If I ruled the world, I’d have every person who aspires to be a writer, politician or any kind of thought leader read this essay at least once a year. In this piece, Orwell models clarity, honesty, and humility while performing what for many is an impossible task: He takes the measure of a man who in many ways is his polar opposite and gives this complicated man his due. Here you find none of the thundering, blustering certainty that makes most political discourse today unbearable; instead, you see a great writer trying to follow the truth wherever it seems to lead.