friends, and treating all others with a courteous friendliness
which, though it put them quickly at their ease, did not encourage
them to approach any nearer. Thus, while he was admired by the mass
of his followers, and beloved by the small inner group of family
friends, the great majority of his colleagues, official
subordinates, and political or ecclesiastical associates felt for
him rather respect than affection, and would have hesitated to give
him any of friendship's confidences. It was regretfully observed
that though he was kindly and considerate, would acknowledge all
good service, and gladly offer to a junior an opportunity of
distinction, he seldom seemed sufficiently interested in any one of
his disciples to treat him with special favor or bestow those
counsels which a young man so much prizes from his chief. But for
the warmth of his devotion to a few early friends and the reverence
he always paid to their memory, a reverence touchingly shown in the
article on Arthur Hallam which he published in 1898, sixty-five
years after Hallam's death, there might have seemed to be a measure
of truth in the judgment that he cared less for men than for ideas
and causes. Those, however, who marked the pang which the departure
to the Roman Church of his friend Hope Scott caused him, those who
in later days noted the enthusiasm with which he would speak of Lord
Althorp, his opponent, and of Lord Aberdeen, his chief, dwelling
upon the beautiful truthfulness and uprightness of the former and
the sweet amiability of the latter, knew that the impression of
detachment he gave wronged the sensibility of his own heart. Of how
few who have lived for more than sixty years in the full sight of
their countrymen, and have been as party leaders exposed to angry
and sometimes dishonest criticism, can it be said that there stands
on record against them no malignant word and no vindictive act!
This was due not perhaps entirely to natural sweetness of