Excerpt from The Life of William Ewart Gladstone: With a Portrait Gladstone's family are in the hands of Mr. Morley, whose forthcoming Memoir is expected with such eager interest. Although I have concealed neither my personal admiration for Mr. Gladstone, nor my general agree ment with his policy at home and abroad, I have abstained from expressing, and, so far as was possible, from implying any Opinions of my own. It has been my object to tell the story from Mr. Gladstone's own point of View, explaining rather than criticising, but not without reference to contemporary criticism on the one hand, and to the verdict of events on the other. My personal acquaintance with Mr. Gladstone was slight, and confined to his old age. But he was several times good enough to favour me with reminiscences of much interest and value. Though I made no note of them, it is difficult to forget what Mr. Gladstone said. I have not hesitated to avail myself of them so far, and so far only, as they threw light upon historic incidents whose main features were already known. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.