superfluous to speak. The story will signally fail of its purpose if it
does not carry its own moral with it. We can best conclude these
introductory remarks by applying to the subject of the following pages,
some words which he applied a generation ago to others:

In the sphere of common experience we see some human beings live and
die, and furnish by their life no special lessons visible to man, but
only that general teaching in elementary and simple forms which is
derivable from every particle of human histories. Others there have
been, who, from the times when their young lives first, as it were,
peeped over the horizon, seemed at once to--

"'Flame in the forehead of the evening sky,'"
--Whose lengthening years have been but one growing
splendor, and who at last--
"------Leave a lofty name,
A light, a landmark on the cliffs of fame."




CHAPTER I


ANCESTRY AND BIRTH

All history, says Emerson, "resolves itself into the biographies of a
few stout and earnest persons." These remarks find exemplification in
the life of William Ewart Gladstone, of whom they are pre-eminently
true. His recorded life, from the early period of his graduation to his