the harsher realities of the political game. Disraeli is a difficult
man to understand and to judge, and he has at times been judged
with great severity; but when judging any action of his, or trying
to understand him, it is necessary to remember that at no time did
the fates allow him much margin.

It was otherwise with Gladstone. He had not had to climb the
steep and dangerous ladder which was Disraeli's only way up, and
it may be doubted whether he would, or could, have done so. He
was essentially the product of an aristocracy. Though he was of
mercantile origin he was born into a position from which, if he
received, as he did, the appropriate education, he could start his
career with the privileges of an aristocrat. A seat in Parliament
came to him early, without effort on his part. It was soon followed
by office; indeed, not many years had passed before he was em-
barked on a career in which not even a sensitive, and at times un-
intelligible, conscience was likely to prevent him from reaching
the high place in the councils of the state that his great abilities
deserved. Moreover, even when he achieved power he seldom had
had to do the work of political organisation or manipulation him-
self; that was normally done for him by others. Consequently he
seems to have had surprisingly little traffic with the more sordid
side of politics and at times to betray in such matters a surprising
simplicity of outlook. This seems however to have been some-
times balanced by a strange intuitive knowledge, which he himself
hardly recognised that he possessed, of what was likely to be
politically effective.

Gladstone had also another characteristic which was to prove
in its way a political asset. In an age when the political influence of
religion was great, he was a profoundly religious man. He had
been so since in early manhood he had deplored the kind of religion
which he believed to be prevalent at Oxford and had written to his
father at some length to suggest that he ought to take orders.
His religion as a youth was evangelical and probably rather narrow
and provincial; but foreign travel and an acquaintance with
Catholic Europe enlarged his conceptions, and a study of his
prayer book drastically modified his view of the tradition of the
Church of England. Soon after this his friendships with Manning
and J. R. Hope-Scott drew him into close touch with the Oxford
Movement and its heart-troubling problems.

-xviii-