“That,” said my host, “is a verse I copied very many years ago out of Dickens’s Household Words. It appealed to me very strangely, so I stuck it up over my desk, and it has been there ever since.”
The lines were the following, and may be of interest:—
“If thou hast yesterday thy duty done,
And thereby found firm footing for to-day,
Whatever clouds may dark to-morrow’s sun
Thou shalt not miss thy solitary way.”
“By the way, Sir Robert,” said I, “before dinner you were speaking of going home for good. Have you any immediate prospect of seeing the old country? For I am sure you must be anxious to do so after so many years’ absence.”
“Well, there’s nothing definite fixed at present, anyhow,” he replied.
“And your successor—have you any idea who he will be?” I hinted.
“No. No suggestion has yet been made of even my probable successor, but so far as I can judge, seeing the way Chinese views are tending, my idea is that it will be a Chinaman who will take up my work, for the Chinese seem particularly anxious to take the foreign customs under their own control.”