BYGONES WORTH REMEMBERING Volume II

CHAPTER XXIV. CONVERSATIONS WITH MR. GLADSTONE

Were I to edit a new journal again I should call it _Open Thought_. I
know no characteristic of man so wise, so useful, so full of promise
of progress as this. The great volume of Nature, of Man and of Society
opens a new page every day, and Mr. Gladstone read it. It was this which
gave him that richness of information in which he excited the admiration
of all who conversed with him.

Were Plutarch at hand to write Historical Parallels of famous men of our
time, he might compare Voltaire and Gladstone. Dissimilar as they were
in nature, their points of resemblance were notable. Voltaire was
the most conspicuous man in Europe in the eighteenth century, as Mr.
Gladstone became in the nineteenth. Both were men of wide knowledge
beyond all their contemporaries. Each wrote more letters than any other
man was ever known to write. Every Court in Europe was concerned
about the movements of each, in his day. Both were deliverers of the
oppressed, where no one else moved on their behalf. Both attained great
age, and were ceaselessly active to the last In decision of conviction
they were also alike. Voltaire was as determinedly Theistic as Mr.
Gladstone was Christian. They were alike also in the risks they
undertook in defence of the right. Voltaire risked his life and
Gladstone his reputation to save others. Mr. Morley relates of the
Philosopher of Ferney, that when he made his triumphal journey through
Paris, some one asked a woman in the street "why do so many people
follow this man?" "Don't you know?" was the reply. "He was the deliverer
of the Calas." No applause went to Voltaire's heart like that Mr.
Gladstone had also golden memories of deliverance no one else moved hand
or foot to effect, and multitudes, even nations, followed him because of
that.

On the first occasion of my going to breakfast with him he was living
in Harley Street, in the house in which Sir Charles Lyell died. As Mr.
Gladstone entered the room, he apologised for not greeting me earlier,
as his servant had indistinctly given him my name. He asked me to sit
next to him at breakfast. There were seven or eight guests. The only one
I knew was Mr. Walter. H. James, M.P., since Lord Northbourne--probably
present from consideration for me. One was the editor of the _Jewish
World_ a journal opposed to Mr. Gladstone's anti-Turkish policy. Others
were military officers and travellers of contemporary renown. It was
a breakfast to remember--Mr. Gladstone displayed such a bright,
unembarrassed vivacity. He told amusing anecdotes of the experiences of
the wife of the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, whose charm he said he could
only describe by the use of the English rural term "buxom." On making a
time-bargain with a cabman, he observed to her ladyship that "he wished
the engagement was for life." Mr. Gladstone thought no English cabman
would have said that. Another pleasantry was of one of Lord Lyttelton's
sons, who was very tall and lank. He being in Birmingham and wishful to
know the distance to a place he sought, asked a boy in the street who
was passing, "how far it was." "Oh, not far," was the assuring but
indefinite answer. "But can you not give me some better idea of the
distance?" Mr. Lyttelton inquired. "Well, sir," said the lad, looking up
at the obelisk-like interrogator before him, "if you was to fall down,
you would be half way there."

These incidents were not new to me, but I was glad to hear what was
probably the origin of them. From Mr. Gladstone's lips they had a sort
of historic reality which was interesting to me.

Afterwards he spoke of the singular beauty of the "Dream of Gerontius"
by Cardinal Newman, and turning to me asked if I knew of it, as though
he thought it unlikely my reading lay in that direction. He was very
much surprised when I said I had read it with great admiration. He said
it was strange, as he had mentioned the poem at three or four breakfast
tables, without finding any one who knew it.

As I left, Mr. Gladstone accompanied me downstairs. On the way I
took occasion to thank him for a paper that had appeared in the
_Contemporary_ containing definitions of heretical forms of thought, so
fair and accurate and actual, that Shakespeare or Bunyan, who had the
power of possessing himself of the minds of those whose thoughts he
expressed, might have produced. There had been nothing to compare with
it in my time. Theological writers described heterodox tenets from their
inferences of what they must be--never inquiring what they actually
stood for in the minds of those who held them--whereas he had written
with unimputative knowledge.