Gladstone thought was detrimental to his health. Bight hours was the
time Mr. Gladstone permitted himself to sleep. His bed-room was on the
second floor and reached by a fine staircase. Everything in the room was
plain and homely.
On the walls of his bed-room and over the mantlepiece was a text
emblazoned, on which at evening and morning he could look, which read:
"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee."
This not only expresses Mr. Gladstone's trust in God, but doubtless
accounts in a large degree for that tranquility of mind so notably his,
even in those trying times that prostrated many and carried many more
away from their bearings.
From the worry or weariness of business, Mr. Gladstone was ever ready to
turn for rest to reading, which has thus proved of inestimable value to
him. "His family cannot speak without emotion of that look of perfect
happiness and peace that beamed from his eye on such occasions." When
during the general elections of 1882, this was denied him, he turned
with equal readiness to writing and thinking on other subjects. During
the Midlothian Campaign and General Election, and through the Cabinet
making that followed, he relieved the pressure on his over-burdened
brain by writing an article on Home Rule, "written with all the force
and freshness of a first shock of discovery;" he was also writing daily
on the Psalms; he was preparing a paper for the Oriental Congress which
was to startle the educated world by "its originality and ingenuity;"
and he was composing with great and careful investigation his Oxford
lecture on "The rise and progress of learning in the University
of Oxford.
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