ABSTRACT
John Morgan When Lord Morley became Lord President of the Council,1 and was asked by Mr Thomas Hardy, at a luncheon party in Downing Street, what books he had been reading lately, he was met with the lofty reply, ‘I never read anything’. At that moment Lord Morley the politician had John Morley the man of letters under strict lock and key. He was keeping up the appearances of a man of action. Mr Hardy’s gentle ironic comment is too good to be lost – I hope he will forgive me for repeating it: ‘He seemed to draw an invisible ermine about him as though he were a sporting peer who never read anything but the Pink ’Un’ (p. 31).2
