1892] Visit to Hazvardcn 73 



From Glen I went to Saighton, where one incident occurs which 

 deserves transcribing: 



" 2nd Sept. — After luncheon we drove, George, Sibell and I, three in 

 a row, in a dog-cart to Hawarden, George having been especially in-i 

 vited there. We were to meet the G.O.M. at the new library he has 

 constructed in the village, a terrible building of corrugated iron over- 

 looking the Sands of Dee. Inside it is conveniently arranged, and 

 must be an advantage to the inhabitants. We were met there by Mrs. 

 Drew, who told us her father would come presently, and leaving 

 George and me took Sibell off with her to the castle. While waiting in 

 the library I was glad to find little Maud Gladstone whom I had known 

 as Maud Rendel, and with her we whiled away the quarter of an hour 

 we had to wait. The G.O.M., when he arrived, was very cordial with 

 George, but not as I think with me. He talked about his books in the 

 absorbed way he has, going on, without paying the least attention to 

 the person he is speaking to, especially if it is his wife and she ventures 

 to interpose a remark. The ladies invited me to go back with them, 

 and I walked with Maud, leaving George and Mr. G. to follow. She 

 showed me over the house when we arrived, Mr. G.'s ' Temple of 

 Peace,' and the rest which I knew from Margot's description. There 

 were but few old books, and the modern ones were very mixed in 

 character. I looked through the poetry shelves and found the usual 

 volumes of Tennyson and Browning, etc. ' In Vinculis ' was there 

 with the leaves cut open, but not the ' Sonnets of Proteus,' which I 

 had given him in 1884. Presently Miss Helen Gladstone came in, the 

 head of Newnham College, and I had some talk with her and found 

 her agreeable in an austere way. Then the G.O.M. arrived with 

 George, and we all sat down to tea. I sat by Mrs. Gladstone, good old 

 soul, who speedily thawed to me, while the G.O.M. still went on talk- 

 ing about books. He had got a rare edition of the Prayer Book and 

 made it his text, with interludes of discussion, about the various quali- 

 ties of tea. I asked him what ' N. or M.' meant in the baptismal 

 service, but he could suggest no explanation. From that he went on 

 to the revised version of the Bible, which he called ' abominable ' ; it 

 was not the first duty of a translator to be accurate but to render the 

 spirit of the book. This the revisers had missed. ' You see,' inter- 

 posed Mrs. Gladstone, in the tone of one anxious and apologetic ; ' he 

 is so conservative, and yet people say of him, etc., etc' ' He has the 

 spirit of reverence,' I said. ' Ah yes,' she exclaimed, beaming, ' that 

 is just it ; you have said exactly what is true.' But the old man paid 

 no attention and went prattling on, talking of all things in the same 

 absorbed way, apparently without sense of their proportion, and for 

 talking's sake, heedless of our remarks, until at last he settled down into 



