Part 42 (1/2)
[Sidenote: Last letter.]
You will not expect (he wrote, in this his last letter) to hear much from me by this mail when you hear how I am situated. The Hill expedition, of which I gave you some of the details in my last, had an unexpected effect upon me; knocking me down prostrate to begin with, with some symptoms of an anxious character behind, which require looking into. The nature and extent of the mischief are not sufficiently ascertained yet to enable me to say positively whether my power of doing my duty is likely to be in any degree impaired by what has happened. But Lady Elgin has brought up from Calcutta the medical man who attended me there, and he arrived this morning; so that a consultation will take place without delay. Meanwhile I have got over the immediate effects sufficiently to enable me to do such business as comes before me now. No change has taken place in our plans. We move rather more slowly, and I have given up the idea of going to Peshawur; but this is rather occasioned by the desire to confer with the Punjab Government, while these affairs on the frontier are in progress, than by my mishap.
I think that the expedition (against the Sitana fanatics) will be a success; and I labour incessantly to urge the necessity of confining its objects to the first intentions. Plausible reasons for enlarging the scope of such adventures are never wanting; but I shall endeavour to keep this within its limits.
Lady Elgin is bearing up courageously, under a great pressure of labour and anxiety.
The sad story of what follows cannot be told in other words than those in which it has already been given to the world, with all the skill of an artist combined with the tenderness of a brother, and with that fulness of authentic detail which only one source could supply.[4]
'Although he had suffered often from the unhealthy and depressing climate of Calcutta during the summer and autumn of 1862, and thus, to the eyes that saw him again in 1863, he looked many years older than when he left England, yet it was not till he entered the Hills that any symptom manifested itself of the fatal malady that was lurking under his apparently stout frame and strong const.i.tution. The splendid scenery of those vast forests and snow-clad mountains inspired him with the liveliest pleasure; but the highly rarefied atmosphere, which to most residents in India is as life from the dead, seemed in him to have the exactly reverse effect.
'It was on the 12th of October that he ascended the Rotung Pa.s.s, and on the 13th he crossed the famous Twig Bridge over the river Chandra. It is remarkable for the rude texture of birch branches of which it is composed, and which, at this late season, was so rent and shattered by the wear and tear of the past year as to render the pa.s.sage of it a matter of great exertion. Lord Elgin was completely prostrated by the effort, and it may be said that from the exhaustion consequent on this adventure he never rallied. But he returned to his camp, and continued his march on horseback, until, on the 22nd, an alarming attack obliged him to be carried, by slow stages, to Dhurmsala. There he was joined, on the 4th of November, by his friend and medical adviser, Dr. Macrae, who had been summoned from Calcutta, on the first alarming indications of his illness. By this time the disorder had declared itself in such a form as to cause the most serious apprehensions to others, as well as to himself the most distressing sufferings. There had been a momentary rally, during which the fact of his illness had been communicated to England. But this pa.s.sed away; and on the 6th of November Dr. Macrae came to the conclusion that the illness was mortal. This intelligence, which he communicated at once to Lord Elgin, was received with a calmness and fort.i.tude which never deserted him through all the scenes which followed. It was impossible not to be struck by the courage and presence of mind with which, in the presence of a death unusually terrible, and accompanied by circ.u.mstances unusually trying, he showed, in equal degrees and with the most unvarying constancy, two of the grandest elements of human character--unselfish resignation of himself to the will of G.o.d, and thoughtful consideration, down to the smallest particulars, for the interests and feelings of others, both public and private.
'When once he had satisfied himself, by minute inquiries from Dr. Macrae, of the true state of the case, after one deep, earnest, heartfelt regret that he should thus suddenly be parted from those nearest and dearest, to whom his life was of such inestimable importance, and that he should be removed just as he had prepared himself to benefit the people committed to his charge, he steadily set his face heavenward. He was startled, he was awed; he felt it ”hard, hard, to believe that his life was condemned;” but there was no looking backward. Of the officers of his staff he took an affectionate leave on that day. ”It is well,” he said to one of them, ”that I should die in harness.” And thenceforth he saw no one habitually, except Dr. Macrae, who combined with his medical skill the tenderness and devotion at once of a friend and of a pastor; his attached secretary, Mr. Thurlow, who had rendered him the most faithful services, not only through the period of his Indian Vice-royalty, but during his last mission to China; and Her who had shared his every thought, and whose courageous spirit now rose above the weakness of the fragile frame, equal to the greatness of the calamity, and worthy of him to whom, by night and day, she constantly ministered.
