Cromer used to say that the reason for this was a very plain one. The
difficulty with most officials, and especially with men in the Army, was
that they so often did not attain to positions of real responsibility,
and where they had to take the initiative, till their minds had been
atrophied by official routine and by the fact that they had simply
carried out other people's orders, and not to think or act for
themselves. It was different with a young man who at the most
impressionable time of life had not only been under the influence of a
great man, but had seen great affairs absolutely at first hand and not
dressed up in official memoranda. Again, the Private Secretary saw the
whole of them and not merely departmental fragments.
It was no doubt this fact which made Hay a great Ambassador and a great
Secretary of State. He had not only had the magnificent education which
was received by the whole of Lincoln's personal staff, the inspiration,
intellectual, moral, and political, which a man like Lincoln spreads
around him, but he had seen at their very source the great affairs of
home, war, and foreign politics.
He had seen how great questions arise and how hard it is to settle them;
how they go wrong through accidents, or delay, or negligence, how
necessary it is to prevent the rise of prejudice, selfishness, and folly
in their handling.
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