It is a great thing to have won the war, but to have won it only at the cost of more wars to come, and with the domestic problems of statesmanship multiplied and intensified to a degree of the gravest danger, this is an achievement which cannot move the lasting admiration of the human race.

The truth is that Mr. Lloyd George has gradually lost in the world of political makeshift his original enthusiasm for righteousness.  He is not a bad man to the exclusion of goodness; but he is not a good man to the exclusion of badness.  A woman who knows him well once described him to me in these words:  “He is clever, and he is stupid; truthful and untruthful; pure and impure; good and wicked; wonderful and commonplace:  in a word, he is everything.”  I am quite sure that he is perfectly sincere when he speaks of high aims and pure ambition; but I am equally sure that it is a relief to him to speak with amusement of trickery, cleverness, and the tolerances or the cynicisms of worldliness.

Something of the inward man may be seen in the outward.  Mr. Lloyd George—­I hope I may be pardoned by the importance and interest of the subject for pointing it out—­is curiously formed.  His head is unusually large, and his broad shoulders and deep chest admirably match his quite noble head; but below the waist he appears to dwindle away, his legs seeming to bend under the weight of his body, so that he waddles rather than walks, moving with a rolling gait which is rather like a seaman’s.  He is, indeed, a giant mounted on a dwarf’s legs.

So in like manner one may see in him a soul of eagle force striving to rise above the earth on sparrow’s wings.

That he is attractive to men of a high order may be seen from the devotion of Mr. Philip Kerr; that he is able to find pleasure in a far lower order of men may be seen from his closer friendships.  It is impossible to imagine Mr. Gladstone enjoying the society of Mr. Lloyd George’s most constant companion although that gentleman is a far better creature than the cause of his fortunes; and one doubts if Lord Beaconsfield would have trusted even the least frank of his private negotiations to some of the men who enjoy the Prime Minister’s political confidence.  Nor can Mr. Lloyd George retort that he makes use of all kinds of energy to get his work done, for one knows very well that he is far more at his ease with these third-rate people than with people of a higher and more intellectual order.  For culture he has not the very least of predilections; and the passion of morality becomes more and more one of the pious memories of his immaturity.

Dr. Clifford would be gladly, even beautifully, welcomed; but after an hour an interruption by Sir William Sutherland would be a delightful relief.

M. Clemenceau exclaimed of him, lifting up amazed hands, “I have never met so ignorant a man as Lloyd George!” A greater wit said of him, “I believe Mr. Lloyd George can read, but I am perfectly certain he never does.”