from Gordon, ending as follows:—"I have some comfort in thinking that in ten or fifteen years' time it will matter little to either of us. A black box, six feet six by three feet wide will then contain all that is left of Ambassador, or Cabinet Minister, or of your humble and obedient servant."
He arrived in England early in 1880 ill and exhausted; and it might have been supposed that after the terrible activities of his African exile he would have been ready to rest. But the very opposite was the case: the next three years were the most mouvementés of his life. He hurried from post to post, from enterprise to enterprise, from continent to continent, with a vertiginous rapidity. He accepted the Private Secretaryship to Lord Ripon, the new Viceroy of India, and, three days after his arrival at Bombay, he resigned. He had suddenly realised that he was not cut out for a Private Secretary, when on an address being sent in from some deputation, he was asked to say that the Viceroy had read it with interest. "You know perfectly," he said to Lord William Beresford, "that Lord Ripon has never read it, and I can't say that sort of thing, so I will resign, and you take in my resignation." He confessed to Lord William that the world was not big enough for him, that there was "no king or country big enough"; and then he added, hitting him on the shoulder, "Yes, that is flesh, that is what I hate, and what makes me wish to die."
Two days later, he was off for Pekin. "Every one will say I am mad," were his last words to Lord William Beresford; "but you say I am not." The position in China was critical; war with Russia appeared to be imminent; and Gordon had been appealed to, in order to use his influence on the side of peace. He was welcomed by many old friends of former days, among them Li Hung Chang, whose diplomatic views coincided with his own. Li's diplomatic language, however, was less unconventional. In an interview with the Ministers,
