Always he expresses his views with modesty, and
sometimes with healthy good-humour, disposed to take life cheerfully,
never moved to mistake a molehill for a mountain, always quietly certain
that he is on the right road, whatever critics may care to say about his
pace.
It is perhaps unreasonable to expect height and depth where there is
excessive breadth. The Archbishop might make a bad captain, but he could
have few rivals as an umpire. He is an admirable judge if an indifferent
advocate.
His grave earnestness is balanced by a conviction that humour is not
without a serious purpose. He looks upon life in the average, avoiding
all abnormality, and he sees the average with a genial smile. He
thoroughly appreciates the oddities of English character, and would ask
with Gladstone, "In what country except ours (as I know to have
happened) would a Parish Ball have been got up in order to supply funds
for a Parish Hearse?"
His attitude to the excitements and sensations of the passing day may be
gathered from a simple incident. During the most heady days of the War,
that is to say, days when people made least use of their heads, I
encountered him at the country-house of a well-known statesman. One
morning, while we were being lined up for a photograph, the boar-hound
of our host came and forced himself between the Archbishop and myself.
"What would the newspapers say," exclaimed the Archbishop in my ear, "if
they knew that his name is--_Kaiser_!"
In this manner he regards all sensational excitement of every kind.
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