To tread the narrow, uphill, and rather stony path of the _via
media_, fretted him. He liked large enterprises and large ways of
carrying them out, and, though it would be a great mistake to call him
imprudent, he was distinctly a man of daring imagination in politics. He
liked to prophesy and to help fulfil his prophecies. He was not content
to wait and watch things grow. He was, indeed, one of the political
gardeners who thoroughly enjoy the forcing-house. If he had been a
grower of vegetables instead of Orchids, he would have dealt, I feel
sure, almost entirely in "_primeurs_."
I can think of no man who used the imaginative faculty more in politics
than he did, except Disraeli, and here, indeed, Mr. Chamberlain had the
advantage. Disraeli was apt to let his imagination run so wild as to
become vulgar, pompous, and ostentatious, whereas Mr. Chamberlain always
kept his visionary schemes within the due bounds of seriousness and
reason. Though I think he placed no limits to the capacity of the
English people to meet and to overcome dangers and difficulties in the
world of politics, and always held them, as, indeed, do I, capable to be
of heroic mould, he never inflated himself or his countrymen on any
subject, but spoke always weightily and with good sense.
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