IN RETIREMENT
" The post of honour is a private station.9'
Though his conspicuous ability and his con-
scientious discharge of his duties were fully
appreciated by His Exalted Highness, Sir Nizamat
Jung did not clmg_ _tp office. He was eager to
retire before his faculties became enfeebled, so
that he might devote the remaining years of his
life to congenial work and contemplation and
enjoy that calm and contented existence which is
the goal of the philosopher. The 'inconvenient
vanities ' of official life sometimes made him ex-
claim with impatience, " I doubt if a man's spirit
can get a fair chance of expressing its real self
when overladen with gilded matter/'
A man whose thoughts do not follow the
beaten track is apt to be misunderstood by people,
and Nizamat Jung was sometimes misunderstood.
But he only smiled and went his way, thinking
and doing much that was beyond their ken. I
have seen a diary kept by him in 1926. It was
one of the busiest periods, when there were heavy
clouds on the political horizon of Hyderabad ; but
still Virgil and Firdausi were not neglected !
Being at that time personal assistant to Col.
Sir Richard Chenevix Trench, I knew how much
he tried to dissuade Nizamat Jung, his colleague
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