English Government officials have before now been jeered at as men of routine, but the most ancient clerk in Somerset House is a man of wild impulse and boundless expedient compared with the average of functionaries great and small here.

The want of "shiftiness" is a national characteristic.

The French are like a flock of sheep without shepherds or sheep-dogs.

Soldiers and civilians have no idea of anything except doing what they are ordered to do by some functionary.

Let one wheel in an administration get out of order, and everything goes wrong.