"The very presence of such a man in India was an element of power apart from all official rank, and he could ill be spared from among the very few who have learnt to impersonate in themselves the power of the English nation, and to let the natives of India feel the irresistible character of that power. You must have watched him so anxiously and so proudly that, though thousands of us have done the same, none can approach the measure of your sorrow or mourn as you that he can confer no more honor on your name, but that the opportunities of the future must be reaped by other and less capable hands.
"I cannot feel easy without expressing to you the great grief and consternation with which I read the account of your brother's death. Certainly it would have been little less than miraculous if, being what he was, he had lived out this war. And yet I, for one, had always cherished a hope that I might have seen once more with my own eyes so noble and gallant a soldier.
"There is, after all, something about skilful courage which draws the heart to itself more than eloquence, or learning, or anything else, and your brother seems to have been endued with this almost more than any living Englishman, brave as our countrymen are."
"Closely have I watched, during these last few sad months, the career of that brave brother of yours. I could estimate his bold and self-sacrificing courage, and knowing as I did the sort of people over whom he had acquired such perfect sway, I knew how much a clear and commanding intellect must have been called into exercise, to aid a strong and devoted heart. What victims has Lucknow offered up to the fiendish treachery of those ungrateful men—Lawrence! Havelock! and Hodson!"
"My grief is not for him; he had done his work in that station of life in which God had placed him, nobly, heartily, and as in the sight of God (would that we all did our work in half such a Christian spirit); but for you all, who were looking forward to seeing him again, crowned with the honors he had so hardly won. Well, it has pleased God that this was not to be; but there is a good hope, more than a hope, that a reward of a higher kind is his."
From one who had known him in India:—
"From the love and esteem I bore your brother, you will, I feel sure, allow me to write and express, however imperfectly words can do it, my deep and heartfelt sympathy with you and your sisters under this heavy blow. Our acquaintance was not of long standing, but had rapidly ripened into intimacy, and I look back to the days spent in his society as amongst my happiest in India. His very presence was sunshine.
"Of my admiration for his talents, and the service he rendered his country, it would be impertinent to speak,—they are of public note; but of the tender sympathies, the ready advice, the forgetfulness of self, and the ever-mindfulness of others, I may testify. His was, indeed, a rare and beautiful character, and the better he was known the more he could not fail to be appreciated."