He had no taste; but the impression he made on those who had was the impression of a great character.
How was it that his greatness, that is to say his greatness of personality, made so pitiable an end?
What was lacking that this indubitable greatness should have been so easily brayed in the mortar of politics?
The answer I think is this: a single virtue can bestow greatness, and the greatness may never fail when it has time and space in which to express itself; but many virtues of intellect and character are necessary when time is of the essence of the contract, and more especially in a situation of shared responsibility.
Lord Kitchener knew many of his own failings.

He was by no means a vain man.

Indeed he suffered considerable pain from the knowledge that he was not the tremendous person of the popular imagination.

This knowledge robbed him of self-assurance.

He tried to live up to the legendary Kitchener, and so long as he could find men as brave as himself, but of swifter and more adaptable intelligence, to do his bidding, he succeeded: many of the public, indeed, believed in the legendary Kitchener up to the day of his tragic death--death, that unmistakable reality, meeting him on a journey, the object of which was to impress Russia with the legendary Kitchener.