The House of Commons has a certain impressiveness and splendour of air when it is very full; I always have a certain sense of exaltation by the mere looking at its crowded benches on these nights when the excitement of the hour brings everybody to his place.

But then the House of Commons is frequently full, and there is no such sense of unusualness when you see it thus that you have when you look on the House of Lords with benches teeming with multitudinous life which you have seen so often empty, lifeless, and ghostly.

Thus splendid was the scene, and yet it gave you a prevailing and unconquerable impression of gloom and lifelessness.

In the House of Commons, the member addressing the assembly is like the wind which passes through an AEolian harp.

You cannot utter a word which does not produce its full and immediate response.