When, therefore, Mr.
Gladstone is going through a crisis, it is intensely interesting to me
to watch him and to see how he carries himself amid it all; and then it
is that this thought occurs to me of how differently and clearly he
stands out from all his colleagues and surroundings.
[Sidenote: A reminiscence.]
Different things suggest early associations to different people. Mrs.
Solness, in the "Master Builder," could think only of her dolls when she
was telling the story of the fire that left her childless for ever. I
have heard of a great lady who cannot see a shell without recalling the
scenes of her dead youth before her. Next to the railway bridge which
spans the river in my native town, there is nothing which brings back
the past to me so palpably and so vividly--I might sometimes say, so
poignantly--as the echoes of books. One of my clearest recollections is
of a little room, looking out on a sunny and, as it appeared to me then,
a beautifully-kept garden, with a small but glistening river in the
distance, and the air filled, not only with the songs of birds, but all
the intoxicating and inaudible music of youth's dreams and visions.
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