" If we may be
permitted to say anything, we expect he will be leading by at least a
couple of lengths.
The versatility and inventive genius of the Prime Minister provoke mingled
comment. An old Parliamentarian, when asked to what party Mr. Lloyd George
now belonged, recently answered: "He used to be a Radical; he will some day
be a Conservative; and at present he is the leader of the Improvisatories."
_December, 1917_.
It seems useless to attempt to cope with the staggering multiplicity of
events crowded into the last few weeks. Jerusalem captured in this last
crusade, which realises the dream of Coeur de Lion; Russia "down and out"
as a result of the armistice and the Brest-Litovsk Conference; Germany's
last colony conquered in East Africa; Lord Lansdowne's letter; the
retirement of Lord Jellicoe; while in one single week Cuba has declared war
on Austria, the Kaiser has threatened to make a Christmas peace offer, and
Mr. Bernard Shaw has described himself as "a mere individual." We have
traversed the whole gamut of sensation from the sublime and tragic to the
ridiculous; and Armageddon, vulgarised by the vulgar repetition of the
journalist, has redeemed its significance in the dispatches from our
Palestine front. The simplicity and dignity of General Allenby's entry into
the Syrian town--
Where on His grave with shining eyes
The Syrian stars look down--
afford a happy contrast to the boastful pagentry of the Kaiser's visit in
1898.
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