Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War

by Robert K. Massie

Balfour had learned from science that, set against the immensities of time, man was a puny, transitory creature. His view of man’s ultimate fate was bleak: “Imperishable monuments and immortal deeds, death itself and love stronger than death, will be as though they had never been. The energies of our system will decay, the glory of the sun will be dimmed and the earth, tideless and inert, will no longer tolerate the race which has for a moment disturbed its solitude. Man will go down into the pit and all his thoughts will perish. The uneasy consciousness, which in this obscure corner has for a brief space broken the contented silence of the universe, will be at rest.”

Every year, Balfour dedicated an entire month (usually August) to the then new sport. Tory aristocrats and country gentlemen snorted at their leader’s middle-class recreations; men who killed birds and rode to the hounds had trouble understanding a man who wobbled about on bicycles and played “this damned Scottish croquet.”

the dawn of golf