under the spell of its music to that same green garden in far-off
Galway, by the side of Corrib's stream.

[Sidenote: Gladstone dreams.]

Of all this I sate musing during some idle moments in the middle of
March; for, as I looked at Mr. Gladstone, the whole scene was, by a
curious trick of memory and association, brought back to me. Everyone
who knew the great old Philosopher of Athens, will remember that he had
his familiar _dæmon_, and that he believed himself to have constant
communication with him. If I remember rightly, there is a good deal
about that _dæmon_ in his "Phædo"--that wonderful story to which I have
just alluded, and which lives so vividly in my memory. Sometimes I think
that Mr. Gladstone has the same superstition. He has moments--especially
if there be the stress of the sheer brutality of obstructive and knavish
hostility--when he seems to retire into himself--to transfer himself on
the wings of imagination to regions infinitely beyond the reach, as well
as the ken, of the land in which the Lowthers, the Chamberlains, and the
Bartleys dwell. At such moments he gives one the impression of communing
with some spirit within his own breast--a familiar _dæmon_, whose voice,
though still and silent to all outside, shouts louder than the roar of
faction or the shouts of brutish hate. Then it is that I remember what
depths of religious fervour there are in this leader of a fierce
democracy, and can imagine that ofttimes his communings may, perchance,
be silent prayer.

[Sidenote: In contrast with Lowther.]

As I have said, there have been many such moments in those days in
Parliament. Mr. Gladstone can be severe--wrathful--even cruel. It is not