, he scarcely ever allowed it to be known,
lest it should embarrass his successors in the leadership of the
party, and never himself addressed the nation, except (as already
mentioned) on behalf of what he deemed a sacred cause, altogether
above party--the discharge by Britain of her duty to the victims of
the Turk. As soon as an operation for cataract had enabled him to
resume his habit of working for seven hours a day, he devoted himself
with his old ardour to the preparation of an edition of Bishop
Butler's works, resumed his multifarious reading, planned (as he told
me in 1896) a treatise on the Olympian religion, and filled up the
interstices of his working-time with studies on Homer which he had
been previously unable to complete. No trace of the moroseness of old
age appeared in his manners or his conversation, nor did he, though
profoundly grieved at some of the events which he witnessed, and
owning himself disappointed at the slow advance made by a cause dear
to him, appear less hopeful than in earlier days of the general
progress of the world, or less confident in the beneficent power of
freedom to promote the happiness of his country. The stately
simplicity which had always charmed those who saw him in private,
seemed more beautiful than ever in this quiet evening of a long and
sultry day. His intellectual powers were unimpaired, his thirst for
knowledge undiminished. But a placid stillness had fallen upon him and
his household; and in seeing the tide of his life begin slowly to ebb,
one thought of the lines of his illustrious contemporary and
friend:--

Such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Adding to his grace of manner a memory of extraordinary strength and
quickness and an amazing vivacity and variety of mental force, any one
can understand how fascinating Mr. Gladstone was in society. He
enjoyed it to the last, talking as earnestly and joyously at
eighty-seven as he had done at twenty on every topic that came up, and
exerting himself with equal zest whether his interlocutor was an
archbishop or a youthful curate. Though his party used to think that
he overvalued the political influence of the great families, allotting
them rather more than their share of honours and appointments, no one
was personally more free from that taint of snobbishne