'On June 30th I wrote fully to Mrs. Pattison, who was ill of typhoid in the Madras hills, but without my yet knowing it. "I've been thinking over grave words I would say to you about politics." I went on to say that politics were not to me amusement. "I could not have heart to live such a life at all if the religion of life did not surround my politics. I chat the chatter about persons and ambitions that others chat, and, in my perpetual brain fatigue, shirk the trouble of trying to put into words thoughts which I fancy you must exactly share. How can you share them if you are never shown they're there? Dear Lady, please to try and feel, however unable I am to express it, that my life is now one, and that there are not things to pick among, and things to be cast aside, but duties only, which are pleasures in the doing of them well, and which you must help me do. It is in old age that power comes. An old man in English politics may exert enormous power without effort, and with no drain at all upon his health and vital force. The work of thirty or forty years of political life goes in England to the building-up of political reputation and position. During that long period no power is exercised except by irregular means, such as the use of threats of resignation. It is in old age only that power comes that can be used legitimately and peacefully by the once-strong man. I'm still young enough, and have of illusions yearly crops sufficient to believe that it can be used for good, and that it is a plain duty so to use it, and I would not remain in political life did I not think so."' CHAPTER XLII OUT OF OFFICE JULY, 1885 After Lord Salisbury had formed, in June, 1885, what was called the 'stop-gap Government,' charged with carrying on business till the General Election fixed for the following winter, the heads of the Liberal party began to mature their plans. It soon became evident that the cardinal fact to be decided was whether Mr. Gladstone should continue to lead. This, again, was found to depend upon the policy adopted in relation to Ireland. The Irish Question was at the moment in an extraordinary position. Lord Salisbury had appointed Lord Carnarvon, a known sympathizer with Home Rule, as Viceroy. Further, the Tory leaders in the House of Commons were refusing to take any responsibility for the actions of Lord Spencer, which were challenged especially in regard to the verdict upon one of the men sentenced for the Maamtrasna murders. This put Sir Charles and Mr. Chamberlain, who had always disapproved the policy of coercion, in a very difficult position, the more difficult because Mr. Trevelyan, a member of their inner Radical group, was jointly concerned with Lord Spencer to defend these actions.