The essential dignity of Mr. Gladstone's nature was never better seen than during the last few years of his life, after he had finally retired (in 1894) from public life. He indulged in no vain regrets, nor was there any foundation for the rumours, so often circulated, that he thought of re-entering the arena of strife. He spoke with no bitterness of those who had opposed, and sometimes foiled, him in the past. He gave vent to no criticisms of those who from time to time filled the place that had been his in the government of the country or the leadership of his party. Although his opinion on current questions was frequently solicited, he scarcely ever allowed it to be known, lest it should embarrass his successors in the leadership of the party, and never himself addressed the nation, except (as already mentioned) on behalf of what he deemed a sacred cause, altogether above party--the discharge by Britain of her duty to the victims of the Turk. As soon as an operation for cataract had enabled him to resume his habit of working for seven hours a day, he devoted himself with his old ardour to the preparation of an edition of Bishop Butler's works, resumed his multifarious reading, planned (as he told me in 1896) a treatise on the Olympian religion, and filled up the interstices of his working-time with studies on Homer which he had been previously unable to complete. No trace of the moroseness of old age appeared in his manners or his conversation, nor did he, though profoundly grieved at some of the events which he witnessed, and owning himself disappointed at the slow advance made by a cause dear to him, appear less hopeful than in earlier days of the general progress of the world, or less confident in the beneficent power of freedom to promote the happiness of his country. The stately simplicity which had always charmed those who saw him in private, seemed more beautiful than ever in this quiet evening of a long and sultry day. His intellectual powers were unimpaired, his thirst for knowledge undiminished. But a placid stillness had fallen upon him and his household; and in seeing the tide of his life begin slowly to ebb, one thought of the lines of his illustrious contemporary and friend:-- Such a tide as moving seems asleep, Too full for sound and foam, When that which drew from out the boundless deep Turns again home.