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Yet he followed the career of Madame de Stael, and never managed to quite get her out of his life. Once, in his later years, he referred to her as that “cold and trifling daughter of France’s greatest financier.” He admired the father more than he loved the daughter.

For twenty-four years Pitt piloted England’s Ship of State. There were constant head-winds, and now and again shifting gales of fierce opposition, and all the time a fat captain to pacify and appease. This captain was stupid, sly, obstinate and insane by turns, and to run the ship and still allow the captain to believe that he was in command was the problem that confronted Pitt. And that he succeeded as well as any living man could, there is no doubt.

During the reign of Pitt, England lost the American Colonies. This was not a defeat for England: it was Destiny. England preserved her independence by cutting the cable that bound her to us.

The life of Pitt was a search for power–to love, wealth and fame he was indifferent.

He was able to manage successfully the finances of a nation, but his own were left in a sorry muddle: at his death it took forty thousand pounds to cause him to be worth nothing. His debts were paid by the nation. And this indifference to his own affairs was put forth at the time as proof of his probity and excellence. We think now that it marked his limitations. His income for twenty years preceding his death was about fifty thousand dollars a year. One hour a day in auditing accounts with his butler would have made all secure. He had neither wife, child nor dependent kinsmen, yet it was found that his household consumed nine hundred pounds of meat a week and enough beer to float a ship. For a man to waste his own funds in riotous living is only a trifle worse than to allow others to do the same.

Literature, music and art owe little to Pitt: only lovers care for beauty–the sensuous was not for him. He knew the Classics, spoke French like a Parisian, reveled in history, had no confidants, and loved one friend–Wilberforce.

Pictures of Pitt by Reynolds and Gainsborough reveal a face commonplace in feature save for the eye–“the most brilliant eye ever seen in a human face.” In describing the man, one word always seems to creep in, the word “haughty.” That the man was gentle, kind and even playful among the few who knew him best, there is no doubt. The austerity of his manner was the inevitable result of an ambition the sole aim of which was to dictate the policy of a great nation. All save honor was sacrificed to this end, and that the man was successful in his ambition, there is no dispute.

When he died, aged forty-seven, he was by popular acclaim the greatest Englishman of his time, and the passing years have not shaken that proud position.