The
following from Mr. Gladstone was greatly appreciated:
MY DEAR MR. CARNEGIE,
My wife has long ago offered her thanks, with my own, for
your most kind congratulations. But I do not forget that you
have been suffering yourself from anxieties, and have been
exposed to imputations in connection with your gallant
efforts to direct rich men into a course of action more
enlightened than that which they usually follow. I wish I
could relieve you from these imputations of journalists, too
often rash, conceited or censorious, rancorous, ill-natured.
I wish to do the little, the very little, that is in my
power, which is simply to say how sure I am that no one who
knows you will be prompted by the unfortunate occurrences
across the water (of which manifestly we cannot know the
exact merits) to qualify in the slightest degree either his
confidence in your generous views or his admiration of the
good and great work you have already done.
Wealth is at present like a monster threatening to swallow
up the moral life of man; you by precept and by example have
been teaching him to disgorge. I for one thank you.
Believe me
Very faithfully yours
(Signed) W.
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