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Page 23
LORD ROBERT CECIL
LORD ROBERT CECIL
(EDGAR ALGERNON CECIL)
Born, 1864. Educ.: at Eton and Oxford. Private Secretary to his
father, the late Marquis of Salisbury, 1886-88; called to the Bar,
1887; M.P. for East Marylebone, 1906-10; for Hitchin Division of
Herts, 1912; Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs, 1915-16;
Assistant Secretary for Foreign Affairs, 1918; Manager of Blockade,
1916-18. Author of _Principles of Commercial Law_ and _Our National
Church_.
[Illustration: LORD ROBERT CECIL]
CHAPTER VIII
LORD ROBERT CECIL
_"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm."_--EMERSON.
If a novelist take for his hero an educated gentleman who expresses
contempt for the licence and indecencies of modern life, it is ten to
one that the critics, who confess themselves on other occasions as sick
of prurient tales, will pronounce this hero to be a prig. In like
manner, let a politician evince concern for the moral character of the
nation and it is ten to one his colleagues in the House of Commons and
his critics in the Press, and everywhere the very men most in despair of
politics, will declare him to be a fanatic.
This has been the unfortunate fate of Lord Robert Cecil. He is regarded
by his countrymen as unpractical. Men speak well of him, and confess
willingly that he is vastly superior in character and intellect to the
ruck of politicians, but nevertheless wind up their panegyrics with the
regretful judgment that, alas, he is a fanatic.
It is a thousand pities, I think, that he is not a fanatic. It is for
the very reason he is not fanatical that his progress in politics has
been in the suburbs of the second rank. He has every quality for the
first rank, and for the foremost place in that rank, save the one urging
passion of enthusiasm. It is a sense of humour, an engaging sense of
diffidence, a continual deviation towards a mild and gentle cynicism, it
is this spirit--the very antithesis of a fanatical temper--which keeps
him from leadership.
The nation has reason on its side for suspecting Lord Robert Cecil. In
the mind of the British people nothing is more settled than the
conviction that the conquering qualities of a great captain are courage
and confidence. He has given no sign of these qualities. Nature, it
would seem, has fashioned him neither pachydermatous nor pugilistic. He
appears upon the platform as a gentleman makes his entrance into a
drawing-room, not as a toreador leaps into the bull ring. He expresses
his opinions as a gentleman expresses his views at a dinner-table, not
as an ale-house politician airs his dogmatisms in the tap-room. The very
qualities which give such a grace and power to his personality, being
spiritual qualities, prevent him from capturing the loud and grateful
loyalty of a political party.
Now, while a man like Mr. Lloyd George can only affirm his own essence
by the exercise of what we may call brute force, and by making use of
vulgar methods from which a person of Lord Robert Cecil's quality would
naturally shrink, it is nevertheless not at all necessary for a man of
noble character and greater power to employ the same means in order to
earn the confidence of his countrymen.
What is necessary in this case is not brute force but fanaticism, and by
fanaticism I mean that spirit which in Cromwell induced Hume to call him
"this fanatical hypocrite," and which Burke adequately defined in saying
that when men are fanatically fond of an object _they will prefer it to
their own peace_.
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