However, the lessons learned were considered anticlimactic and dispiriting. The Guardian criticised it for "lacking in sense of place" and "dispiriting banality". Rosebery became more alienated by the Home Rule policy, dispiriting the moderates. Yet, ultimately this is a dispiriting read. The election proved to be a dispiriting defeat for Scullin. Tending to the "less exotic struggles" of the urban poor had been a dispiriting experience. He found "Queer Science" to be a dispiriting comment about the state of science.