}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH YPOGEGRAMMENI~}
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PSI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~};--_Ol._ i. 131.

Die since we must, wherefore should a man sit idle and nurse in
the gloom days of long life without aim, without name?

I

The words from "antique books" that I have just translated and
transcribed, were written out by Mr. Gladstone inside the cover of the
little diary for 1882-3. To what the old world had to say, he added
Dante's majestic commonplace: "You were not to live like brutes, but to
pursue virtue and knowledge."(54) These meditations on the human lot, on
the mingling of our great hopes with the implacable realities, made the
vital air in which all through his life he drew deep breath. Adjusted to
his ever vivid religious creed, amid all the turbid business of the
worldly elements, they were the sedative and the restorer. Yet here and
always the last word was Effort. The moods that in less strenuous natures
ended in melancholy, philosophic or poetic, to him were fresh incentives
to redeem the time.

The middle of December 1882 marked his political jubilee. It was now half
a century since he had entered public life, and the youthful graduate from
Oxford had grown to be the foremost man in his country. Yet these fifty
courses of the sun and all the pageant of the world had in some ways made
but little difference in him. In some ways, it seemed as if time had
rolled over him in vain. He had learned many lessons. He had changed his
party, his horizons were far wider, new social truths had made their way
into his impressionable mind, he recog