Page:The house of Cecil.djvu/326

 CECILS

Cecil may be quoted. 1 After speaking of his father's hatred of all hypocrisy and cant, and his contempt for all trivial and unnecessary con- ventionalities, he says :

" It is to this side of his character that belong his so- called ' blazing indiscretions.' These I take to have been not the mere efflorescence of a reckless wit, still less the outcome of a cynical disbelief in lofty ideals, but the result of his anxious desire that those whom he was leading should know, as far as possible, the real opinions of their leader. When he described ' twenty years' resolute government ' as the alternative policy to Home Rule, when he said villagers would find a parish circus more amusing than a parish council, he was not only speaking the literal truth, as subsequent events have proved, but he was deliberately putting before the electors in a striking form an aspect of the question under consideration which he thought important, and which the party managers were anxious to keep in the background. Other mental or moral characteristics for in Lord Salisbury the two were often indistinguishable were no doubt partly responsible for the ' indiscretions.' Himself incapable of self-deception, he thought it the most dangerous of all mental defects. Any phrase or opinion arising from this cause or even from want of clearness of thought he regarded as noxious. And he did not shrink from attacking intellectual insincerity, even though he might wound feelings otherwise entitled to respect."

To which it may be added that he cared less than nothing about public opinion, and, therefore, spoke exactly what he thought, checked by no fear of " what people would say."

1 Monthly Review, October, 1903. The article appeared anony- mously, but has since been acknowledged by Lord R. Cecil

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