e of his fall from power. He was diligent in
office; he took always the highest advice in every military dispute;
settled the chief difficulty at the War Office without offence to Lord
Kitchener; he gave full rein to the fiery energy of Mr. Lloyd George; he
was in earnest, but he was never excited; he was beset on every side,
but he never failed to maintain the best traditions of English public
life; he was trusted and respected by all save a clique. Even in the
humiliation of the Paisley campaign he was so noble a figure that the
indulgence with which he appeared to regard the rather violent aid of a
witty daughter was accepted by the world as touchingly paternal--the old
man did not so much lean upon the arm of his child as smile upon her
high-spirited antics.

One must trespass upon the jealously guarded private life to discover
the true cause of his bewildering collapse. Mr. Asquith surrendered some
years ago the rigid Puritanism of early years to a domestic circle which
was fatal to the sources of his original power. Anyone who compares the
photographs of Mr. Asquith before and after the dawn of the twentieth
century may see what I mean. In the earlier photographs his face is
keen, alert, powerful, austere; you will read in it the rigidity of his
Nonconformist upbringing, the seriousness of his Puritan inheritance,
all the moral earnestness of a nobly ambitious character. In the later
photographs one is struck by an increasing expression of festivity, not
by any means that beautiful radiance of the human spirit which in
another man was said to make his face at the age of seventy-two "a
thanksgiving for his former life and a love-letter to all mankind," but
rather the expression of a mental chuckle, as though he had suddenly
seen something to laugh at in the very character of the universe. The
face has plumped and reddened, the light-coloured eye has acquired a
twinkle, the firm mouth has relaxed into a sportive smile. You can
imagine him now capping a "_mot_" or laughing deeply at a daring jest;
but you cannot imagine him with profound and reverend anxiety striving
like a giant to make right, reason, and the will of God prevail.

Like Mr. Lloyd George, his supplanter, he has lost the earnestness which
brought him to the seats of power. A domestic circle, brilliant with the
modern spirit and much occupied in sharpening the wits with epigram and
audacity, has proved too much for his original stoicism. He has found
r