Disraeli used to lie in Oriental calm during the greater part of every sitting, leaving all his lieutenants to do the drudgery while he dosed and posed.
Not so Gladstone.

He is almost literally always on his legs.

The biggest bore--the rudest neophyte--the most gulping obstructive is certain of an answer from him--courteous, considerate, and ample.

No debate, however small, is too petty for his notice and intervention; in short, he tries to do not only his own work, but everybody else's.
[Sidenote: His justification.] I have once or twice gently suggested that I thought the G.O.M.

might leave a little more to his subordinates, and spare that frame and mind which bears the Atlantean burden of the Home Rule struggle.