XIV
about Hyderabad politics may also be brought in inci-
dentally ; but I want my readers chiefly to know you as
a man, and how you were, and still are, a personality above
all the pettiness of our times."
His reply was characteristic. " I feel/' he said," almost
persuaded by your friendly advice to sit for my portrait, not
because I wish to hold myself up to admiration, but to
retrace the path along which I have travelled in life and live
over again those incidents and events which have guided my
course. I may thus be able to help you in what you have so
chivalrously undertaken out of your regard for Truth.
I have been groping in life to find myself and have been
following the light within me and the light reflected from
past ages. A man of this type is not much like a hero in
official uniform. If you wish to find me—and I think you
have already done so to some extent—it must be by means
of personal impressions. These are not deliberately collected
but silently received by minds open to them by force of some
hidden affinity. You will also find useful material in my
friends' letters. And as for my own opinions and beliefs
and the tendencies of my intellectual and moral nature, you
will find enough in my writings to serve as specimens."
Later, he kindly placed at my disposal a large number of
letters which he had received from his English friends in the
course of thirty years and more, and his own writings in
prose and verse. And to this he added—what was still more
valuable for my purpose—extracts from his recollections and
notes containing observations and opinions on various
matters. Thus I found encouragement in my hope to
do some justice to the pleasant task I had undertaken.
He reminded me that " memoirs posthumously published
are sometimes liable to suspicion—especially if they contain
dubious allegations about people who cannot refute them.
Whatever you write about me must be nothing but the
truth, however uncomplimentary to me."
Sir Nizamat Jung has been known as a distinguished
official, but, setting aside the official aspect, I wish to present