283
pass without apparent effort from the study of the lives
of men of action to the inward contemplations of
abstruse philosophers. " Both " acutely fastidious
and widely sympathetic," his " high impersonal ideas "
combined with a remarkable personality "seldom
failed to stimulate other minds—even if those others
shared few, if any, of his intellectual tastes."
Since his retirement from politics he has taken a
conspicuous interest in various reconstructive move-
ments, especially in the rebuilding of what we would
call slum areas ; the former squalor being replaced by
houses „ not merely convenient, but architecturally
pleasing. In life and literature he has always been the
sworn foe of ugliness.
During the last twenty years he has often expressed
his apprehension that in the headlong race for * pro-
Igress ' some of the most valuable aids to human hap-
piness were in danger of being left behind. At a time
.when a section of the English Press was setting itself
to belittle the long and honourable record of British
achievements in and on behalf of India, his sole com-
ment on the inflammatory articles was c The spirit
of Hate is let loose; and they call it ' Democracy.'
A devout Moslem, he expected Christians to main-
tain an equal devotion to their own religion. And he
became painfully concerned as to the decline in English
literature and art, attributing it latterly to a decrease
in spiritual consciousness. Four years ago a poem,
written while he was on a pilgrimage to Mecca, was
sent by him to London. Some of the quatrains read
prophetically now, and it would seem that he anticipa-
ted the world war and was endeavouring to prepare
our minds for the ordeal: