Yet he had the
keenest interest, not only in the deeper problems of politics, but also
in the routine and mechanism of the business. He enjoyed a good debate,
liked political society, and was interested in the personalities, the
trivialities, the individual and domestic ins-and-outs, which make so
large a part of political conversation.
But, after all, Politics, in the technical sense, did not afford a
suitable field for his peculiar gifts. It was when he came to the
criticism of national life that the hand of the master was felt. In all
questions affecting national character and tendency, the development of
civilization, public manners, morals, habits, idiosyncrasies, the
influence of institutions, of education, of literature, his insight was
penetrating, his point of view perfectly original, and his judgment, if
not always sound, invariably suggestive. These qualities, among others,
gave to such books as _Essays in Criticism_, _Friendship's Garland_, and
_Culture and Anarchy_, an interest and a value quite independent of
their literary merit.
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