thus signified, and that is matter of deep interest.

On external incidents, he never fails in a graceful, apt, or feeling word.
When the author of _The Christian Year_ dies (1866), he says: "Mr. Liddon
sent me very early information of Mr. Keble's death. The church of England
has lost in him a poet, a scholar, a philosopher, and a saint. I must add
that he always appeared to me, since I had the honour and pleasure of
knowing him, a person of most liberal mind. I hope early steps will be
taken to do honour to his pure and noble memory."

To the widow of a valued official in his financial department he writes in
commemorative sentences that testify to his warm appreciation of zeal in
public duty:--

The civil service of the crown has beyond all question lost in Mr.
Arbuthnot one of the highest ornaments it ever possessed. His
devotion to his duties, his identification at every point of his
own feelings with the public interests, will, I trust, not die
with him, but will stimulate others, and especially the inheritors
of his name, to follow his bright example.... Nor is it with a
thought of anything but thankfulness on his account, that I
contemplate the close of his labours; but it will be long indeed
before we cease to miss his great experience, his varied powers,
his indefatigable energy, and that high-minded loyal tone which he
carried into all the parts of business.

In another letter, by the way, he says (1866): "I am far from thinking
very highly of our rank as a nation of administrators, but perhaps if we
could be judged by the post office alone, we might claim the very first
place in this respect." In time even this 'most wonderful establishment'
was to give him trouble enough.

(M54) Among the letters in which Mr. Gladstone exhibits the easier and
less strenuous side, and that have the indefinable attraction of intimacy,
pleasantness, and the light hand, are those written in the ten years
between 1858 and 1868 to the Duchess of Sutherland. She was the close and
lifelong friend of the Queen. She is, said the Queen to Stockmar, "so
anxious to do good, so liberal-minded, so superior to prejudice, and so
eager to learn, and to improve herself and others."(133) The centre of a
brilliant and powerful social circle, she was an ardent sympathiser with
Italy, with Poland, with the Abolitionists and the North, and with humane
causes at home. She was accomplished, a lo