the final issue. Ten o'clock. My majority
so far increases, the others diminish. But it is hard running.
Eleven. My majority increases, the others diminish. Egerton is
second. One of our men third. Twelve thousand four hundred have
polled. My seat looks well.

I interrupt here to say you would have been _pleased_ had you
heard Willy, at a moment's notice, on Tuesday night, address five
thousand people no one of whom had ever seen him; he was (forgive
me) so modest, so manly, _so ready_, so judicious.

Since writing thus far everything has been overset in a chaos of
conflicting reports. They will all be cleared up for you before
this comes. I hope I am not in a fool's paradise. All I yet know
is an apparently hard fight between Egerton and me for the head of
the poll, but my seat tolerably secure. I have had _such_ letters!

When the votes were counted Mr. Gladstone was third upon the poll, and so
secured the seat, with two tory colleagues above him.(100)

The spirit in which Mr. Gladstone took a defeat that was no mere
electioneering accident, but the landmark of a great severance in his
extraordinary career, is shown in his replies to multitudes of
correspondents. On the side of his tenacious and affectionate attachment
to Oxford, the wound was deep. On the other side, emancipation from
fetters and from contests that he regarded as ungenerous, was a profound
relief. But the relief touched him less than the sorrow.

Manning wrote:--

Few men have been watching you more than I have in these last
days; and I do not know that I could wish you any other result.
But you have entered upon a new and larger field as Sir It. Peel
did, to whose history yours has many points of likeness. You say
truly that Oxford has failed to enlarge itself to the progress of
the country. I hope this will make you enlarge yourself to the
facts of our age and state--and I believe it will. Only, as I said
some months ago, I am anxious about you, lest you should entangle
yourself with extremes. This crisis is for you politically what a
certain date was for me religiously.

Mr. Gladstone replied:--

_Hawarden, July 21._--I thank you very much for your kind letter,
and I should have been very glad if it had contained all that it
merely alludes to. From Oxford and her children I am overwhelmed
with kindness. My feelings towards h