om which he has never swerved. He might
hesitate to act upon the motives to which he has last adverted,
grave as they are, did he not feel rooted in the persuasion that
the small good he may hope hereafter to effect, can best be
prosecuted without the change in his position. He must beg your
Majesty to supply all that is lacking in his expression from the
heart of profound and lasting gratitude.

To Lord Granville, the nearest of his friends, he wrote on the same day:--

I send you herewith a letter from the Queen which moves and almost
upsets me. It must have cost her much to write, and it is really a
pearl of great price. Such a letter makes the subject of it
secondary--but though it would take me long to set out my reasons,
I remain firm in the intention to accept nothing for myself.

Lord Granville replied that he was not surprised at the decision. "I
should have greatly welcomed you," he said, "and under some circumstances
it might be desirable, but I think you are right now."

Here is Mr. Gladstone's letter to an invaluable occupant of the
all-important office of private secretary:--

_To Mr. E. W. Hamilton._

_June 30, 1885._--Since you have in substance (and in form?)
received the appointment [at the Treasury], I am unmuzzled, and
may now express the unbounded pleasure which it gives me, together
with my strong sense (not disparaging any one else) of your
desert. The modesty of your letter is as remarkable as its other
qualities, and does you the highest honour. I can accept no
tribute from you, or from any one, with regard to the office of
private secretary under me except this, that it has always been
made by me a strict and severe office, and that this is really the
only favour I have ever done you, or any of your colleagues to
whom in their several places and measures I am similarly obliged.

As to your services to me they have been simply indescribable. No
one I think could dream, until by experience he knew, to what an
extent in these close personal relations devolution can be
carried, and how it strengthens the feeble knees and thus also
sustains the fainting heart.

III

The declaration of the Irish policy of the new government was made to
parliament by no less a personage than the lord-lieutenant.(130) The prime
minister had discoursed on frontiers in Asia and frontiers