Harold Begbie

“ Baden-Powell, then, is a hero, but no prodigy. He is a hero, and human. A ripple of laughter runs through his life, the fresh wind blows about him as he comes smiling before our eyes; and if he be too full of fun and good spirits to play the part of King Arthur in your imagination, be sure that no knight of old was ever more chivalrous towards women, more tender to children, and more resolved upon walking cleanly through our difficult world. ”

“ For although he is first and foremost a calm statesman of religious fervour, cool-headed, clear-eyed, and deliberative, a man profoundly inspired by hatred of evil, yet there are moments in his life of almost superhuman energy when the whole structure of his mind seems to give way, and the spirit appears like a child lost in a dark wood and almost paralysed with fear. Not seldom he was in his father's arms sobbing over the sufferings of humanity and the hardness of the world's heart, mingling his tears with his father's. ”

“ Asquith's career is more striking than his fall from power: it was as if a pin had dropped.
Great men do not at any time fall in so ignominious a fashion, much less when the fate of a great empire is in the balance.
The truth is that Mr. Asquith possesses all the appearance of greatness but few of its elements. He has dignity of presence, an almost unrivalled mastery of language, a trenchant dialectic, a just and honourable mind; but he is entirely without creative power and has outgrown that energy of moral earnestness which characterized the early years of his political life. ”

“ The little doll's-house of a place reeks with the suffocating odour of gas, fried fish, onions, and steam. In one of the two rooms on the first floor, the door of which stands open, I see—and myself am seen, not to say scowled at, by a couple of pipe-smoking navvies, three or four ragged children, and a little rabbit of a flat-chested woman whose complexion and the colour of her garments bear a striking resemblance to moleskin, and whose thin hair is twisted up in front and held comfortably in its place by a single steel curling-pin which seems to occupy the whole breadth of her forehead. ”

“ A hundred days have long since passed, and if the request of Lord Roberts that Baden-Powell should hold out to the middle of May turns out to be history, the siege will have lasted considerably over two hundred days. And during these long, long days men have been in the trenches night and day, children crying to their mothers to be taken away from the pitiless rain of Boer bullets and the terrifying scream of Boer shells; day by day fever has crept in to lessen the number of brave men whose faith in the Old Carthusian never once wavered, and to rob poor mothers of their little ones. ”

“ I have seen Darwinism, the very foundation of modern materialism, break up like thin ice and melt away from the view of philosophy. I have seen evolution betray one of its greatest secrets to the soul of man—an immanent teleology, an invisible direction towards deeper consciousness, an intelligent movement towards greater understanding. And I have seen the demonstration by science that this visible and tangible world in its final analysis is both invisible and intangible—a phantasm of the senses. ”

“ But gestation, fruition, the laborious rearing of the offspring, putting it to bed every night full fed with milk, embracing it anew every morning with the inexhaustible affection of a mother's heart, licking it clean, dressing it a hundred times in the richest garb only to be instantly destroyed; then never to be cast down at the convulsions of this headlong life till the living masterpiece is perfected which in sculpture speaks to every eye, in literature to every intellect, in painting to every memory, in music to every heart!—this is the task of execution. ”

“ One begins to think of the scent of the hedgerow, the shimmering gossamer on the sweet meadows, the song of the invisible lark, the goodly savour of the rich earth, and then to the mind's eye, in the midst of it all, there springs the picture of the genial parson, tall and spare, surrounded by his olive-branches, and perhaps with our hero, as one of the late shoots, riding triumphant on his shoulder. ”

“ Every voice raised to encourage the economic delusions of Socialism is a voice on the side of vulgarity and irreligion. Most of the leaders of Labour know perfectly well that economic Socialism is impossible, but by not saying so with honest courage they commit a grave sin, a sin not only against society but against God. For democracy in England, once the most sensible and kind-hearted democracy in Europe, is placing its faith more and more in the power of wages to buy happiness, turning away with more and more impatience from the divine truth that the Kingdom of Heaven is within us. ”

