MORE ABOUT LORD KITCHENER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12070, 13 September 1902, Page 5 (Supplement)

MORE ABOUT LORD KITCHENER.

These used to be the foolish opinion that these was a. necessary contradiction between the power of action and the power of speech. As a matter of fact some of lb-.' greatest men of action the world lias known have also been among the greatest masters of words. Casar was a gieat writer as well as a great warrior; Napoleon would have been an entrancing orator if he had not put down oratory as an in-

strument of government when he came to \ the top; Frederick the Great would have perhaps been considered a good man of letters if he had not incurred the enmity and suffered from the lamp eon a of Voltaire : and nowadays it look*; as if Lord Kitchener would have to be added to '.lie list of men who have the power both to act strongly and speak gracefully. Everybody must ad- i mire that striking little sentence in which he rumme'd up the career and character of j Gordon; it will probably be ihe inscription on the statue, ami may be quoted gene- ; rations heme as Gordon's finest epitaph : j " A man who led a blameless life, put duty , before himself, and died happily for his j country.' It is really very line. ' THE TERRIBLE l'.YKi Or' KIT'.'H KNEII. Meantime, one finds in a signed article I in the Pilot a very interesting and instructive study of Lord Kitchener by a writer .Mr. Filson Young- v. 110 writes as if he knew the great general very thoroughly, i he. description he gives couth ms the impression most people have that Lord Kitch- j cue.- is a man to inspire respect and sonic- | thing like awed obedience rather than love. I Mr.* Filson Young rather laughs at the cot.trust between the real Kitchener and his present environment of routs, receptions, miter parties, and all the other entertainments which are provided for hi:n by the hostesses of London. Here is the picture —and a striking one it is: — Subdue a lion, take him from the suna and sands that have burnt him into a creature of anger and activity, lead him by golden chains amid the fountains of a palace courtyard; and. seeing the hungry lire that sleeps in his eyes, yon will look on a not nun" incongruous right than that of the passage of our viscount across the carpets of the frivolous world. Mo is not of that world, it is not his place; and from the childish entertainments of a. metropolis his guze is turned across s_\'is and continents.

The most remarkable feature in Kitchener's face is undoubtedly bis eyes. Their power is well brought out in the following passage:--

Everyone who has seen him knows those eyes; they are at. once the secret and theadvertisement of the man. Pule blue, without depth, steel-hard, ami sea-bright, they give magic power to the harsh, brick-red line. Tiny defy the camera, appearing through that untruthful medium in a droop of leonine sulkiness that long ago captivated tins servants' hall. Really the man is very unlike his photographs, am! the unlikeness is all in the eyes. The first time they rested upon me 1 flinched, although i was (loins nothing wrong; I was, in fact, attending' to ray business, the one thing that Kitchener approve.-* of. J was conferring with one of his minions upon some affair when the greet man stepped out of his tent and sunt his gaze travelling round the semi-circle of his view. I believe that everyone in the track of that, baleful searchlight felt uncomfortable. The subaltern stopped talking to me as though he had been caught in a theft; I felt like a schoolboy surprised in the very act of soia* impertinent transgression; a soldier who was driving in tent-pegs dropped his tools and began to fumble with his buttons; upon all sides there was an in;taut of extreme discomfort until the great man went in again. A mere glance of Ids eyes will shako the complacency of even the most plausible trifler; a moment of his gaze will take every atom of starch out of that now rare bird, the military cockatoo; and therefore ho is hated exceedingly by all these. Nor is it that his eye rests approvingly upon work duly performed; his gaze is always the same, a mere inquiry of steel and stone and fire, but, us a sweating orderly once remarked under bis breath, "like the bloomin' day of Judgment." "For my part," confesses Mr. Filson Young, "lie never looked at me but I began to examine, with sonic anxiety, my title to existence; and although wholly innocent of any offence tinder his authority felt as guilty as though I Kail been arraigned before him." kitchener's loneliness. There are two or three other observations in this very interesting article, which explain much in the career and character of Kitchener. For instance, few people realise how little Kitchener bus seen of the lv- of London and of ordinary English people in the course of bis career. Here is Mr. Filson Young's accurate summary of hi; career: — He was never at a public school; he took arms as a private soldier for France, existing in the second army of the Loire; he conducted explorations in Palestine, was stoned at Mary's tomb, and is part-author of a great monograph on the 'archaeology of Palestine; he spied upon the Arabians, disguised in their habits of thought and speech and dress; lie defeated the Dervishes with hideous accompaniments of perhaps necessary severity. Then came the long South African campaign, marred here and there by defects inseparable from bis character, but crowned by a triumph of simple diplomacy.

It. will be seen at once thai this is a career which is all fur away from London and its salons and intrigues and atmosphere, and that. Kitchener was never of Loudon and pvobably never could be. And such a care si' is one calculated to make Kitchener despise the ordinary ways of society—its ambitious', its occupations. As a. friend of his oi'ce said, "Kitchener cares only for me big tilings of life." It is also in this remoteness that one has to find that ahyuess which is part of the man's character, with its triumphant self-confidence. "In all his career,'' says the sparkling writer already quoted, "lie lias never lived in contact with any but men of his own choosing." And therefore it is that when Kitchener gets back to the haunts of men and women lie at once sets to work at bis own great imaginings—at something which will make him forget the dalliance, and the junketings, and the festivities which he has to accept as part of the price of his glory. KITCHENKR WANTS .MUSKY DOWN'. When after Ontdurnnui he went to a big lunch in the city he v.i-iu there simply that he might raise money lor (hi: great college he had projected for Khartoum. There were men who thought that Kitchener might he got. to forget—like many other men—everything for the moment except turtle soup, and Roman punch, and "he's a jolly good fellow, which nobody an deny."' And there was quite a shock when Kitchener indicated that this was not at all the reason for which lie had come to lunch in the city, and that, if there and then some twenty or thirty thousand of the hundred thousand he wanted for his college were not forthcoming, he would take himself oil'. And he got his money, and no di übt became then very pleasant, and gave that smile which seems to broaden over his broad face, and may even have bad the turtle soup, and the Roman punch, and " he's a jolly good fellow." and all the other trivialities, But he had got the money first. And just, now, it will be seen, he ha* managed to set tip a branch War Office at West Kalkin-street, so that he may refresh his mind and satisfy his conscience by putting in a little work in the intervals between the lunches and the dinners and the receptions. These are the kind of strenuous men that the world wants badly ; and Kitchener may be forgiven much because of the example he sets in this respect.

New York policemen ■ are apparently a race of Sybarites. A sergeant owns to being worth £37,000; an inspector has £60,000; a captain over £100,000: and a, couple of his colleagues £40.000 each. One officer attributes his wealth to " luck on the street." Curious people might ask why these wealthy men remain in the force. Custard without the expense or trouMs o£ eggs may he made- with Tucker's custard powder ; 6d boxes ; four flavours ; four pints. DON'T T OOK OLD. With advancing years groynes increases. Stop this with Lockykk's Sulpuuk Gaik Rbstokkb, which darkens to the former colour and preserves the appearance. Lock ycr'B, the English Hair Restorer, keeps oH ravages of time, by darkening the grey fctre-itk*, also causing growth of Hair.