his very simplicity had an effect of secrecy. But it is
a complete error about him, as it was a complete error about Parnell,
to suppose that he took the Prussian pose of disdaining and
disregarding everybody; that he settled everything in solitary egoism;
that he was a Superman too self-sufficing to listen to friends and too
philosophical to listen to reason. It will be noted that every crisis
of his life that is lit up by history contradicts the colours of this
picture. He could not only take counsel with his friends, but he was
abnormally successful in taking counsel with his foes. It is notable
that whenever he came in personal contact with a great captain
actually or potentially in arms against him, the result was not a mere
collision but a mutual comprehension. He established the friendliest
relations with the chivalrous and adventurous Marchand, standing on
the deadly debatable land of Fashoda. He established equally friendly
relations with the Boer generals, gathered under the dark cloud of
national disappointment and defeat. In all such instances, so far as
his individuality could count, it is clear that he acted as a moderate
and, in the universal sense, as a liberal. The results and the records
of those who met him in such hours are quite sufficient to prove that
he did not leave the impression of a Prussian arrogance. If he was
silent, his silence must have been more friendly, I had almost said
more convivial, than many men's conversation. But on the larger
platform of the European War, this quiet but unique gift of
open-mindedness and intellectual hospitality was destined to do two
very decisive things, which may profoundly affect history. In the
first he dealt with the more democratic and even revolutionary
elements in England; and in the second he represents a very real
change that has passed over the English traditions about Russia.

Personally, as has already been noted, Lord Kitchener never was and
never pretended to be anything more or less than the good military
man, and by the time of the Great War he was already an elderly
military man. The type has much the same standards and traditions in
all European countries; but in England it is, if anything, a little
more traditional, for the very reason that the army has been something
separate, professional, and relatively small--a sort of club. The
military man was all the more military because the nation was not
military. Such a man is inevitably conserv