QOTD

From Richard Aldous's first-rate dual biography of Gladstone and Disraeli, The Lion and the Unicorn (at 249):

'When I left the dining room after sitting next to Mr Gladstone I thought he was the cleverest man in England," the Queen [Victoria] later told her granddaughter, Princess Marie-Louise, 'but after sitting next to Mr Disraeli I thought I was the cleverest woman in England.'