Page:The Marquess of Dalhousie.djvu/41

Rh clearly chiselled nostrils. He had a shapely and most expressive mouth, with long, thin, flexible lips that played in quick answer to every turn of thought and feeling: now compressed with pain or passing annoyance, anon relaxing into perfect sweetness or overflowing humour. To all this may be added a voice so clear, sweet, and musically intoned, that his visitor found its fascination quite irresistible.'

Such was the brilliant young statesman, as portrayed by a friendly but accurate hand, who at the age of thirty-five entered on the great task of governing India. We shall see him, only a short eight years later, when he laid down his office — ''heu! quantum mutatus ab illo'' — a worn-out, crippled old man, tottering down the river bank which he had once ascended with so firm a step, and carrying, as he well knew, his death within him. In narrating the incessant work which he did, I shall say little of the strain which that incessant work meant to his mind and body. He himself maintained, and would have desired, a dignified reticence. But in order to understand the man, it is necessary throughout to bear in memory the magnificent youthful activities which he brought to India, and the havoc which India wrought upon them.

His colleagues and subordinates quickly found that there was a new and imperious will at work