"The Victorian Age was in its essence liberal, a time of continuous progress in humanity, in enlightenment, in the welfare of the masses; a time in which an aristocracy was, on the whole, in power but was continually resigning its privileges or extending them to classes hitherto excluded. The statesmen of that time thought of themselves not as leaders of a class, but rather as ‘Shepherds of the People’, concerned with the good of the flock but somewhat aloof from it. Men like Peel and Gladstone made a definite impression of greatness, both in character and intellect, and Asquith was emphatically in the same tradition."
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'Asquith's Achievements as a Statesman', The Listener (18 September 1952), p. 452
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gilbert_Murray
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Gilbert Murray
George Gilbert Aimé Murray, OM, FBA (2 January 1866 – 20 May 1957) was an Australian-born British classical scholar and public intellectual, with connections in many spheres. He was an outstanding scholar of the language and culture of Ancient Greece, perhaps the leading authority in the first half of the twentieth century. He is the basis for the character of Adolphus Cusins in his friend George Bernard Shaw's play Major Barbara, and also appears as the chorus figure in Tony Harrison's play Fra
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