me General Sir Henry William Gordon, already
alluded to as the author of "Events in the Life of Charles George
Gordon." Charlie Gordon, to use the name by which the subject of this
memoir was always known among his friends, was a delicate lad, and,
perhaps for this reason, was the special favourite of his mother, who
appears to have been a fond parent and a sensible woman. She was always
proud of her boy, and once or twice even annoyed him by speaking of him
in terms of praise to others.

The Gordon family seems to have been a very happy one, which to a great
extent must have been the result of the mother's influence. One only
needs to read the published "Letters of General Gordon to his Sister"
to see how passionately fond the two were of each other. It might well
have been Gordon that Browning had in his mind when he said--

"I think, am sure, a brother's love exceeds
All the world's love in its unworldliness."

A few lines from a letter of one of his brothers, written from the
Crimea, show the fond and almost parental care that the elder exhibited
on behalf of the younger brother. The extract is as follows:--"Only a
few lines to say Charlie is all right, and has escaped amidst a
terrific shower of grape and shells of every description. You may
imagine the suspense I was kept in until assured of his safety."

Like all soldiers' sons, Gordon when young had plenty of opportunities
of moving about and seeing different parts of the world. In many ways
this roving life is disadvantageous to a lad, as in after years he can
never look back to one spot as his home, and consequently he can never
localise the charming associations connected with that word. A boy also
suffers considerably by being moved from one school to another. On the
other hand, his wits, as a rule, get sharpened by contact with new
people and new circumstances. Before Gordon was seven years old, he had
accompanied his father on successive moves to Dublin, and to Leith
Fort. In 1840 he went to Corfu, where his father was in command of the
Royal Artillery. It was here the Duke of Cambridge first made his
acquaintance, as they occupied quarters next to each other, and His
Royal Highness, just forty-five years afterwards, after Gordon's death,
said in a speech at the Mansion House, that he remembered the little
lad then. As Gordon returned to England with his mother at the age of
ten, the fact that the Commander-in-Chief remembered him at all is
ano