Read it through once

What may be said of the characteristics and habits of this many-sided heir to Royal position? Probably his first and most pronounced quality was one of difficult definition--tactfulness. Through its means he led society without rivalry and with unique success; promoted reforms without violence of agitation or the creation of antagonisms; carried out countless varied and delicate duties, with noiseless celerity, in an age of intense and active curiosity. In forty years of ceaseless political change and frequently acute political crises not a whisper of his private views became known to the million-tongued press or the curious public. He had known every kind of partisan and been liked by leaders of the masses as well as the classes--by Joseph Arch and Henry Broadhurst, as well as by the Earl of Derby or the Marquess of Salisbury. If he visited Mr. Gladstone at Hawarden on one occasion he paid the same honour to Lord Beaconsfield at Hughenden at another time. If Lord Randolph Churchill was a personal friend so also was Lord Rosebery, or Mr. Balfour. His genial manner and sometimes cosmopolitan view of society encouraged a popular opinion as to his natural democracy; while a personal dignity, never forced, or assumed, but always present, prevented the most courageous person from taking undue advantage of the freedom from ceremonial which he sometimes liked to encourage. His preferences in international matters were as little known as his political opinions, and yet, at times, his influence in this respect was very great.