gallant heart you kept up under it, the cheery face you put upon it, and the uncomplaining and confiding patience with which you bore it all, has filled me with a respect for your character and admiration for your conduct, which, if I were fully to express them, you would perhaps suspect me of flattery.
'In the hope of one day paying my respects to you in quieter times than the past, and some pleasanter place than Pesháwar, I am, etc., Dalhousie.'
To John Lawrence, during his serious fever in 1850, Lord Dalhousie wrote as follows[1]: 'I have not plagued you with any letter since I heard of your illness. I need not say how deeply and truly I grieved to learn the severe attack you have suffered, and how anxious I shall be to learn again that you are improving during your march, and that you are not foolishly impeding your recovery by again returning to work. I am terrified at the thought of your being compelled to give up work and go home for a time, and I plead with you to spare yourself for a time as earnestly as I would plead to save my own right hand. Two of you have been working hard enough, Heaven knows, for the third: let the other two now take their turn
- ↑ I quote this letter from Bosworth Smith's Life of Lord Lawrence, vol. i, p. 311, ed. 1885: a work to which both in this and other chapters I am much indebted for an insight into Lord Dalhousie's private character and public policy.
