superiority of England. Challemel thought the
burdens of public life intolerable and greater here than in
England, which is rather strong. Neither made the smallest
allusion to present questions, and it was none of my business to
introduce them....

After three days of bookstalls, ivory-hunting, and conversation, by the
evening of March 2 the travellers were once more after a bright day and
rapid passage safe in Downing Street.

Shortly after their return from the south of France the Gladstones paid a
visit to the Prince and Princess of Wales:--

_March 30, 1883._--Off at 11.30 to Sandringham. Reception kinder if
possible even than heretofore. Wrote.... Read and worked on London
municipality. _31, Saturday_.--Wrote. Root-cut a small tree in the
forenoon; then measured oaks in the park; one of 30 feet. In the
afternoon we drove to Houghton, a stately house and place, but
woe-begone. Conversation with Archbishop of Canterbury, Prince of
Wales and others. Read ... _Life of Hatherley_, Law's account of
Craig. _April 1._--Sandringham church, morning. West Newton,
evening. Good services and sermons from the archbishop. The Prince
bade me read the lessons. Much conversation with the archbishop,
also Duke of Cambridge. Read _Nineteenth Century_ on Revised
Version; Manning on Education; _Life of Hatherley_; Craig's
_Catechism_. Wrote, etc. 2.--Off at 11. D. Street 3.15. Wrote to
the Queen. Long conversation with the archbishop in the train.

Here a short letter or two may find a place:--

_To Lady Jessel on her husband's death._

_March 30._--Though I am reluctant to intrude upon your sorrow
still so fresh, and while I beg of you on no account to
acknowledge this note, I cannot refrain from writing to assure you
not only of my sympathy with your grief, but of my profound sense
of the loss which the country and its judiciary have sustained by
the death of your distinguished husband. From the time of his
first entrance into parliament I followed his legal expositions
with an ignorant but fervid admiration, and could not help placing
him in the first rank, a rank held by few, of the many able and
powerful lawyers whom during half a century I have known and heard
in parliament. When I came to know him as a colleague, I found
reason to admire no less sincerely his superiority to
consideration