by every form of tyranny.

This spirit of the intuitional reformer, who feels cruelty and wrong
like a pain in his own blood, is still present in Mr. Lloyd George, but
it is no longer the central passion of his life. It is, rather, an
aside: as it were a memory that revives only in leisure hours. On
several occasions he has spoken to me of the sorrows and sufferings of
humanity with an unmistakable sympathy. I remember in particular one
occasion on which he told me the story of his boyhood: it was a moving
narrative, for never once did he refer to his own personal deprivations,
never once express regret for his own loss of powerful encouragements in
the important years of boyhood. The story was the story of his widowed
mother and of her heroic struggle, keeping house for her shoemaking
brother-in-law on the little money earned by the old bachelor's village
cobbling, to save sixpence a week--sixpence to be gratefully returned to
him on Saturday night. "That is the life of the poor!" he exclaimed
earnestly. Then he added with bitterness, "And when I try to give them
five shillings a week in their old age I am called the 'Cad of the
Cabinet'!"

Nothing in his life is finer than the struggle he waged with the Liberal
Cabinet during his days as Chancellor of the Exchequer. The private
opposition he encountered in Downing Street, the hatred and contempt of
some of his Liberal colleagues, was exceeded on the other side of
politics only in the violent mind of Sir Edward Carson. Even the gentle
John Morley was troubled by his hot insistences. "I had better go," he
said to Mr. Lloyd George; "I am getting old: I have nothing now for you
but criticism." To which the other replied, "Lord Morley, I would sooner
have your criticism than the praise of any man living"--a perfectly
sincere remark, sincere, I mean, with the emotionalism of the moment.