It led off with the paragraph which has been quoted.

The fact that he allowed anything in any stage of such a negotiation to go out in his name without his own revision marks the loosening of grip--a tired man.
His exertions for the past years, the past ten years at least, had been tremendous: they had been redoubled from 1912 to 1916.

Towards the end, one resource had been failing him--the chief of all.

A leader when he is well followed gives and takes; there is interchange of energy.

For more than a year now Redmond had lacked the moral support, the almost physical stimulus, which comes from the ready response of followers.
Labour at no time came easy to him, there was much inertia in his temperament; and the part which he had laid out for himself in the Convention as merely an individual member did not impose on him the same unremitting vigilance as if he acted as leader.