d directly
to teach the Irish people to withhold their confidence from the
law and its administrators; and they seemed to exhibit Lord
Spencer as the enemy to the mass of the community--a sad and
disgraceful fact, though I need not qualify what I told your royal
Highness, that they had for some time past not been guilty of
obstruction.

Even in pieces that were in their nature more or less official, he touched
the occasions of life by a note that was not merely official, or was
official in its best form. To Mrs. Garfield he wrote (July 21, 1881):--

You will, I am sure, excuse me, though a personal stranger, for
addressing you by letter, to convey to you the assurance of my own
feelings and those of my countrymen on the occasion of the late
horrible attempt to murder the President of the United States, in
a form more palpable at least than that of messages conveyed by
telegraph. Those feelings have been feelings in the first instance
of sympathy, and afterwards of joy and thankfulness, almost
comparable, and I venture to say only second to the strong
emotions of the great nation, of which he is the appointed head.
Individually I have, let me beg you to believe, had my full share
in the sentiments which have possessed the British nation. They
have been prompted and quickened largely by what I venture to
think is the ever-growing sense of harmony and mutual respect and
affection between the two countries, and of a relationship which
from year to year becomes more and more a practical bond of union
between us. But they have also drawn much of their strength from a
cordial admiration of the simple heroism which has marked the
personal conduct of the President, for we have not yet wholly lost
the capacity of appreciating such an example of Christian faith
and manly fortitude. This exemplary picture has been made complete
by your own contribution to its noble and touching features, on
which I only forbear to dwell because I am directly addressing
you.

Under all the conventional solemnities in Mr. Gladstone on such occasions,
we are conscious of a sincere feeling that they were in real relation to
human life and all its chances and changes.

Chapter VII. Colleagues--Northern Cruise--Egypt. (1883)

Parran faville della sua virtute
In non curar d'argento ne d'affanni.

--_Paradiso