e had secured a genuine scheme of home rule. Some suspicion may well
have arisen in their minds when a strange suggestion came from Mr. Parnell
that the liberal leaders should enter into a secret engagement about
constabulary and the other points. He had hardly given such happy evidence
of his measure of the sanctity of political confidences, as to encourage
further experiments. The proposal was absurd on the face of it. These
suspicions soon became certainties, and the Boulogne negotiations came to
an end. I should conjecture that those days made the severest ordeal
through which Mr. Gladstone, with his extreme sensibility and his
abhorrence of personal contention, ever passed. Yet his facility and
versatility of mood was unimpaired, as a casual note or two of mine may
show:--

... Mr. G.'s confabulation [with an Irish member] proved to have
been sought for the purpose of warning him that Parnell was about
to issue a manifesto in which he would make all manner of
mischief. Mr. G. and I had a few moments in the room at the back
of the chair; he seemed considerably perturbed, pale, and
concentrated. We walked into the House together; he picked up the
points of the matter in hand (a motion for appropriating all the
time) and made one of the gayest, brightest, and most delightful
speeches in the world--the whole House enjoying it consumedly. Who
else could perform these magic transitions?

-------------------------------------

Mr. G. came into the House, looking rather anxious; gave us an
account of his interview with the Irish deputation; and in the
midst of it got up to say his few sentences of condolence with the
Speaker on the death of Mrs. Peel--the closing phrases admirably
chosen, and the tones of his voice grave, sincere, sonorous, and
compassionate. When he sat down, he resumed his talk with H. and
me. He was so touched, he said, by those "poor wretches" on the
deputation, that he would fain, if he could, make some
announcement that would ease their unlucky position.

[A question of a letter in reply to some application prompted by
Mr. Parnell. Mr. Gladstone asked two of us to try our hands at a
draft.] At last we got it ready for him and presently we went to
his room. It was now six o'clock. Mr. G. read aloud in full deep
voice the letter he had prepared on the base of our short draft.
We s