disappointed at the slow advance made by some causes 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 been the note of his private life 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 or foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.



CHAPTER VI: SOCIAL QUALITIES



Adding these charms of manner to a memory of extraordinary strength
and quickness and to 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-five as he had done at twenty on every topic that
came up, and exerting himself with equal zest, whether his
interlocutor was an arch-bishop or a young curate. Though his party