, through his
magnificent park, everywhere he pointed out the stumps of trees which he
had cut down. Once a guest of his, an English lord, had died emulating
Gladstone's strenuous custom. He showed me the place.

"No man who has heart disease ought to use the axe," he said; "that very
stump is the place where my friend used it, and died."

He rallied the American tendency to exaggerate things in a story he told
with great glee, about a fabulous tree in California, where two men
cutting at it on opposite sides for many days were entirely oblivious of
each other's presence. Each one believed himself to be a lone woodsman
in the forest until, after a long time, they met with surprise at the
heart of the tree. American stories seemed to tickle him immensely. He
told another kindred one of a fish in American lakes, so large that when
it was taken out of the water the lake was perceptibly lowered. He grew
buoyant, breezy, fanciful in the brisk winter air. Like his dog, he was
tingling with life. He liked to throw sticks for him, to see him jump
and run.

"Look at that dog's eyes, isn't he a fine fellow?" he kept asking. His
knowledge of the trees on his estate was historical. He knew their
lineage and characteristics from the date of their sapling age, four or
five hundred years before. The old and decrepit aristocrats of his
forest were tenderly bandaged, their arms in splints.

"Look at that sycamore," he said; "did you find in the Holy Land any
more thrifty than that? You know sometimes I am described as destroying
my trees. I only destroy the bad to help the good. Since I have thrown
my park open to visitors the privilege has never been abused."

We drifted upon all subjects, rational, political, religious, ethical.

"Divorce in your country, is it not a menace?" he asked.

"The great danger is re-marriage. It should be forbidden for divorced
persons. I understand that in your State of South Carolina there is no
divorce. I believe that is the right idea. If re-marriage were
impossible then divorce would be impossible," he replied to his own
question.

Gladstone's religious instinct was prophetic in its grasp. His
intellectual approval of religious intention was the test of his faith.
He applied to the exaltations of Christianity the reason of human fact.
I was forcibly impressed with this when he told me of an incident in his
boyhood.

"I read something in 'Augustine' when I was a boy," he said, "which
struck m