One other characteristic--the necessary consequence, or, indeed,
it might almost be said, the essential expression, of all the
rest-- completes the portrait: Lord Hartington was slow. He was
slow in movement, slow in apprehension, slow in thought and the
communication of thought, slow to decide, and slow to act. More
than once this disposition exercised a profound effect upon his
career. A private individual may, perhaps, be slow with impunity;
but a statesman who is slow--whatever the force of his character
and the strength of his judgment--can hardly escape unhurt from
the hurrying of Time's winged chariot, can hardly hope to avoid
some grave disaster or some irretrievable mistake. The fate of
General Gordon, so intricately interwoven with such a mass of
complicated circumstance with the policies of England and of
Egypt, with the fanaticism of the Mahdi, with the
irreproachability of Sir Evelyn Baring, with Mr. Gladstone's
mysterious passions-- was finally determined by the fact that
Lord Hartington was slow. If he had been even a very little
quicker--if he had been quicker by two days... but it could not
be. The ponderous machinery took so long to set itself in motion;
the great wheels and levers, once started, revolved with such a
laborious, such a painful deliberation, that at last their work
was accomplished--surely, firmly, completely, in the best English
manner, and too late.
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