After the death of Thomas Carlyle he was probably the best talker in London, and a talker in one respect more agreeable than either Carlyle or Macaulay, inasmuch as he was no less ready to listen than to speak, and never wearied the dinner-table by a monologue. His simplicity, his spontaneity, his geniality and courtesy, as well as the fund of knowledge and of personal recollections at his command, made him so popular in society that his opponents used to say it was dangerous to meet him, because one might be forced to leave off hating him. He was, perhaps, too prone to go on talking upon the subject which filled his mind at the moment; nor was it easy to divert his attention to something else which others might deem more important.[74] Those who stayed with him in the same country house sometimes complained that the perpetual display of force and eagerness tired them, as one tires of watching the rush of Niagara. His guests, however, did not feel this, for his own home life was quiet and smooth. He read and wrote a good many hours daily, but never sat up late, almost always slept soundly, never seemed oppressed or driven to strain his strength. With all his impetuosity, he was regular, systematic, and deliberate in his habits and ways of doing business. A swift reader and a surprisingly swift writer, he was always occupied, and was skilful in using even the scraps and fragments of his time. No pressure of work made him fussy, nor could any one remember to have seen him in a hurry.
The best proof of his swiftness, industry, and skill in economising time is supplied by the quantity of his literary work, which, considering the abstruse nature of the subjects to which much of it is related, would have been creditable to the diligence of a German professor sitting alone in his study. The merits of the work have been disputed. Mankind are slow to credit the same person with eminence in various fields. When they read the prose of a great poet, they try it by severer tests than would be applied to other writers. When a painter has won credit by his landscapes or his cattle pieces, he is seldom encouraged to venture into other lines. So Mr. Gladstone's reputation as an orator stood in his own light when he appeared as an author. He was read by thousands who would not have looked at the article or book had it borne some other name; but he was judged by the standard, not of his finest printed speeches, for his speeches were seldom models of composition, but rather by the impression which his finest speeches made on those who heard them. Since his warmest admirers could not claim for him as a writer of prose any such pre-eminence as belonged to him as a speaker, it followed that his written work was not duly appreciated. Had he been a writer and nothing else, he would have been eminent and powerful by his pen.