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Page 17
One feels that in Mr. Balfour there is something of both the learned
Lady and the lofty Spire. He is at once spinsterish and architectural. I
mean that he is a very beautiful object to look at, and at the same time
a frustrated and perverse nature. Moreover his learning partakes of a
drawing-room character, while his loftiness dwindles away to a point
which affords no foothold for the sons of man. One may look up to him
now and again, but a constant regard would be rewarded by nothing more
serviceable to the admirer than a stiff neck. He points upward indeed,
but to follow his direction is to discover only the void of etheric
vacancy. Like his learning, which may astonish the simple, but which
hardly illuminates the student, his virtues leave one cold. Someone who
knows him well said to me once, "He is no Sir Galahad. Week-ending and
London society have deteriorated his fibre."
He began life well, but he has slackness in his blood and no vital
enthusiasm in his heart. His career has been a descent. He has taken
things--ethically and industrially--easily, too easily.
It is a pity that Nature forgot to bestow upon him those domestic
motions of the heart which humanize the mind and beautify character, for
in many ways he was fitted to play a great part in affairs of State and
with real emotion in his nature would have made an ideal leader of the
nation during the struggle with Germany. He is a conspicuous example of
the value of sensibility, for lacking this one quality he has entirely
failed to reach the greatness to which his many gifts entitled him.
Few men can be so charming: no man can be more impressive. His handsome
appearance, his genial manner, his distinguished voice, his eagerness
and playfulness in conversation, all contribute to an impression of
personality hardly equalled at the present time. He might easily pass
for the perfect ideal of the gentleman. In a certain set of society he
remains to this day a veritable prince of men. And his tastes are pure,
and his life is wholesome.
A lady of my acquaintance was once praising to its mother a robust and
handsome infant who could boast a near relationship with Mr. Arthur
Balfour. "Yes," said the mother, with criticism in her eyes and voice,
"I think he is a nice child, but we rather fear he lacks the Balfourian
manner." Even in childhood!
This Balfourian manner, as I understand it, has its roots in an attitude
of mind--an attitude of convinced superiority which insists in the first
place on complete detachment from the enthusiasms of the human race, and
in the second place on keeping the vulgar world at arm's length.
It is an attitude of mind which a critic or a cynic might be justified
in assuming, for it is the attitude of one who desires rather to observe
the world than to shoulder any of its burdens; but it is a posture of
exceeding danger to anyone who lacks tenderness or sympathy, whatever
his purpose or office may be, for it tends to breed the most dangerous
of all intellectual vices, that spirit of self-satisfaction which
Dostoievsky declares to be the infallible mark of an inferior mind.
To Mr. Arthur Balfour this studied attitude of aloofness has been fatal,
both to his character and to his career. He has said nothing, written
nothing, done nothing, which lives in the heart of his countrymen. To
look back upon his record is to see a desert, and a desert with no altar
and with no monument, without even one tomb at which a friend might
weep. One does not say of him, "He nearly succeeded there," or "What a
tragedy that he turned from this to take up that"; one does not feel for
him at any point in his career as one feels for Mr. George Wyndham or
even for Lord Randolph Churchill; from its outset until now that career
stretches before our eyes in a flat and uneventful plain of successful
but inglorious and ineffective self-seeking.
There is one signal characteristic of the Balfourian manner which is
worthy of remark. It is an assumption in general company of a most
urbane, nay, even a most cordial spirit. I have heard many people
declare at a public reception that he is the most gracious of men, and
seen many more retire from shaking his hand with a flush of pride on
their faces as though Royalty had stooped to inquire after the measles
of their youngest child. Such is ever the effect upon vulgar minds of
geniality in superiors: they love to be stooped to from the heights.
But this heartiness of manner is of the moment only, and for everybody;
it manifests itself more personally in the circle of his intimates and
is irresistible in week-end parties; but it disappears when Mr. Balfour
retires into the shell of his private life and there deals with
individuals, particularly with dependents. It has no more to do with his
spirit than his tail-coat and his white tie. Its remarkable impression
comes from its unexpectedness; its effect is the shock of surprise. In
public he is ready to shake the whole world by the hand, almost to pat
it on the shoulder; but in private he is careful to see that the world
does not enter even the remotest of his lodge gates.
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