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either way, he said; either it would be clinging to office, or it would be running away. To run away was in every circumstance of politics the thing to Mr. Gladstone most unbearable. According to Sir Robert Phillimore (Feb. 8) "Gladstone would have met parliament but his colleagues objected, though it seems they would have stood by him if he had pressed them to do so; but as he did not mean, or was not going, to fight in the van of opposition, he thought it unfair to press them." _Feb. 16, '74._--Cabinet dinner 8-12. It went well. I did something towards snapping the ties and winding out of the coil. Conversation afterwards with Granville, on the flags up and down. Then with Wolverton. To bed at 1-3/4, but lay three hours awake (rare with me) with an overwrought brain. ... 17.--12-1/2-6. Went to Windsor, and on behalf of the cabinet resigned. Took with me _Merchant of Venice_ and _Thomas a Kempis_, each how admirable in its way!(307) 20.--Went by 5.10 to Windsor, final audience and kissed hands. Her Majesty very kind, the topics of conversation were of course rather limited. 21.--I cleared my room in Downing Street and bade it farewell, giving up my keys except the cabinet key. 28.--Set aside about 300 vols. of pamphlets for the shambles. _March 3._--I have given up all my keys; quitted Downing Street a week ago; not an official box remains. But I have still the daily visit of a kind private secretary; when that drops all is over. 5.--Hamilton paid me his last visit. To-morrow I encounter my own correspondence single-handed. The Queen repeated a former proposal of a peerage. In returning some submissions for her approval, she wished "likewise to record her offer to Mr. Gladstone of a mark of her recognition of his services which, however, he declines from motives which she fully appreciates." Mr. Gladstone writes to his brother Sir Thomas (Feb. 13):-- Accept my best thanks for your kind note of yesterday. My reply to the Queen was first made twelve months ago when we proposed to resign simply from the failure of a great measure in H. of C. I repeated it this year with similar expressions of gratitude, but with the remark that even if my mind had been open on the question, I did not think I could have accepted anything while under that national condemnation which has been emphatically enough pronounced at the e
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