MR GLADSTONE AS A WORKER.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVI, Issue VIII, 22 February 1896, Page 216

MR GLADSTONE AS A WORKER.

Some very interesting notes, contributed by Mr Gladstone’s daughter (Mrs Drew), appear in the February number of Goodwill. * There is nothing peculiar or elaborate,’ says the writer, * in Mr Gladstone’s method of working. Interruption is almost fatal to him, but his power of concentration is so great that conversation, so long as it is consecutive, may bnzz around him without his being conscious of any disturbance. He is unable to divide the mschinery of his mind as so many can do, working several smaller parts at once ; he concentrates the whole upon the one thing. One reason why he gets through in one day more than most people do in a week is his economy of time. This is a habit which must have been acquired long ago, as in the year 1839 —the year of the double marriage of Mr Gladstone and Lord Lyttelton to the sisters Catherine and Mary Glynne—the two

brothera-in-law surprised their wives, and awed them not a little by filling up all odd bite and scraps of time with study or work. Out of their pockets would come the inevitable little classic, no matter how brief the space of time, or how (apparently) inappropriate the situation. “ I have known him now for thirty years,” said Dr. Dallinger, ** and would stand security for him any day. . . . He possesses

A RARE CAPACITY FOR WORK. I think it was in the year 1871,’’ be continued, ** that I remember his paying me a visit at six o'clock in the evening. We began talking on political and theological subjects, and became, both of ns, so engrossed, that it was two o’clock in the morning when I left the room to fetch a book from my library bearing on the matter in hand. I returned with it in a few minutes and found Gladstone deep in a volume he had drawn out of his pocket—true to his principle of never losing time—during my momentary absence, and this in the small hours of the morning.” No member of the Hawarden household can for amomentcompetewithMrGladstone in regularity and punctuality. Always in his library, his ** Temple of Peace,” by eight o’clock, he has, if well, never been known since the year 1842 to fail to appear at church, three quarters of a mile off, at halfpast eight for morning service. His correspondence is sifted by the son or daughter living most at home, and soon after breakfast a selection from his letters is brought to him. An average of one-tenth only of the postal arrivals is laid before him, and of these he answers about one-half. The whole morning, whether at home or on a visit or holiday, is given up to business ; after two o’clock luncheon he resumes work for an hour or so, and till lately occupied the recreation time with

tree-cutting, which he chose as giving him the maximum of healthy exercise in the minimum of time. But for the last two or three years he has generally spent the afternoon at bis new library. Every day he looks over a number of booksellers’ catalogues, and there are certain subjects—witchcraft, strange religions, duelling, gipsies, epitaphs, the ethics of marriage, Homer, Shakespeare. Dante—which are sure of getting an order. For first editions he has no special appreciation, nor for wonderful or elaborate bindings. His copy of the Odyssey has been rebound several times, as he prefers always to use the same copy. He usually has three books on hand at once, of various degrees of solidity, the evening one probably being a novel. Aristotle, Sb. Augustine, Dante, and Bishop Butler are the authors who have most deeply influenced him, so he has himself written. After five o'clock tea, a very favourite meal, he completes his correspondence. Dressing is accomplished in from three to five minutes, and, dinner over, the evening is spent in the cosy corner of his Temple of Peace reading, with occasional pauses for meditation, with closed eyes, which not unfrequently becomes a nap. Once in bed, he never allows his mind to be charged with business of any kind, in consequence of which he sleeps the sound and

HEALTHY SLEEP OF A CHILD, from the moment his head is on the pillow until he is called next morning. He went home in the early morning ot June Bth, 1886, after the defeat of his Home Rule Bill, and slept, as usual, his eight hours. Mr Gladstone has been beard to say that had it not been for Sunday’s rest he would not now be the man he is. From Saturday night to Monday morning he puts away all business of a secular nature, keeps to his special Sunday books and thoughts, and never dines out that day unless to cheer a sick or sorrowful friend, nor will he ever travel on Sunday. There could not be a better illustration of his mind than his Temple of Peace-his study—with its extraordinory methodical arrangement. During the Midlothian campaign and general election, and through the Cabinet making that followed, a time when most people would have imagined him absorbed in the battle, and in that alone, he was writing an article on Home Rule, written with all the force and freshness of a first shock of discovery ; he was writing daily on the Psalms ; he was composing a paper for the Oriental Congress (read in September by Professor Max Muller, and •• startling the world by its originality and ingenuity”), and he was preparing bis Oxford lecture on “ The Rise and Progress of Learning in the University of Oxford ” —a subject necessitating the most careful investigation. As an example ot this patience and thoroughness of work may be given the fact that be spent two hours while preparing his lecture in searching through Hume for one single passage.’