Morning journal and courier., 1882-08-29
CiaraC: aaJstics Of GiadstDne- TFr1a, the London Daily TsleGF8ph.l

IETOaA lES 1IouuOA bGljy 1S+eSf"p+i'l
 oubtracting what we may from the sum ot Mr. GlGdston8's greatness, enough, and more than enough, remains to constitute him one (,f the most eminent men that ever held office in this or any other country. Frall and pal lid as he looked when, fifty years s1nce, he first catered Parliament frail and worn as he often looks at present when deeply moved or profoundly agitated, what irrepressible vgor and vitality there is in him, even now that tho span of life allotted to man by the 7salmiot has long been overstepped. Don't talk to me-" said Sidney Herbert to friend some thirty years since, about Gladstone's nlind-it is nothing to bis body" The ser1 GUS working portion of Mir. Gladstones life began when he was an Eton boy and may therefore safely be said to have extended now some sixty years. In the opinion of those who know him best, it is doubtful whether any man ever yet lived who during so long time has allowed fewer minutes to unprofitably to waste. The truth is that, fragile and exhausted as he often looks, Afr. Gladstone, like many other light and sinewy men, hardly knows the m eaning of the word idleness. His capacity for work equals that of Lord Bacon, who, according to the fate Lord Campbell, allowed no segment of time to pass without employment" nor Is he undeserving of the encomium bestowed by Cecil upon Sir Walter Raleigh 'I know that he can toll terribly"
 It is understood that every hour, We might almost say every minute, of Mir Gladstone s working time is so methodical and plined that he gets the most out of 1t; and the re- suits of this vast industry, it Is said, are turned to account by system and regularity which have been brought to absolute perfec tion, and which, as we know by their me moirs, most unusual among public men If you would but buy few yards of red tape. and tie up your papers," said Grattan to Sir James Nackintosh 'you would be the FnOIaOH D Havlno maid A visit to Beaconsfeld, William Wilberforce re- turned to London, exclaiming: Burke papers are in greater confusion than my own" It is notorious that Napoleon, partic ular as he in military details, rarely an swered letters, and left piles of them un opened when he evacuated the Tuileries
 Mr. Gladstone, on the other hand, it is stated, never received letter of the smallest importance during his half century of public life upon which he cannot, if necessary, lay his hand His libraries, both at Hawarden Castle and in his London house, are said to contain no book of which he is not cognizant and to which he cannot readily turn.
 In short, he has carried to perfection that regulated and systematized industry of which the late Sir Robert Peel, his Gamaliel in pub. lie life, as his exemplar. Nobly indeed has that 1.-the and flexible body served the impe riouB and restless mind which, far from ''fretting it to decay" has found in it an apt and ever ready minister Ut is the 'vivids wis animi,'" wrote one of MT. Gladstone warmest admirers, after watching him spring to his feet at the end of long debate, 'tha conquers or nerves his physical fragility dealing harshly with it at times, as is betrayed only too clearly at intervals in an aspect ant ! manner indicative of profound exhaustion. | It is not many years since MT. Gladston took for the first time to spectacles or magni \ flying glasses of any kind, and he was able t, I read the smallest print-sven to puzzle ou
 the figures of 'Bradshaw's Railway Guide'-
 with the naked eye, long after his sixtietl birthday had passed. H-as some assert while others deny it-there is in his pronun citation, while speaking, "the ineradicabl l provincial twang of Lancashire,' his voice, a
 the end of speech four or five hours long l rings out ''clear as clarion with a silve | sound" There are few men, in short o
 whom with more justice it might be record
 cd, as Livy says of Hannibal, 'that by n
 amount of labor could his body be wearied l or his mind subdued."