n so abundantly culled from any of his visits to any
country had we not been so anxious to select from the small space at our
disposal what was most important.

Nor have we wished to present the reader with the portrait of an
infallible genius, or a saint who never said or did anything that he
afterwards regretted. A victim almost all his life to extreme
indigestion, it is indeed to all who knew him best marvellous that he
could endure so much of misery without more frequently expressing in
terms of unpleasant frankness his irritation at the faults and mistakes
of others. But really after his death as during his life we have been
far too busy in trying to help in accomplishing his great lifework to
note these details of human frailty.

Chapter XXIV

The End

It seems almost impossible to describe the ending of The General's life,
because there was not even the semblance of an end within a week of his
death.

The last time I talked with him, just as I was leaving for Canada in
January, he for the first time made a remark that indicated a doubt of
his continuance in office. He hardly hinted at death; but, referring to
the sensations of exhaustion he had felt a few days previously, he said:
"I sometimes fancy, you know, that I may be getting to a halt, and
then"--with his usual pause when he was going to tease--"we shall have a
chance to see what some of you can do!"

We laughed together, and I went off expecting to hear of his fully
recovering his activity "after the operation," to which we were always
looking forward. Oh, that operation! It was to be the simplest thing in
the world, when the eye was just ready for it, as simple and as complete
a deliverance from blindness as the other one had seemed, for a few
days, to be. But this time he would be fully warned, and most cautious
after it, and I really fancied the joy he would have after so long an
eclipse.

It seemed to me that he never realised how great his own blindness
already was, so strong was his resolution to make the best of it, and so
eager his perception, really by other means, of everything he could in
any way notice. We had difficulty in remembering that he really could
not see when he turned so rapidly towards anybody approaching him or
whose voice he recognised!

To Colonel Kitching during this dark period he wrote one day: "Anybody
can believe in the sunshine. We, that is you and I and a few more of
whom we know, ought to be desperat