LET me say that I hope I have not betrayed any con-
fidences in these sketches.

Public men must expect criticism, and no criticism is
so good for them, and therefore for the State, as critic-
ism of character; but their position is difficult, and
they may justly complain when those to whom they
have spoken in the candour of private conversation
make use of such confidences for a public purpose.

If here and there I have in any degree approached
this offence, let me urge two excuses. First, inspired
by a pure purpose I might very easily have said far more
than I have said: and, second, my purpose is neither
to grind my own axe (as witness my anonymity) nor
to inflict personal pain (as witness my effort to be
just in all cases), but truly to raise the tone of our public
life.

It is the conviction that the tone of our public life is
low, and that this low tone is reacting disastrously in
many directions, which has set me about these studies
in political personality.

There is too much dust on the mirrors of Downing
Street for our public men to see themselves as others
see them. Some of that dust is from the war; some

-vii-