“ I regard him as a man whose full worth will never be known till he is overtaken by a crisis. I can see him moving smoothly and usefully in times of comparative peace to the Primacy, holding that high office with dignity, and leaving behind him a memory that will rapidly fade. But I cannot see him so clearly in the midst of a storm. A great industrial upheaval, for example, where would that land him? The very fact that one does not ask, How would he direct it? shows perhaps the measure of distrust one may feel in his strength—not of character—but of personality. ”

“ I start up at two o'clock in the morning, after my first sleep, in an agony of terror, and feel all the weight of life upon my soul. It is impossible that I can bring up such a family of children; my sons and daughters will be beggars! I shall live to see those whom I love exposed to the scorn and contumely of the world!—But stop, thou child of sorrow, and humble imitator of Job, and tell me on what you dined. Was not there soup and salmon, and then a plate of beef, and then duck, blanc-mange, cream cheese, diluted with beer, claret, champagne, hock, tea, coffee, and noyeau? ”

“ Lord Robert Cecil need not adopt the tricks of a mountebank to achieve leadership of the British nation, but he must contract so entire a faith in the sacred character of his mission that all the inhibiting diffidencies of his modest nature will henceforth seem to him like the whisperings of temptation. He must cease to watch the shifts of public opinion. He must cease merely to recommend the probable advantage of rather more idealism in the politics of Europe. He must act. He must learn to know that a man cannot give a great idea to the world without giving himself along with it. ”

“ Like Lord Robert, too, he has a most pleasant voice, and a slow deliberate way of speaking, and a warm kindly smile which fades at the first movement of serious thought, leaving the whole pale face, even the dark eyes under their heavy brows, almost deathlike in immobility. One seems to see in such moments the spirit withdraw from the surface of things to take up its duty at the citadel of the intellect. ”

“ Coming down in the world, Cinderella in the kitchen has blubbered over it by the light of a surreptitious candle, conceiving herself the while the magnificent Georgiana, and Lord Mordaunt, Georgiana's lover, the pot-boy round the corner. Tied up with many a dingy brother, the auctioneer knocks the bundle down to the bidder of a few pence, and it finds its way to the quiet cove of some village library, where with some difficulty—as if from want of teeth—and with numerous interruptions—as if from lack of memory—it tells its old stories, and wakes tears, and blushes, and laughter as of yore. ”

“ Churchill has loved with all his heart, with all his mind, with all his soul, and with all his strength, three things—war, politics, and himself. He loved war for its dangers, he loves politics for the same reason, and himself he has always loved for the knowledge that his mind is dangerous—dangerous to his enemies, dangerous to his friends, dangerous to himself. ”

“ Like Martineau's the head with its crown of white hair is nobly sculptured, and like Martineau's the ivory coloured face is ploughed up and furrowed by mental strife; but whereas Martineau's is eminently the indoors face of a student, this is the face of a man who has lived out of doors, a mountaineer and a seafarer. Under the dense bone of the forehead which overhangs them like the eave of a roof, the pale blue eyes look out at you with a deep inner radiance of the spirit, but from the midst of a face which has been stricken and has winced. ”

“ The little dwarf is familiar to hundreds of Londoners. Always nursing the wall, and using a miniature crooked stick exactly like a question-mark, she hobbles through the streets like a half-human beetle, until she reaches some such place as the approach to a railway station, where she finds it profitable to stand as though in great pain, rolling sheep's eyes at the hurrying crowd. ”

“ Observation of nature, love of beautiful things, delight in noble literature, gratitude for the highest forms of wit and humour, sympathy with all sorts and conditions of men, reverence for the majesty of the universe, kindness to all, love of children, and devotion to the home, these operations of the human spirit bring peace to the heart of man and continue their ministrations to his happiness with an increasing power of joy as his personality enlarges itself to receive the highest revelations of Life. ”

“ In this able and courageous Doctor of Science, who came to theology from mathematics, a great virtue and a small fault combine to check his intellectual usefulness. His heart is as full of modesty as his mind of tentatives.
He is possessed by a gracious nature, and could no more think of raising his voice to shout down a Boanerges than he could dream of lifting an elbow to push his way through a press of people bound for the limelight. It is only a deep moral earnestness which brings him into public life at all, and he endeavours to treat that public life not as it is but as it ought to be. ”

