He made progress with his writings on the Olympian Religion, without regard to Acton's warnings and exhortations to read a score of volumes by learned explorers with uncouth names. He collected a new series of his Gleanings. By 1896 he had got his cherished project of hostel and library at St. Deiniol's in Hawarden village, near to its launch. He was drawn into a discussion on the validity of anglican orders, and even wrote a letter to Cardinal Rampolla, in his effort to realise the dream of Christian unity. The Vatican replied in such language as might have been expected by anybody with less than Mr. Gladstone's inextinguishable faith in the virtues of argumentative persuasion. Soon he saw the effects of Christian disunion upon a bloodier stage. In the autumn of this year he was roused to one more vehement protest like that twenty years before against the abominations of Turkish rule, this time in Armenia. He had been induced to address a meeting in Chester in August 1895, and now a year later he travelled to Liverpool (Sept. 24) to a non-party gathering at Hengler's Circus. He always described this as the place most agreeable to the speaker of all those with which he was acquainted. [pg 522] “Had I the years of 1876 upon me,” he said to one of his sons, “gladly would I start another campaign, even if as long as that.”
To discuss, almost even to describe, the course of his policy and proceedings in the matter of Armenia, would bring us into a mixed controversy affecting statesmen now living, who played an unexpected part, and that controversy may well stand over for another, and let us hope a very distant, day. Whether we had a right to interfere single-handed; whether we were bound as a duty to interfere under the Cyprus Convention; whether our intervention would provoke hostilities on the part of other Powers and even kindle a general conflagration in Europe; whether our severance of diplomatic relations with the Sultan or our withdrawal from the concert of Europe would do any good; what possible form armed intervention could take—all these are questions on which both liberals and tories vehemently differed from one another then, and will vehemently differ again. Mr. Gladstone was bold and firm in his replies. As to the idea, he said, that all independent action on the part of this great country was to be made chargeable for producing war in Europe, “that is in my opinion a mistake almost more deplorable than almost any committed in the history of diplomacy.” We had a right under the convention. We had a duty under the responsibilities incurred at Paris in 1856, at Berlin in 1878. The upshot of his arguments at Liverpool was that we should break off relations with the Sultan; that we should undertake not to turn hostilities to our private advantage; that we should limit our proceedings to the suppression of mischief in its aggravated form; and if Europe threatened us with war it might be necessary to recede, as France had receded under parallel circumstances from her individual policy on the eastern question in 1840,—receded without loss either of honour or power, believing that she had been right and wise and others wrong and unwise.
If Mr. Gladstone had still had, as he puts it, “the years of 1876,” he might have made as deep a mark. As it was, his speech at Liverpool was his last great deliverance to a public audience. As the year ended this was his birthday entry:—
Dec. 29, 1896.—My long and tangled life this day concludes its 87th year. My father died four days short of that term. I know of no other life so long in the Gladstone family, and my profession has been that of politician, or, more strictly, minister of state, an extremely short-lived race when their scene of action has been in the House of Commons, Lord Palmerston being the only complete exception. In the last twelve months eyes and ears may have declined, but not materially. The occasional contraction of the chest is the only inconvenience that can be called new. I am not without hope that Cannes may have a [illegible] to act upon it. The blessings of family life continue to be poured in the largest measure upon my unworthy head. Even my temporal affairs have thriven. Still old age is appointed for the gradual loosening and succeeding snapping of the threads. I visited Lord Stratford when he was, say, 90 or 91 or thereabouts. He said to me, “It is not a blessing.” As to politics, I think the basis of my mind is laid principally in finance and philanthropy. The prospects of the first are darker than I have ever known them. Those of the second are black also, but with more hope of some early dawn. I do not enter on interior matters. It is so easy to write, but to write honestly nearly impossible. Lady Grosvenor gave me to-day a delightful present of a small crucifix. I am rather too independent of symbol.
This is the last entry in the diaries of seventy years.
At the end of January 1897, the Gladstones betook themselves once more to Lord Rendel's palazzetto, as they called it, at Cannes.
I had hoped during this excursion, he journalises, to make much way with my autobiographica. But this was in a large degree frustrated, first by invalidism, next by the eastern question, on which I was finally obliged to write something.[312] Lastly, and not least, by a growing sense of decline in my daily amount of brain force available for serious work. My power to read (but to read very slowly indeed since the cataract came) for a considerable number of hours daily, thank God, continues. This is a great mercy. While on my outing, I may have read, of one kind and another, twenty volumes. Novels enter into this list [pg 524] rather considerably. I have begun seriously to ask myself whether I shall ever be able to face “The Olympian Religion.”
The Queen happened to be resident at Cimiez at this time, and Mr. Gladstone wrote about their last meeting:—
A message came down to us inviting us to go into the hotel and take tea with the Princess Louise. We repaired to the hotel, and had our tea with Miss Paget, who was in attendance. The Princess soon came in, and after a short delay we were summoned into the Queen's presence. No other English people were on the ground. We were shown into a room tolerably, but not brilliantly lighted, much of which was populated by a copious supply of Hanoverian royalties. The Queen was in the inner part of the room, and behind her stood the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge. Notwithstanding my enfeebled sight, my vision is not much impaired for practical purposes in cases such as this, where I am thoroughly familiar with the countenance and whole contour of any person to be seen. My wife preceded, and Mary followed me. The Queen's manner did not show the old and usual vitality. It was still, but at the same time very decidedly kind, such as I had not seen it for a good while before my final resignation. She gave me her hand, a thing which is, I apprehended, rather rare with men, and which had never happened with me during all my life, though that life, be it remembered, had included some periods of rather decided favour. Catherine sat down near her, and I at a little distance. For a good many years she had habitually asked me to sit. My wife spoke freely and a good deal to the Queen, but the answers appeared to me to be very slight. As to myself, I expressed satisfaction at the favourable accounts I had heard of the accommodation at Cimiez, and perhaps a few more words of routine. To speak frankly, it seemed to me that the Queen's peculiar faculty and habit of conversation had disappeared. It was a faculty, not so much the free offspring of a rich and powerful mind, as the fruit of assiduous care with long practice and much opportunity. After about ten minutes, it was signified to us that we had to be presented to all the other royalties, and so passed the remainder of this meeting.
In the early autumn of 1897 he found himself affected by [pg 525]