|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 13
When the historian comes to inquire into the trivial consequences of Mr.
Asquith's fall from power he will be forced, I think, to lift that veil
which Mr. Asquith has so jealously drawn across the privacy of his
domestic life. For although he ever lacked the essentials of greatness,
Mr. Asquith once possessed nearly all those qualities which make for
powerful leadership. Indeed it was said in the early months of the war
by the most able of his political opponents that it passed the wit of
man to suggest any other statesman at that juncture for the office of
Prime Minister.
His judicial temperament helped him to compose differences and to find a
workable compromise. His personal character won the respect of men who
are easily influenced by manner. There was something about him superior
to a younger generation of politicians--a dignity, a reticence, a proud
and solid self-respect. With the one exception of Mr. Alfred Spender, a
man of honour and the noblest principles, he had no acquaintance with
journalism. He never gave anybody the impression of being an
office-seeker, and there was no one in Parliament who took less pains to
secure popularity. Above all things, he never plotted behind closed
doors; never descended to treason against a rival.
Search as men may among the records of his public life they will fail to
discover any adequate cause of his fall from power. He was diligent in
office; he took always the highest advice in every military dispute;
settled the chief difficulty at the War Office without offence to Lord
Kitchener; he gave full rein to the fiery energy of Mr. Lloyd George; he
was in earnest, but he was never excited; he was beset on every side,
but he never failed to maintain the best traditions of English public
life; he was trusted and respected by all save a clique. Even in the
humiliation of the Paisley campaign he was so noble a figure that the
indulgence with which he appeared to regard the rather violent aid of a
witty daughter was accepted by the world as touchingly paternal--the old
man did not so much lean upon the arm of his child as smile upon her
high-spirited antics.
One must trespass upon the jealously guarded private life to discover
the true cause of his bewildering collapse. Mr. Asquith surrendered some
years ago the rigid Puritanism of early years to a domestic circle which
was fatal to the sources of his original power. Anyone who compares the
photographs of Mr. Asquith before and after the dawn of the twentieth
century may see what I mean. In the earlier photographs his face is
keen, alert, powerful, austere; you will read in it the rigidity of his
Nonconformist upbringing, the seriousness of his Puritan inheritance,
all the moral earnestness of a nobly ambitious character. In the later
photographs one is struck by an increasing expression of festivity, not
by any means that beautiful radiance of the human spirit which in
another man was said to make his face at the age of seventy-two "a
thanksgiving for his former life and a love-letter to all mankind," but
rather the expression of a mental chuckle, as though he had suddenly
seen something to laugh at in the very character of the universe. The
face has plumped and reddened, the light-coloured eye has acquired a
twinkle, the firm mouth has relaxed into a sportive smile. You can
imagine him now capping a "_mot_" or laughing deeply at a daring jest;
but you cannot imagine him with profound and reverend anxiety striving
like a giant to make right, reason, and the will of God prevail.
Like Mr. Lloyd George, his supplanter, he has lost the earnestness which
brought him to the seats of power. A domestic circle, brilliant with the
modern spirit and much occupied in sharpening the wits with epigram and
audacity, has proved too much for his original stoicism. He has found
recreation in the modern spirit. After the day's work there has been
nothing so diverting for him as the society of young people; chatter
rather than conversation has been as it were prescribed for him, and
when he should have been thinking or sleeping he has been playing cards.
It is possible to argue that this complete change from the worries of
the day's work has been right and proper, and that his health has been
the better for it; but physical well-being can be secured by other
means, and no physical well-being is worth the loss of moral power.
There are some natures to whom easy-going means a descent. There are
some men, and those the strongest sons of nature, for whom the kindest
commandment is, "Uphill all the way."
Mr. Asquith, both by inheritance and temperament, was designed for a
strenuous life, a strenuous moral life. He was never intended for
anything in the nature of a _fl�neur_. If he had followed his star, if
he had rigorously pursued the path marked out for him by tradition and
his own earliest propensities, he might have been an unpleasant person
for a young ladies' tea-party and an unsympathetic person to a gathering
of decadent artists; he might indeed have become as heavy as Cromwell
and as inhuman as Milton; but he would never have fallen from Olympus
with the lightness of thistledown.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|