fly upon a wheel, and
at times he makes reading difficult by a more than Teutonic
allusiveness. It was not easy for Acton to bear in mind that the public
is often ignorant of even the names of distinguished scholars, and that
"a European reputation" is sometimes confined to the readers of
specialist publications.

The Italian strain in Acton is apparent in another quality, which is
perhaps his one point of kinship with Machiavelli, the absence of
hesitation from his thought, and of mystery from his writing. Subtle and
ironic as his style is, charged with allusion and weighted with passion,
it is yet entirely devoid both of German sentiment and English
vagueness. There was no haze in his mind. He judges, but does not paint
pictures. It may have been this absence of half-tones in his vein of
thought, and of _chiaroscuro_ in his imagination that made Manning, an
intelligent however hostile critic, speak of "the ruthless talk of
undergraduates."

But however much or little be allowed to the diverse strains of
hereditary influence or outward circumstances, the interest of Acton to
the student lies in his intense individuality. That austerity of moral
judgment, that sense of the greatness of human affairs, and of the vast
issues that lie in action and in thought, was no product of outside
influences, and went beyond what he had learnt from his master
Doellinger. To treat politics as a game, to play with truth or make it
subservient to any cause other than itself, to take trivial views, was
to Acton as deep a crime as to waste in pleasure or futility the hours
so brief given for salvation of the soul would have seemed to Baxter or
Bunyan; indeed, there was an element of Puritan severity in his attitude
towards statesmen both ecclesiastical and civil. He was no "light
half-believer of a casual creed," but had a sense of reality more like
Dante than many moderns.

This, perhaps, it was that drew him ever closer to Mr. Gladstone, while
it made the House of Commons and the daily doings of politicians
uncongenial. There is no doubt that he had learned too well "the secret
of intellectual detachment." Early in his life his shrewd and kindly
stepfather had pointed out to him the danger of losing influence by a
too unrestrained desire to escape worshipping the idols of the
marketplace. There are, it is true, not wanting signs that his view of
the true relations of States and Churches may become one day more
dominant, for it appear