Perfectly Disengaged from Himself.
I think of all the great statesmen I have known the Duke of Devonshire was the most persuasive speaker; and he was persuasive because he never attempted to conceal the strength of the case against him. … What made the Duke of Devonshire persuasive to friends and foes alike was that when he came before the House of Commons or any other Assembly, he told them the processes through which his own mind had gone in arriving at the conclusion at which he ultimately had arrived. Every man felt that this was no rhetorical device, but that he had shown in clear and unmistakable terms the very intimate processes by which he had arrived at the conclusion which he then honestly supported without fear or favour, without dread of criticism, without hope of applause. … In the Cabinet, in the House of Commons, in the House of Lords, on the public platform, wherever it was, every man said, ‘Here is one addressing us who has done his best to master every aspect of this question, who has been driven by logic to arrive at certain conclusions, and who is disguising from us no argument on either side which either weighed with him or moved him to come to the conclusion at which he has arrived. How can we hope to have a more clear-sighted or honest guide in the course we ought to pursue?’ That was the secret of his great strength as an orator.
- A.J. Balfour
The Duke of Devonshire showed his working out. He’s a Duke. He’s in the Cabinet. The House of Commons. The House of Lords. He’s oozing positional power. He could easily declare: ‘It is thus so!’
But the Duke showed his working out.
‘Without dead of criticism or hope of applause’.
After his death, it was said he:
… was a man whose like we shall never see again; he stood by himself and could have come from no country in the world but England. He had the figure and appearance of an artisan, with the brevity of a peasant, the courtesy of a king and the noisy sense of humour of a Falstaff. He gave a great, wheezy guffaw at all the right things and was possessed of endless wisdom. He was perfectly disengaged from himself, fearlessly truthful and without pettiness of any kind.
‘Perfectly disengaged from himself.’