What with deafness, ignorance of French, and Bismarck's extraordinary mode of speech, Beaconsfield has the dimmest idea of what is going on—understands everything crossways—and imagines a perpetual conspiracy.
On the Congress of Berlin
letter to Lady Salisbury, 23 June 1878; Lady Gwendolen Cecil Life of Robert, Marquis of Salisbury (1921–32)
