However, I do not want to speak too much of his politics, partly because
my aim is to be uncontroversial, and still more because his personal
character is far more likely to interest my readers than any diagnosis
of the politician.
The qualities of heart and head, which I have described, were not
learned by me through Mr. Chamberlain's public form, but through a close
study at first hand. From the year 1887 or '88 till the Tariff Reform
controversy, I was on very intimate terms, social as well as political,
with Mr. Chamberlain. I think he was fond of me. I know I was fond of
him. I expect he thought I was a little too cool, or, as he might have
said, not keen enough, just as I thought him inclined to be too zealous
a partisan,--too ready to push party conditions to the uttermost. Yet
both of us, and that is after all the great thing in friendship, felt
the sense of personal attraction.
He was among other things one of the most delightful of companions. To
see him, as I so often did, in his house in the country set at the edge
of a great city,--that best describes Highbury,--was a delightful
experience. The house-parties at the Whitsuntide and Easter recesses,
which lasted double the length of ordinary Saturday to Monday parties,
were most attractive.
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