imputed to Indian eloquence. Though his training was mathematical, he was well read in modern historical and political literature.... Yet neither in learning, nor in the conduct of affairs had he any touch of pedantry.
In the general commerce of life there could be no more gracious or easy companion. But though he could adapt his conversation to circumstances and have a pretty gift of delicate humour, he always contrived to make you feel that he was living in an atmosphere of his own.
In politics he might be described as a mid-Victorian radical, owing intellectual allegiance to J. S. Mill, but also largely influenced by Mazzini, whom he resembled in moral intensity and fervour. He made no secret of his ambitions for India. Believing in Parliamentary institutions, he desired to see India become a self-governing member of the British Empire after the model of Canada or Australia.
Critics have urged that he was vain of applause-an allegation brought against all orators; and he was also hypersensitive and of a combustible temper, these qualities which also belong to the soul of an orator, were never so developed as to make him intractable. His friends will long remember him with affectionate regret as one of the best and noblest of men, an honour to India in whose service he laboured and to Great Britain, from whose thinkers and poets, he derived no small part of his inspiration.
Certainly, Gokhale was a Congressman. But in him there was nothing, of the froth and fume of the legendary 'Congress-wallah'. If eloquence is, as Lord Curzon eloquently