“ Carmelite House could give the news of the world without Lord Northcliffe's help, but without his passion for the twists and turns of the fairy-story it could never have presented that news so that it catches the attention of all classes.
I have never been conscious of greatness in Lord Northcliffe, but I have never failed to feel in his mind something unusual and remarkable. He is not an impressive person, but he is certainly an interesting person. One feels that he has preserved by some magic of temperament, not to be analyzed by the most skilful of psychologists, the spirit of boyhood. ”

“ The twain love and respect each other, but they regard the world from different points of view, and I am now and again made witness of a good-humoured passage of arms. The clergyman is old, unmarried, and a humorist. His sallies and his gentle eccentricities seldom provoke laughter, but they are continually awakening the pleasantest smiles. Perhaps what he has seen of the world, its sins, its sorrows, its death-beds, its widows and orphans, has tamed his spirit, and put a tenderness into his wit. I do not think I have ever encountered a man who so adorns his sacred profession. ”

“ What is the good news of Christianity if it is not the news that "the spiritual alone is the real," that there is freedom for human life and mastery for the human soul, that faith in the spiritual is power over the material? Even in the tentative form which M. Bergson uses to reveal the reality of the spiritual world there is such joy that one of his interpreters can exclaim:
Here we are in these regions of twilight and dream, where our ego takes shape, where the spring within us gushes up, in the warm secrecy of the darkness which ushers our trembling being into birth. ”

“ Lloyd George; it would have cost him almost his life to be out of office during a period so exciting as that of the Great War. He loves office more than anything this world can offer; neither in philosophy nor music, literature nor science, has he ever been able to find rest for his soul. It is profoundly instructive that a man with a real talent for the noblest of those pursuits which make solitude desirable and retirement an opportunity should be so restless and dissatisfied, even in old age, outside the doors of public life. ”

“ And surely it is not a melancholy conceit to think we are all asleep in this World, and that the conceits of this life are as near dreams to those of the next, as the Phantasms of the night, to the conceits of the day. There is an equal delusion in both, and the one doth but seem to be the emblem or picture of the other; we are somewhat more than ourselves in our sleeps, and the slumber of the body seems to be but the waking of the soul. ”

“ When he smiles, it is as if a mischievous boy looked out of an undertaker's window; but the smile, so full of wit, mischief, and even gaiety, is gone in an instant, quicker than I have ever seen a smile flash out of sight, and immediately the fine scholarly face sinks back into somnolent austerity which for all its aloofness and immemorial calm suggests, in some fashion for which I cannot account, a frozen whimsicality. ”

“ Miss Brown looked ill, and depressed almost to gloom. Miss Jessie smiled as usual, and seemed nearly as popular as her father. He immediately and quietly assumed the man's place in the room; attended to every one's wants, lessened the pretty maid-servant's labour by waiting on empty cups and bread-and-butterless ladies; and yet did it all in so dignified a manner, and so much as if it were a matter of course for the strong to attend to the weak, that he was a true man throughout. ”

“ There a man of power cannot pick and choose his colleagues. He must work with fools as well as men of ability. And never can he work as a master. Always at the Cabinet table he will find a cabal of deadheads opposed to the exercise of his authority, and in the department over which he is set to rule a bunch of traditional Barnacles, without one spark of imagination between them, who will fight his new ideas at every turn.
The essence of politics and government is mediocrity. The good sense of the House of Commons is a conspiracy to resist genius and to enthrone the average man. ”

“ He said to me, "Men outside politics are beginning to see what education involves. It involves the whole man, body, mind, spirit. I do not think you can frame an intelligent definition of education without coming up against religion. In its simplest expression, education is a desire to escape from darkness into light. It is fear of ignorance, and faith in knowledge. At the present time, most people have escaped from darkness into twilight; a twilight which is neither one thing nor the other. But they will never rest there. The quest of the human spirit is Goethe's dying cry, Light—more Light. ”

“ More and more, I think, gentlemen will stand aloof from politics—I mean, gentlemen who have received in their blood and in their training those notions of graciousness, sweetness, and nobleness which flow from centuries of piety and learning. Only here and there will such a man accept the odious conditions of our public life, inspired by a sense of duty, and prepared to endure the intolerable ugliness and dishonesty of politics for the sake of a cause which moves him with all the force of a great affection. ”

