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Page 22
The answer I think is this: a single virtue can bestow greatness, and
the greatness may never fail when it has time and space in which to
express itself; but many virtues of intellect and character are
necessary when time is of the essence of the contract, and more
especially in a situation of shared responsibility.
Lord Kitchener knew many of his own failings. He was by no means a vain
man. Indeed he suffered considerable pain from the knowledge that he was
not the tremendous person of the popular imagination. This knowledge
robbed him of self-assurance. He tried to live up to the legendary
Kitchener, and so long as he could find men as brave as himself, but of
swifter and more adaptable intelligence, to do his bidding, he
succeeded: many of the public, indeed, believed in the legendary
Kitchener up to the day of his tragic death--death, that unmistakable
reality, meeting him on a journey, the object of which was to impress
Russia with the legendary Kitchener. But more and more, particularly in
consultation with the quick wits of politicians, he found it impossible
to impersonate his reputation.
I have been told by more than one Cabinet Minister that it was
impressive to see how the lightning intellects of Mr. Lloyd George and
Mr. Winston Churchill again and again reduced the gigantic soldier to a
stupefied and sulking silence.
A proposal would be made by a minister, and Mr. Asquith would turn to
Lord Kitchener for his opinion. Lord Kitchener would say, "It's
impossible," and close his lips firmly. At this Mr. Lloyd George would
attack him, pointing out the reasonableness of this proposal in swift
and persuasive phrases. Lord Kitchener, shifting on his chair, would
repeat, "It's impossible." Then in question after question Mr. Churchill
would ask why it was impossible. "It's impossible," Lord Kitchener would
mumble at the end of these questions. Finally, when nearly everybody had
attempted to extract from him the reason for his refusal to countenance
this proposal, he would make an impatient side movement of his head,
unfold his arms, bend over the papers on the table before him, and grunt
out, sometimes with a boyish smile of relief, "Oh, all right, have it
your own way."
He lacked almost every grace of the spirit. There was nothing amiable in
his character. Very few men liked him a great deal, and none I should
say loved him. I do not think he was brutal by nature, although his
nature was not refined; but he cultivated a brutal manner. He had the
happiness of three or four friendships with cultivated and good women,
but the beautiful creature whom he loved hungrily and doggedly, and to
whom he proposed several times, could never bring herself to marry him.
I think there was no holy of holies in his character, no sanctuaries for
the finer intimacies of human life. As Sainte-Beuve said of Rousseau,
"he has at times a little go�tre in his voice." One sees the fulness of
his limitations by comparing him with such great figures of Indian
history as the Lawrences and Nicholson: in that comparison he shrinks
at once to the dimensions of a colour-sergeant.
But in attempting to study a man of this nature, for our own learning,
we should rather observe how notable a victory he achieved in making so
much of so little than vociferate that he was not this thing or that.
He began life with no gifts from the gods; it was not in his horoscope
to be either a saint or a hero; no one was less likely to create
enthusiasm or to become a legend; and yet by resolutely following the
road of duty, by earnestly and stubbornly striving to serve his
country's interests, and by never for one moment considering in that
service the safety of his own life or the making of his own fortune,
this rough and ordinary man bred in himself a greatness which, magnified
by the legend itself created, helped his country in one of the darkest
hours, perhaps the very darkest, of its long history.
One could wish that behind this formidable greatness of personality
there had been greatness of mind, greatness of character, greatness of
heart, so that he might have been capable of directing the whole war and
holding the politicians in leash to the conclusion of a righteous peace.
But these things he lacked, and the end was what it was.
"Character," says Epicharmus, "is destiny to man." Lord Kitchener, let
us assert, was faithful to his destiny. And he was something more than
faithful, for he sanctified this loyalty to his own character by a
devotion to his country which was pure and incorruptible. Certainly he
can never be styled "the son of Cronos and Double-dealing."
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