Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

A Century of PremiersHerbert Henry Asquith — Not Quite in the Gladstone Mould

A Century of Premiers: Herbert Henry Asquith — Not Quite in the Gladstone Mould [Gladstone without the passion, and without the religiosity. That would be an inadequate but not altogether misleading description of the last person to head a Liberal government. A complex personality, he himself attempted a somewhat tongue-in-cheek assessment of his own qualities in an idle moment at 10 Downing Street during a critical period of the First World War, in March 1915: You were … almost a classical example of Luck. You were endowed at birth with brains above the average. You had, further, some qualities of temperament which are exceptionally useful for mundane success — energy under the guise of lethargy; a faculty for working quickly, which is more effective in the long run than plodding perseverance; patience (which is one of the rarest of human qualities); a temperate but persistent ambition; a clear mind, a certain quality and lucidity of speech; intellectual but not moral irritability; a natural tendency to understand & appreciate the opponent’s point of view; and, as time went on, & your nature matured, a growing sense of proportion, which had its effect both upon friends and foes, and which, coupled with detachment from any temptation to intrigue, and, in regard to material interests & profits, an unaffected indifference, secured for you the substantial advantage of personality and authority. The really great men of the world are the geniuses & the saints. You belonged to neither category. Your intellectual equipment (well cultivated and trained) still left you far short of the one; your spiritual limitations, and your endowment of the ‘Old Adam’, left you still shorter of the other. (Jenkins 1978, pp.334–5)] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

A Century of PremiersHerbert Henry Asquith — Not Quite in the Gladstone Mould

Download PDF
18 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/springer-journals/a-century-of-premiers-herbert-henry-asquith-not-quite-in-the-gladstone-IPjtAfyr1J

References (2)

Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan UK
Copyright
© Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited 2005
ISBN
978-1-4039-3990-6
Pages
53 –71
DOI
10.1057/9780230511507_5
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[Gladstone without the passion, and without the religiosity. That would be an inadequate but not altogether misleading description of the last person to head a Liberal government. A complex personality, he himself attempted a somewhat tongue-in-cheek assessment of his own qualities in an idle moment at 10 Downing Street during a critical period of the First World War, in March 1915: You were … almost a classical example of Luck. You were endowed at birth with brains above the average. You had, further, some qualities of temperament which are exceptionally useful for mundane success — energy under the guise of lethargy; a faculty for working quickly, which is more effective in the long run than plodding perseverance; patience (which is one of the rarest of human qualities); a temperate but persistent ambition; a clear mind, a certain quality and lucidity of speech; intellectual but not moral irritability; a natural tendency to understand & appreciate the opponent’s point of view; and, as time went on, & your nature matured, a growing sense of proportion, which had its effect both upon friends and foes, and which, coupled with detachment from any temptation to intrigue, and, in regard to material interests & profits, an unaffected indifference, secured for you the substantial advantage of personality and authority. The really great men of the world are the geniuses & the saints. You belonged to neither category. Your intellectual equipment (well cultivated and trained) still left you far short of the one; your spiritual limitations, and your endowment of the ‘Old Adam’, left you still shorter of the other. (Jenkins 1978, pp.334–5)]

Published: Oct 19, 2015

Keywords: Prime Minister; Liberal Party; Intimate Friend; Cabinet Minister; Home Rule

There are no references for this article.