lory in the fact that The General's ancestry has never been traced,
so far as I know, beyond his grandfather. I will venture to say,
however, that his forefathers fought with desperation against somebody
at least a thousand years ago. Fighting is an inveterate habit of ours
in England, and another renowned general has just been recommending all
young men to learn to shoot. The constant joy and pride with which our
General always spoke of his mother is a tribute to her excellence, as
well as the best possible record of his own earliest days. Of her he
wrote, in 1893:--

"I had a good mother. So good she has ever appeared to me that I
have often said that all I knew of her life seemed a striking
contradiction of the doctrine of human depravity. In my youth I
fully accepted that doctrine, and I do not deny it now; but my
patient, self-sacrificing mother always appeared to be an exception
to the rule.

"I loved my mother. From infancy to manhood I lived in her. Home
was not home to me without her. I do not remember any single act of
wilful disobedience to her wishes. When my father died I was so
passionately attached to my mother that I can recollect that,
deeply though I felt his loss, my grief was all but forbidden by
the thought that it was not my mother who had been taken from me.
And yet one of the regrets that has followed me to the present
hour is that I did not sufficiently value the treasure while I
possessed it, and that I did not with sufficient tenderness and
assiduity at the time, attempt the impossible task of repaying the
immeasurable debt I owed to that mother's love.

"She was certainly one of the most unselfish beings it has been my
lot to come into contact with. 'Never mind me' was descriptive of
her whole life at every time, in every place, and under every
circumstance. To make others happy was the end of all her thoughts
and aims with regard not only to her children but to her domestics,
and indeed to all who came within her influence. To remove misery
was her delight. No beggar went empty-handed from her door. The
sorrows of any poor wretch were certain of her commiseration, and
of a helping hand in their removal, so far as she had ability. The
children of misfortune were sure of her pity, and the children of
misconduct she pitied almost the more, because, for on