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have been acceptable both to His Exalted
Highness and the Resident, and the Government
of India would probably have approved of the
selection. He was known to be a person of
character and a loyal friend of the Empire and he
had friends in the India Council who had a good
opinion of him. I find that the Home Secretary,
Lord Brentford, wrote to him: " You should
be at the head of your State." And he had,
I believe, spoken to Lord Reading. Some of
his friends in England had also conveyed to
Lord Lytton their high estimation of his ability,
learning and culture.
" My friend, Sir Faridoon, often reproached
me, ' You hide your light under a bushel/
Perhaps what he meant was that I was not eager
to get to the top of the official ladder. He did
not know, and I did not tell him, that my
ambition was too great to be so easily satisfied —
it was to feel that I was not chasing worldly
vanities,. Men make their whole life a vain
} pursuit of some fancied good ; and ambition —
! whether of power, of high rank, or wealth, or of
| distinction and eminence—is only a lure."
" Some time after Sir Ali Imam's departure
from Hyderabad, a friend—one of my colleagues
of the Council, asked me, ' Why does not His
Exalted Highness make you President ? ' My
reply was, 'I don't want it.' But what His
Exalted Highness' intentions were I had no
reliable means of knowing, though vague
rumours and palace whispers made people