"He was indeed, more than almost any man I have known, free from petty jealousies and personal vanities. Indeed, partly owing to his dislike for urban life and his consequent perpetual wish to get out of office, he was politically completely disinterested. For all the years in which he was connected with the Foreign Office, I don't think there was a single day in which he would not have welcomed resignation. He held office because he thought it his duty to do so, and for no other reason. This conception that he was there to do a certain job which it would be cowardly for him to abandon was always present with him. Until he had been released by the action of others he could not go."