uring
the election of 1918 was not only unworthy of his position but marked
him definitely as a small man. He won the election, but he lost the
world.

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,