These letters were now a cause of anxiety to him. His procedure in
writing them had been, of course, entirely correct. It is the business
of a party leader to persuade. But he had warned Oliver from the
beginning that only portions of them could or should be used in the
informal negotiations they were meant to help. Ferrier had always been
incorrigibly frank in his talk or correspondence with Marsham, ever
since the days when as an Oxford undergraduate, bent on shining at the
Union, Oliver had first shown an interest in politics, and had found in
Ferrier, already in the front rank, the most stimulating of teachers.
These remarkable letters accordingly contained a good deal of the
caustic or humorous discussion of Parliamentary personalities, in which
Ferrier--Ferrier at his ease--excelled; and many passages, besides, in
connection with the measures desired by the Left Wing of the party,
steeped in the political pessimism, whimsical or serious, in which
Ferrier showed perhaps his most characteristic side at moments of
leisure or intimacy; while the moods expressed in outbreaks of the kind
had little or no effect on his pugnacity as a debater or his skill as a
party strategist, in face of the enemy.
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