'On the following day, the clergyman whom he had ordered to be summoned, and for whose arrival he waited with much anxiety, reached Dhurmsala, and administered the Holy Communion to himself and those with him. ”We are now entering on a New Communion,” he had said that morning, ”the Living and the Dead,” and his spirit then appeared to master pain and weakness, and to sustain him in a holy calm during the ceremony, and for a few hours afterwards. ”It is a comfort,” he whispered, ”to have laid aside all the cares of this world, and put myself in the hands of G.o.d;” and he was able to listen at intervals to favourite pa.s.sages from the New Testament. That evening closed in with an aggravation of suffering. It was the evening of the seventeenth anniversary of his wedding-day.
'On the following morning, Lady Elgin, with his approval, rode up to the cemetery at Dhurmsala to select a spot for his grave; and he gently expressed pleasure when told of the quiet and beautiful aspect of the spot chosen, with the glorious view of the snowy range towering above, and the wide prospect of hill and plain below.
'The days and nights of the fortnight which followed were a painful alternation of severe suffering and rare intervals of comparative tranquillity. They were soothed by the never-failing devotion of those that were always at hand to read to him or to receive his remarks. He often asked to hear chosen chapters from the Book of Isaiah (as the 40th and 55th), sometimes murmuring over to himself any striking verses that they contained, and at other times repeating by heart favourite Psalms. At times he delighted to hear his little girl, who had been the constant companion of his travels, repeat some of Keble's hymns, especially those on the festivals of St. John the Evangelist and of the Holy Innocents.
'Until his strength failed him, he was carried at times into the verandah, and showed by words and looks his constant admiration at the grand evidences of G.o.d's power and goodness in the magnificence of the scenery before him; and on one such occasion was delighted with the sublime description of the wonders of nature in the 38th and 39th chapters of the Book of Job.
'At times he was able to enter into conversation and argument on serious subjects. When, under the pressure of his sufferings, he was one night entreating to be released--”O that G.o.d would in mercy come and take me”-- Dr. Macrae reminded him of the dread of pain and death which seems to be expressed in the account of the Agony of Gethsemane, and he appeared to find much comfort in the thought, repeating once or twice that he had not seen it in this light before, and several times saying with fervour, ”Not my will, but Thine be done.” At other times, he could even be led, by way of steadying his wandering thoughts amidst the distraction of restlessness, to fix them on his school and college days, to tell anecdotes of his hard reading, or to describe the visit to Oxford of his venerable friend Dr.
Chalmers. He dwelt in this way on a sermon of Dr. Chalmers at Glasgow, which he remembered even in detail, and from which he quoted some eloquent pa.s.sages, bringing out the general scope of the sermon, to the effect that, rather than teach people to hate this bad world, we should teach them to love and look up to a better one.[5]
'It will naturally be understood that long converse was nearly impossible.
As occasions rose, a few words were breathed, an appropriate verse quoted, and a few minutes were all that could be given at any one time to discourse upon it. It is characteristic of his strong, cheerful faith, even during those last trying moments, that he on one occasion asked to have the more supplicatory, penitential Psalms exchanged for those of praise and thanksgiving, in which he joined, knowing them already by heart; and in the same strain of calm yet triumphant hope, he whispered to himself on the night when his alarming state was first made known to him, ”Hallelujah; the Lord G.o.d Omnipotent reigneth. We shall all meet again.”
'That thought was raised to its highest pitch by the sight of a portrait of a beloved son, who had died in England during his absence. It arrived in the close of those sad days. He recognised it with a burst of tenderness and delight which at once lifted his mind above the suffering of his mortal illness. Again and again he desired to see it, and to speak of it, with the fixed conviction that he and his ”angel boy,” as he called him, would soon meet in a better world. ”Oh, when shall I be with you?” ”You know where he is; we shall all go to him; he is happy.”
'Every care had been taken for the public interests, and for the interests of those still nearer and dearer to him. He had laid the most solemn charge on his faithful secretary to conduct Lady Elgin home on her mournful and solitary voyage. He had given to Dr. Macrae, with the tenderest marks of affection, a turquoise ring: ”We have had a long struggle together; keep this in memory of it.” He had dictated a telegram to the Queen resigning his office, with a request that his successor might be immediately appointed.
'With this exception, public affairs seem to have faded from his mind. ”I must resign myself to doing no work. I have not sufficient control over my thoughts. I have washed my hands of it all.” But it was remarkable that, as the end drew nearer, the keen sense of public duty once more flashed up within him. It was on the 19th that he could not help expressing his wonder what was meant by his long lingering; and once, half wandering, he whispered, ”If I did not die, I might get to Lah.o.r.e, and carry out the original programme.” Later on in the day he sent for Mr. Thurlow, and desired that a message should be sent, through Sir Charles Wood, expressive of his love and devotion to the Queen, and of his determination to do his work to the last possible moment. His voice, faint and inaudible at first, gained strength with the earnestness of the words which came forth as if direct from his heart, and which, as soon as p.r.o.nounced, left him prostrate with the exertion. He begged, at the same time, that his ”best blessing”
might be sent to the Secretaries of the Indian Government, and also a private message to Sir Charles Wood in England.