rent day.7
It is also true that Gladstone must be apart in this arena from the liberals of either modern England or America in one way: In some measure his belief of the importance of a sort of laissez-faire policy toward individual matters such as faith resulted from a very 19th century belief. This idea was that passion was a ôgreat disabling causeö that prevented men from judging matters of public concern fairly and justly.8 He would heartily have supported the poet William Butler YeatsÆs claim that in politics the worst ôare full of passionate intensityö û a claim that falls very strangely on modern ears.
Gladstone would in fact no doubt be very disappoi
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