Great as were his eloquence, his knowledge and his financial skill, Gladstone was accustomed to say of himself that the only quality in which, so far as he knew, he was distinguished from his fellow-men was his faculty of concentration. Whatever were the matter in hand, he so concentrated himself on it, and absorbed himself in it, that nothing else seemed to exist for him.
A word must be said about physical characteristics. In his prime Gladstone was just six feet high, but his inches diminished as his years increased, and in old age the unusual size of his head and breadth of his shoulders gave him a slightly top-heavy appearance. His features were strongly marked; the nose trenchant and hawk-like, and the mouth severely lined. His flashing eyes were deep-set, and in colour resembled the onyx with its double band of brown and grey. His complexion was of an extreme pallor, and, combined with his jet-black hair, gave in earlier life something of an Italian aspect to his face. His dark eyebrows were singularly flexible, and they perpetually expanded and contracted in harmony with what he was saying. He held himself remarkably upright, and even from his school-days at Eton had been remarked for the rapid pace at which he habitually walked. His voice was a baritone, singularly clear and far-reaching. In the Waverley Market at Edinburgh, which is said to hold 20,000 people, he could be heard without difficulty; and as late as 1895 he said to the present writer: "What difference does it make to me whether I speak to 400 or 4000 people?" His physical vigour in old age earned him the popular nickname of the Grand Old Man.
Lord Morley of Blackburn's _Life of Gladstone_ was published in 1903. (G. W. E. R.)
GLADSTONE, a seaport of Clinton county, Queensland, Australia, 328 m. by rail N.E. of Brisbane. Pop. (1901) 1566. It possesses a fine, well-sheltered harbour reputed one of the best in Queensland, at the mouth of the river Boyne. Gold, manganese, copper and coal are found in the neighbourhood. Gladstone, founded in 1847, became a municipality in 1863.
See J. F. Hogan, _The Gladstone Colony_ (London, 1898).
GLAGOLITIC, an early Slavonic alphabet: also the liturgy written therein, and the people (Dalmatians and Roman Catholic Montenegrins) among whom it has survived by special licence of the Pope (see SLAVS for table of letters).