MR. GLADSTONE’S MORNING.
Mr. Gladstone’s day begins about 7.30, after seven hours and a half of sound, dreamless sleep, which no disturbing crisis in public affairs was ever known to spoil. At Hawarden it usually opens with a morning walk to church, with which no kind of weather—hail, rain, snow, or frost—is ever allowed to interfere. In his rough slouch hat and gray Inverness cape, the old man plods sturdily to his devotions. To the rain, the danger of sitting in wet clothes, and small troubles of this kind, he is absolutely impervious, and Mrs. Gladstone’s solicitude has never availed to change his lifelong custom in this respect. Breakfast over, working time commences. I am often astonished at the manner in which Mr. Gladstone manages to crowd his almost endlessly varied occupations into the forenoon, for when he is in the country he has practically no other continuous and regular work-time. Yet into this space he has to condense his enormous correspondence—for which, when no private secretary is available, he seeks the help 46 of his sons and daughters—his political work, and his varied literary pursuits. The explanation of this extreme orderliness of mind is probably to be found in his unequaled habit of concentration on the business before him. As in matters of policy, so in all his private habits, Mr. Gladstone thinks of one thing and of one thing only at a time. When home rule was up, he had no eyes or ears for any political subject but Ireland, of course excepting his favorite excursions into the twin subjects of Homer and Christian theology. Enter the room when Mr. Gladstone is reading a book; you may move noisily about the chamber, ransack the books on the shelves, stir the furniture, but never for one moment will the reader be conscious of your presence. At Downing Street, during his earlier ministries, these hours of study were often, I might say usually, preceded by the famous breakfast at which the celebrated actor or actress, the rising poet, the well-known artist, the diplomatist halting on his way from one station of the kingdom to another, were welcome guests. Madame Bernhardt, Miss Ellen Terry, Henry Irving, Madame Modjeska, have all assisted at these pleasant feasts.
HAWARDEN CASTLE.