Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 April 1882 — Gladstone’s Intensity. [ARTICLE]

Gladstone’s Intensity.

Mr. Gladstone is a man who, having once put his hand to the plow, npt only will not look back, but frequently disdains to glance to the right or left also. Although one of the greatest men this country has ever produced—a financier of consummate ability, a statesman of rare parts, and a patriot of unblemished renown—he somehow lacks that genial sa voir faire which drew all men to such leaders as Lord Beaconsfield and Lord Palmerston. As a lively French friend of mine remarked, “ I can- not understand your Jfr. Gladstone; he is so terribly in earnest?’ The Premier’s ends are always good ends, but he is so “terribly in earnest” about reaching his objects that he is apt to overlook not so much the principal means of obtaining them as the small details, which, though individually insignificant, are frequently collectively of the utmost assistance to statesmen and statecraft Mr. Gladstone belongs to the Church of England, and is fond of a fine ritual; but there is a good deal of the old austere Puritan spirit in his composition. Unlike Palmerston, I doubt if he ever made a political convert from the enemies’ ranks, and is inclined to despise those small social amenities outside the walls of St Stephen’s which so often facilitate business within.— London Correspondence Philadelphia Telegraph.