In Albert's eyes Palmerston was a coarse, reckless egotist, whose combined arrogance and ignorance must inevitably have their issue in folly and disaster.

Nothing could be more antipathetic to him than a mind so strangely lacking in patience, in reflection, in principle, and in the habits of ratiocination.

For to him it was intolerable to think in a hurry, to jump to slapdash decisions, to act on instincts that could not be explained.

Everything must be done in due order, with careful premeditation; the premises of the position must first be firmly established; and he must reach the correct conclusion by a regular series of rational steps.

In complicated questions--and what questions, rightly looked at, were not complicated ?--to commit one's thoughts to paper was the wisest course, and it was the course which Albert, laborious though it might be, invariably adopted.