m all pettiness of personal
ambition. He desires, because he regards it as the highest kind of life,
to further the work of creative evolution, to be always on the side of
spiritual forces, and never to be deceived by transitory materialism.
Democracy has need of these qualities, and a great empire without such
qualities in its statesmen can hardly endure the test of time.

His faults are a too generous confidence in the good sense of democracy
and a lack of impassioned energy. He is too much a thinker, too little a
warrior. Unhappily he is not an effective speaker, and his writing is
not always as clear as his ideas. He is at his best in conversation with
men whom he likes.

His activity is enormous, but it is the activity of the scholar. He
works far into the night, takes little or no exercise, and avoids "that
dance of mimes"--the life of society. By hard reading he keeps himself
abreast of knowledge in almost every one of its multitudinous
departments and will go a long journey to hear a scientific lecture or
to take part in a philosophical discussion. He is the friend of
philosophers, theologians, men of science, men of letters, and many a
humble working man. He was never privately deserted in the long months
of his martyrdom. His charming London house, so refined and so dignified
in its simplicity, was the frequent meeting-place of many even in those
bad days when the door outside was daubed with paint, the windows
broken, and a police-man stood on guard. A few of us wished he took his
ill-treatment with a fiercer spirit; but looking back now I think that
even the youngest of us perceives that he was unconsciously teaching us
by his behaviour one of the noblest lessons to be learned in the school
of life.

Let his fate teach democracy that when it has found a leader whom it can
trust, it must be prepared to fight for him as well as to follow him. No
statesman is safe from the calumny of newspapers, and no statesman
violently and persistently attacked in a crisis can depend upon the
loyalty of his colleagues. It is not in our politics as it is in our
games.

FOOTNOTE:

[2] It is well known that Lord Haig regards Lord Haldane as the greatest
Secretary of State for War that England ever had; he has expressed his
gratitude again and again for the manner in which Lord Haldane organized
the military forces of Great Britain for a war on the Continent. Lord
French has said: "He got nothing but calumny and abuse; but