“ Something of the resolution, the deliberateness, the stern power, and the enduring strength of his spirit shows itself, I think, in the short thickset body, with its heavy shoulders, its deep chest, its broad firm upright neck, and its slow movements, the movements as it were of a peasant. Always there is about him the feeling of the fields, the sense of nature's presence in his life, the atmosphere of distances. ”

“ Germany had not so much attempted to drag mankind back to barbarism as opened a gate through which mankind might march to the promised land. Lord Morley was almost breaking his heart with despair, and to this day regards Great Britain's entrance into the war as a mistake. Sir Edward Grey was agonizing to avert war; but Mr. Lloyd George was among the first to see this war as the opportunity of a nobler civilization. Destroy German militarism, shatter the Prussian tradition, sweep away dynastic autocracies, and what a world would result for labouring humanity! ”

“ Why is the Church so powerless? Why is it she has so fatally lost the attention of mankind?
Is it not because she has nothing to give, nothing to teach? Morals are older than Christianity, and sacramental religions as well. Men feel that they cannot understand the immense paraphernalia of religion and its unnatural atmosphere of high mystery; it is so tremendous a fuss about so very small a result. If God is in the Church, why doesn't He do more for it, and so more for the world? The revenues of religion are still enormous. ”

“ What power so dangerous, when moral earnestness ceases to inspire the feelings?
Before the war he did much to quicken the social conscience throughout the world; at the outbreak of war he was the very voice of moral indignation; and during the war he was the spirit of victory; for all this, great is our debt to him. But he took upon his shoulders a responsibility which was nothing less than the future of civilization, and here he trusted not to vision and conscience but to compromise, makeshift, patches, and the future of civilization is still dark indeed. ”

“ Christianity as a unique power in the world, a power which transfigures human life, which tears habitude up by the roots, and which gives new strength to the will, new eyes to the soul, and a new reality to the understanding ”

“ Churchill must be carried away by enthusiasm for some great ideal, an ideal so much greater than his own place in politics that he is willing to face death for its triumph, even the many deaths of political life.
At present he is but playing with politics. Even in his most earnest moments he is only "in politics" as a man is "in business." But politics for Mr. Churchill, if they are to make him, if they are to fulfil his promise, must be a religion. They must have nothing to do with Mr. Churchill. They must have everything to do with the salvation of mankind. ”

“ No one who encounters him can doubt for a moment that the Primate is seeking the good of the Church of England, and seeking that good because he believes in the English Church as one of the great spiritual forces of civilisation. No one, I mean, could think that he is either temporising for the sake of peace itself or that his policy of moderation masks a secret sympathy with a particular party. Clear as the sun at noon is the goodness of the man, his unprejudiced devotion to a practical ideal, and his unselfish ambition for the reasonable future of the great Church of the English nation. ”

“ There is no man so lacking in imagination as a Government official, and no man, unless it is a banker, so wanting in courage as a Cabinet Minister. The wealth of England is the creation of her industrial population. The brains, the faith, the energy of the capitalist, and the brains, the loyalty, the strength of labour, these have made us the first nation of the world. ”

“ His intellect, I mean, is in charge of him from first to last. He feels deeply, not sharply. He loves truly, not passionately. With his thesis clear in his mind, he draws his sword, salutes the universe, kneels at the cross, and then, with joy in his heart, or rather a deep and steady sense of well-being, moves forward to the world, prepared to fight. Fighting is the thing. Yes, but here is neither Don Quixote nor Falstaff. He will fight warily, take no unnecessary risk, and strike only when he is perfectly sure of striking home. ”

“ Mysticism, he says, is the pursuit of ultimate, objective truth, or it is nothing.
Christianity demands the closest attention of the mind. It cannot be seen at a glance, understood in a moment, adopted by a gesture. It is a deep and profound philosophy of life. It proposes a transvaluation of values. It insists that the spiritual life is the only true life. It sets the invisible above the visible, and the eternal above the temporal. It tears up by the roots the lust of accumulation. It brings man face to face with a choice that is his destiny. ”