Quotes by Margot Asquith

Nature, character, intellect and temperament: roughly speaking, these headings cover every one. The men and women whom I have loved best have been those whose natures were rich and sweet; but, alas, with a few exceptions, all of them have had gimcrack characters; and the qualities which I have loved in them have been ultimately submerged by self-indulgence. The present Archbishop of Canterbury is one of these exceptions: he has a sweet and rich nature, a fine temper and is quite unspoilable. I have only one criticism to make of Randall Davidson: he has too much moderation for his intellect; but I daresay he would not have steered the Church through so many shallows if he had not had this attribute. I have known him since I was ten (he christened, confirmed, married and buried us all); and his faith in such qualities of head and heart as I possess has never wavered. He reminds me of Jowett in the soundness of his nature and his complete absence of vanity, although no two men were ever less alike. The first element of greatness is fundamental humbleness (this should not be confused with servility); the second is freedom from self; the third is intrepid courage, which, taken in its widest interpretation, generally goes with truth; and the fourth, the power to love, although I have put it last, is the rarest. If these go to the makings of a great man, Jowett possessed them all. He might have mocked at the confined comprehension of Oxford and exposed the arrogance, vanity and conventionality of the Church; intellectual scorn and even bitterness might have come to him; but, with infinite patience and imperturbable serenity, he preserved his faith in his fellow- creatures. "There was in him a simple trust in the word of other men that won for him a devotion and service which discipline could never have evoked." [Footnote:] I read these words in an obituary notice the other day and thought how much I should like to have had them written of me. Whether his criticisms of the Bible fluttered the faith of the flappers in Oxford, or whether his long silences made the undergraduates more stupid than they would otherwise have been, I care little: I only know that he was what I call great and that he had an ennobling influence over my life. He was apprehensive of my social reputation; and in our correspondence, which started directly we parted at Gosford, he constantly gave me wise advice.

I do not think I was a good judge of age, as I have always liked older people than myself; and I imagine it was because of this unconsciousness that we became such wonderful friends. Jowett was younger than half the young people I know now and we understood each other perfectly. If I am hasty in making friends and skip the preface, I always read it afterwards. A good deal of controversy has arisen over the Master's claim to greatness by some of the younger generation. It is not denied that Jowett was a man of influence. Men as different as Huxley, Symonds, Lord Lansdowne, Lord Bowen, Lord Milner, Sir Robert Morier and others have told me in reverent and affectionate terms how much they owed to him and to his influence. It is not denied that he was a kind man; infinitely generous, considerate and good about money. It may be denied that he was a fine scholar of the first rank, such as Munro or Jebb, although no one denies his contributions to scholarship; but the real question remains: was he a great man? There are big men, men of intellect, intellectual men, men of talent and men of action; but the great man is difficult to find, and it needs--apart from discernment--a certain greatness to find him. The Almighty is a wonderful handicapper: He will not give us everything. I have never met a woman of supreme beauty with more than a mediocre intellect, by which I do not mean intelligence. There may be some, but I am only writing my own life, and I have not met them. A person of magnetism, temperament and quick intelligence may have neither intellect nor character. I have known one man whose genius lay in his rapid and sensitive understanding, real wit, amazing charm and apparent candour, But whose meanness, ingratitude and instability injured everything he touched. You can only discover ingratitude or instability after years of experience, and few of us, I am glad to think, ever suspect meanness in our fellow-creatures; the discovery is as painful when you find it as the discovery of a worm in the heart of a rose. A man may have a fine character and be taciturn, stubborn and stupid. Another may be brilliant, sunny and generous, but self-indulgent, heartless and a liar.

I said it was a measure of such exaggerated interference with private liberty that no truthful person could call America a free country. On my arrival I found many letters from England on the political crisis; and if I can judge at such a distance, the Coalition seems doomed. Believing as I always have in party government as the best solution for democracy, I think Sir George Younger deserves a Victoria Cross, and it will be interesting to see how many of the timid Conservatives will regain sufficient courage to follow him. The mischief that is being made between my husband and Lord Grey leaves me cold. Their friendship is not of a kind to be easily severed, and the House of Lords and the House of Commons are separate institutions. Trammelled as I have always been by an unfortunate combination of truthfulness and impatience, and exhausted by the journey of eighteen hours, I was afraid I had been neither genial nor informing to the reporters upon my arrival in New York, but on looking at the papers next morning I found they had treated me with friendliness and courtesy. Journalism over here is not only an obsession but a drawback that cannot be over-rated. Politicians are frightened of the press, and in the same way as bull-fighting has a brutalising effect upon Spain (of which she is unconscious), headlines of murder, rape, and rubbish, excite and demoralise the American public. I would like to make it clear that it is not the reporters but the owners of the papers that should be censured. With the exception of a few garrulous and gushing geese, who think it smart to ask pert and meaningless questions, the male reporters that I have met have not only been serious and intelligent, but men with whom I have discussed literature, politics and religion; but it would not pay their editors, I presume, to publish conversations of this character. On the front page of even the best newspapers, paragraph after paragraph is taken up by descriptions in poor English of devastating trivialities. Violent and ignorant young men, or "flappers"--in whom the public here seem to take an unnatural interest--might easily suppose that their best chance of success in life lay in creating a sensation. Of what use can it be to create a sensation? Who profits by it? What influence can this sort of thing have upon the morals of a great and vital nation? If Christ with His warnings against worldliness were to come down to-day, after giving Him one hearing the crowd would not crucify Him, they would shoot Him at sight.