John Morley: “Men write accepting posts, all excitement, full of hope and assurance of good work, and then we remember how quickly…”

This was a complete falsification of a whole set of our national promises.

How should we look in the face of the civilised world if we had so turned our back upon our duty and sovereign task?

This is no mere case of barren wrangle and verbal recrimination.

But they were barren of any institutions by which the country could be governed and kept in prosperity for the future.”(166) This is a statement of the case that biographer and historian alike should ponder.