Dec. 19th, 1889.  Very dear and honoured Mr. Gladstone,

At first I thought your poem must have been a joke, written by some one who knew of my feelings for you and my visit to Hawarden; but, when I saw the signature and the post-mark, I was convinced it could be but from you.  It has had the intoxicating effect of turning my head with pleasure; if I began I should never cease thanking you.  Getting four rhymes to my name emphasizes your uncommon genius, I think!  And Argo the ship is quite a new idea and a charming one.  I love the third verse; that Margot is a capital name to blossom in friendship and sparkle in fame.  You must allow me to say that you are ever such a dear.  It is impossible to believe that you will be eighty to-morrow, but I like to think of it, for it gives most people an opportunity of seeing how life should be lived without being spent.

There is no blessing, beauty or achievement that I do not wish you.

In truth and sincerity, Yours,

MARGOT TENNANT

A propos of this, twelve years later I received the following letter from Lord Morley: 

The red house, Hawarden, Chester,

July 18th, 1901.

I have just had such a cheerful quarter-of-an-hour—­a packet of your letters to Mr. G. Think—!  I’ve read them all!—­and they bring the writer back to me with queer and tender vividness.  Such a change from Bishops!!!  Why do you never address me as “Very dear and honoured Sir”?  I’m not quite eighty-five yet, but I soon shall be.

Ever yours, John Morley.

I have heard people say that the Gladstone family never allowed him to read a newspaper with anything hostile to himself in it; all this is the greatest rubbish; no one interfered with his reading.  The same silly things were said about the great men of that day as of this and will continue to be said; and the same silly geese will believe them.  I never observed that Gladstone was more easily flattered than other men.  He was more flattered and by more people, because he was a bigger man and lived a longer life; but he was remarkably free from vanity of any kind.  He would always laugh at a good thing, if you chose the right moment in which to tell it to him; but there were moods in which he was not inclined to be amused.

Once, when he and I were talking of Jane Welsh Carlyle, I told him that a friend of Carlyle’s, an old man whom I met at Balliol, had told me that one of his favourite stories was of an Irishman who, when asked where he was driving his pig to, said: 

“Cark. ...” (Cork.)

“But,” said his interlocutor, “your head is turned to Mullingar ... !”

To which the man replied: 

“Whist!  He’ll hear ye!”

This delighted Mr. Gladstone.  I also told him one of Jowett’s favourite stories, of how George iv. went down to Portsmouth for some big function and met a famous admiral of the day.  He clapped him on the back and said in a loud voice: