"
All during the morning hours he would sit in the silence of that
corner-room on the ground floor reading. There were three writing-desks
in the library, and one was chiefly reserved for correspondence of a
political nature, and another for his literary work, while the third was
used by Mrs. Gladstone. He spent his evenings when at Hawarden in a cosy
corner of the library reading. He had a wonderfully constructed lamp so
arranged for him for night reading, as to throw the utmost possible
light on the pages of the book. It was generally a novel that employed
his mind at night. Occasionally he gives Mrs. Drew about two hundred
novels to divide the sheep from the goats among them. She divides them
into three classes--novels worth keeping, novels to be given away, and
novels to be destroyed.
Mr. Gladstone generally had three books in course of reading at the same
time, changing from one to the other. These books were carefully
selected with reference to their character and contents, and he was
particular as to their order and variation. For instance at one time he
was reading Dr. Laugen's Roman History, in German, in the morning,
Virgil in the afternoon, and a novel at night. Scott was his preference
among novelists.
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