u by repeating it. Well, what is pressed on me
is, that at the present time when every one is full of anxiety as
to the future, and when your warmest supporters are longing for
cohesion, there is an impression that you are absorbed in
questions about Homer and Greek words, about _Ecce Homo_, that you
are not reading the newspapers, or feeling the pulse of followers.
One man personally complained that when you sought his opinion,
you spent the whole interview in impressing your own view on him,
and hardly heard anything he might have to say. It is with a
painful feeling and (were it not for your generous and truly
modest nature it would be) with some anxiety as to how you would
take it that I consented to be the funnel of all this grumbling.
As far as I can make out, the feeling resolves itself into two
main points: 1. Whatever your own tastes may be for literature,
and however strengthening and refreshing to your own mind and
heart it may be to dig into the old springs, still the people
don't understand it; they consider you their own, as a husband
claims a wife's devotion; and it gives a bad impression if you are
supposed to be interested, except for an occasional slight
recreation, about aught but the nation's welfare at this critical
time, and that it riles them to see the walls placarded with your
name and _Ecce Homo_.... 2. (_a_) The other point is (pray forgive
me if I go too far, I am simply a funnel) a feeling that your
entourage is too confined, and too much of second-rate men; that
the strong men and the _rising_ men are not gathered round you and
known to be so; (_b_) and besides that there is so little easy
contact with the small fry, as when Palmerston sat in the
tea-room, and men were gratified by getting private speech with
their leader. But this is a small matter compared with (_a_).

_Mr. Gladstone to T. D. Acland._

_Hawarden, Jan. 30, '68._--Be assured I cannot feel otherwise than
grateful to you for undertaking what in the main must always be a
thankless office. It is new to me to have critics such as those
whom you represent under the first head, and who complain that I
do not attend to my business, while the complaint is illustrated
by an instance in which, professing to seek a man's opinion, I
poured forth instead the matter with which I was overflowing.