Summary
[Y]ou revive a record which should have made co-operation impossible – until it had been repented of in dust and ashes. Having lain down with the dog you get up with his fleas; and the present Controversy seems to me very like an attempt to shake off the fleas of the dog whose bite has given you the hydrophobia of which you are destined to die.
Lawrence Housman to Gilbert Murray, 10 June 1926, Murray MSS, Box 59.Lord Morley: There are some people who would say the man was a cad. Mr G. P. Gooch: But, Lord Morley, surely you would never use a word like that! I have never heard you use that word before. Morley (with some annoyance): But it is a very useful word.
Conversation reported in J. H. Morgan to Strachey, 7 January 1925, Strachey MSS, S/20/1/1.It is only as a postscript that the years after 1922 tend to be contemplated by historians of Liberalism: the crucial events had passed, the important decisions been taken. Yet despite the confident finalities of psephologists, the period rewards examination. Certainly these years are marked by little enough success for the Liberal party; and the failure is compounded by a sordid atmosphere of faction. For all that, the Liberal mind is revealed here in all its breadth of thought and bloodiness of spirit. Perhaps the very fact of division acts as a catalyst in the process; or perhaps the mind is revealed because one question filled it: would the Liberal party accept Lloyd George as its eventual leader?
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- The Liberal Mind 1914-29 , pp. 84 - 116Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1977
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