Would love to think so, so thanks for your comment, but the reason is prosaic. It was triggered by archiving of all my posts in a new format. More news about that shortly.
I've got a new research topic for you, doc. I've just come across a comment by Lloyd George about Sir Edward Grey. The Welsh Wizard opined that while Grey had a high intelligence it was of a commonplace texture.
So there you have it; investigate the textures of high intelligences.
Literary, intelligent, principled, handsome, reformist, enlightened and direct, Grey was a high representative of his culture. He was what the world meant by an English gentleman. He had strong abilities and a sense of duty. There is almost no one like him in modern politics, and that is a bad thing. Grey is the classic example of the politician with a ''hinterland’’. Michael Waterhouse, who is clearly at home in the same territory, explains very well exactly how Grey caught his salmon, organised his ''duck dinner’’ by which he fed his birds each night at Fallodon, or listened intently to the stone curlew. He lets Grey, who wrote beautifully about such things, speak in these pages. Yet one ends up having some sympathy with the great villain of this book, David Lloyd George, who said that Grey mistook ''correctitude for rectitude’’ and did not rise to the challenge of war. For all Grey’s appealing qualities, there is something strange about a public man who so fiercely preferred rural remoteness to his actual job. It is as if his disposition was too nervous ever to engage completely with his great task. His type was honourable, but it did not resist failure enough; and so, at last, and in a huge catastrophe, it failed. Edwardian Requiem: A Life of Sir Edward Grey by Michael Water house (Biteback)
I think he had plenty of "texture" but was too self effacing in personality. Choosing a wife without having sex first was his least intelligent decision.
Because you're awesome, and i appreciate a serious blog about serious things done well. Especially in light of what passes for 'news' these days.
ReplyDeleteWould love to think so, so thanks for your comment, but the reason is prosaic. It was triggered by archiving of all my posts in a new format. More news about that shortly.
ReplyDeleteI've got a new research topic for you, doc. I've just come across a comment by Lloyd George about Sir Edward Grey. The Welsh Wizard opined that while Grey had a high intelligence it was of a commonplace texture.
ReplyDeleteSo there you have it; investigate the textures of high intelligences.
Literary, intelligent, principled, handsome, reformist, enlightened and direct, Grey was a high representative of his culture. He was what the world meant by an English gentleman. He had strong abilities and a sense of duty. There is almost no one like him in modern politics, and that is a bad thing. Grey is the classic example of the politician with a ''hinterland’’.
ReplyDeleteMichael Waterhouse, who is clearly at home in the same territory, explains very well exactly how Grey caught his salmon, organised his ''duck dinner’’ by which he fed his birds each night at Fallodon, or listened intently to the stone curlew. He lets Grey, who wrote beautifully about such things, speak in these pages. Yet one ends up having some sympathy with the great villain of this book, David Lloyd George, who said that Grey mistook ''correctitude for rectitude’’ and did not rise to the challenge of war.
For all Grey’s appealing qualities, there is something strange about a public man who so fiercely preferred rural remoteness to his actual job. It is as if his disposition was too nervous ever to engage completely with his great task. His type was honourable, but it did not resist failure enough; and so, at last, and in a huge catastrophe, it failed.
Edwardian Requiem: A Life of Sir Edward Grey by Michael Water
house (Biteback)
I think he had plenty of "texture" but was too self effacing in personality. Choosing a wife without having sex first was his least intelligent decision.
Timing looks like perhaps your "Islam Calling" series.
ReplyDelete