which local Liberals would be at ease in company with the member for Chelsea. Even Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice hinted that at a meeting held in Wiltshire to promote the cause of the agricultural labourer, Dilke and Auberon Herbert would be better away. But towards the close of the year, when a meeting devoted to the same cause was fixed for Exeter Hall, Joseph Arch, its chief promoter, insisted that Sir Charles should speak, and though the appointed chairman, Sir Sydney Waterlow, resigned his office, Archbishop Manning and Dr. Jackson, Bishop of London, made no scruple of attending while Dilke's speech was delivered.

'It was a dreary speech, and, given the fact that my speaking was always monotonous, and that at this time I was trying specially to make speeches which no one could call empty noise, and was therefore specially and peculiarly heavy, there was something amusing to lovers of contrast in that between the stormy heartiness of my reception at most of these meetings, and the ineffably dry orations which I delivered to them--between cheers of joy when I rose and cheers of relief when I sat down.'

But courage and resource and knowledge had got their chance. His opponents had gone about to make a marked man of Sir Charles Dilke; within six months they had established his position beyond challenge as a man of mark.