Summary
The Corinthians erected an altar to the unknown God. The Liberals erect their altar to the unknown principle. They write prize poems to it, but they can't tell what it is. They are prepared to be martyrs for their principles if they only could find out what they are.
MacCallum Scott Diary, 11 January 1925.Bishop Butler says in one of his sermons that it is as easy to close the eyes of the mind as of the body. But is it as easy to open them?
Asquith to Murray, 19 November 1926, Murray MSS, Box 3.I remember New Year's eve the old days when we used to open the Gallery doors and listen to the bells across the snow. So many hopes and joys are associated with those days. I really don't think I could bear the contrast. All this, I suppose, would be thought ‘soppy’. I only hope for their sakes that a few soppy-minded people are left in this jazzy world.
Esher to Maurice Brett, 13 January 1928, Journals and Letters of Reginald Viscount Esher, IV (1938), 301–2.Perverse religiosity may be said to have been the theme of this study. Religiosity, because it has been seen to have been a recurring characteristic of the Liberal mind between 1914 and 1929 that it should dwell upon ‘faith’ and ‘principle’ and ‘the straight road’. Perverse, because this concentration on political metaphysics lay at the heart of the Liberal failure to come to terms with the world as it was to be after 1914.
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- The Liberal Mind 1914-29 , pp. 207 - 220Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1977