As I left, Mr. Gladstone accompanied me downstairs. On the way I took occasion to thank him for a paper that had appeared in the _Contemporary_ containing definitions of heretical forms of thought, so fair and accurate and actual, that Shakespeare or Bunyan, who had the power of possessing himself of the minds of those whose thoughts he expressed, might have produced. There had been nothing to compare with it in my time. Theological writers described heterodox tenets from their inferences of what they must be--never inquiring what they actually stood for in the minds of those who held them--whereas he had written with unimputative knowledge. Stopping on the first platform of the stairway we reached, he paused, and (holding the lapel of his coat with his hand, as I had seen him do in the House of Commons) he said he was glad I was able to think so, "for that is the quality in which you yourself excel." This amazed me, as I never imagined that he had ever taken notice of speeches or writings of mine, or formed any opinion upon them. Nor was he the man to say what I cite from mere courtesy. The second time I breakfasted in Harley Street was in the days of the Eastern question. Mr. John Morley was one of the party. Mr. Gladstone had again the same disengaged manner. Before his guests broke up he entered the room, bearing on his arm a pile of letters and telegrams, and apologised for leaving us as he had to attend to them. That morning Mr. Bright came in, and seeing me, said, "Poor Acland is dead. Of course there was nothing in the house, and a few of us had to subscribe to bury him." James Acland was the rider on a white horse who preceded Cobden and Bright the day before their arrival to address the farmers on the anti-Corn Law tour in the counties. Mr. Gladstone's grand-daughter was to have arrived at Harley Street that morning, but her nurse missed the train. When she appeared, Bright, who had suggested dolorous adventures to account for her non-appearance, proposed, when the child was announced to be upstairs, that a charge of sixpence should be made for each person going to see her. That morning one of the guests, who was an actor, maintained that it was not necessary that an actor should feel his part. Mr. Gladstone, to whom conviction was his inspiration--who never spoke without believing what he said--dissented from the actor's theory, as I had done.