I loved this glimpse into how William Gladstone spent the days immediately before presenting his first high stakes budget (as Chancellor) to Parliament, in 1853. One can only marvel at how times have changed.
Despite a lukewarm reception from his Cabinet colleagues…
Gladstone was undismayed. On the Sunday after the last of the five Cabinets [at which the budget had been debated] he went to church twice, wrote a small ration of letters … read Dante’s Paradiso, but [in his own words] ‘was obliged to give several hours to my figures.’
Wannabe Yank 