"His drawback as a leader during times of frenzied anxiety was a concomitant of his two strongest points: his immunity from the contagion of excitement, and his instinct to think things over by himself. There is a passage in one of his later letters in which he says there are three kinds of men: those who can think when they are by themselves—they are the salt of the earth—those who can only think when they are writing and talking, and those who cannot think at all—they, of course, are the majority. He was a man who did his thinking alone. To talk while he was still making up his mind was repugnant to him. In war, when the urgency of this or that measure is vividly brought home to those in immediate contact with one aspect and everybody is seething with projects and suggestions, self-withdrawn composure is apt to be exasperating, and the habit of postponing discussion to undermine a nervous confidence. Mr. Winston Churchill, in his article on Lord Oxford, gave an example of the surprise it was to find, after imagining that Lord Oxford had dismissed some urgent matter from his mind, that he had all the time thought it over and reached a conclusion upon it. Conversation did not help him, but when he met others in council they found that he was prepared."