Like the author of the _Peninsular War_, Sir William Butler was great
both as a soldier and as a writer. His autobiography sparkles with
humour, irony, and felicitous diction; but it was in his _Life of
Gordon of Khartoum_ that he rose to his full stature as a contributor
to the glory of English prose.
The spell of Gordon seems to have, as it were, transfigured all who
approached him, and raised them out of themselves. One man alone, of
all those whose lives touched his, has shown that his own pinched and
narrow mediocrity was proof against the radiance of Gordon's spirit,
and has feebly attempted to belittle the soldier saint for his own
justification. But he has failed even to project a spot upon the sun of
Gordon's fame, and he is already forgotten, while the great soldier's
name will endure in the hearts of his countrymen till England and its
people fail.
If Sir William Butler's final noble periods, which I here reproduce, do
not deeply move him who reads them, then must that reader have a
heart of stone:--
"Thus fell in dark hour of defeat a man as unselfish as Sidney, of
courage dauntless as Wolfe, of honour stainless as Outram, of
sympathy wide-reaching as Drummond, of honesty straightforward as
Napier, of faith as steadfast as More. Doubtful indeed is it if
anywhere in the past we shall find figure of knight or soldier to
equal him, for sometimes it is the sword of death that gives to
life its real knighthood, and too often the soldier's end is
unworthy of his knightly life; but with Gordon the harmony of life
and death was complete, and the closing scenes seem to move to
their fulfilment in solemn hush, as though an unseen power watched
over the sequence of their sorrow.
"Not by the blind hazard of chance was this great tragedy
consummated; not by the discord of men or from the vague
opposition of physical obstacle, by fault of route or length of
delay, was help denied to him. The picture of a wonderful life had
to be made perfect by heroic death. The moral had to be cut deep,
and written red, and hung high, so that its lesson could be seen
by all men above strife and doubt and discord. Nay, the very
setting of the final scenes has to be wrought out in such contrast
of colour that the dullest eye shall be able to read the meaning
of it all. For many a year back this soldier's life has been a
protest against our most cherished teaching. Faith is weakness,
we have said. He will show us it is strength. Reward is the right
of service. Publicity is true fame. Let us go into action with a
newspaper correspondent riding at our elbow, or sitting in the
cabin of the ship, has been our practice. He has told us that the
race should be for honour, not for 'honours,' that we should 'give
away our medal,' and that courage and humility, mercy and
strength, should march hand in hand together. For many a year we
have had no room for him in our councils. Our armies knew him not;
and it was only in semi-savage lands and in the service of remote
empires he could find scope for his genius. Now our councils will
be shamed in his service, and our armies will find no footing in
our efforts to reach him. We have said that the Providence of God
was only a calculation of chances; now for eleven months the
amazing spectacle will be presented to the world of this solitary
soldier standing at bay, within thirty days' travel of the centre
of Empire, while the most powerful kingdom on the earth--the
nation whose wealth is as the sands of the sea, whose boast is
that the sun never sets upon its dominions--is unable to reach
him--saving _he_ does not want--but is unable to reach him even
with one message of regret for past forgetfulness.
"No; there is something more in all this than mistake of
Executive, or strife of party, or error of Cabinet, or fault of
men can explain. The purpose of this life that has been, the
lesson of this death that must be, is vaster and deeper than these
things. The decrees of God are as fixed to-day as they were two
thousand years ago, but they can be worked to their conclusion by
the weakness of men as well as by the strength of angels.
"There is a grey frontlet of rock far away in Strathspey--once the
Gordons' home--whose name in bygone times gave a rallying-call to
a kindred clan. The scattered firs and wind-swept heather on the
lone summit of Craig Ellachie once whispered in Highland
clansmen's ear the warcry, 'Stand fast! Craig Ellachie.' Many a
year has gone by since kith of Charles Gordon last heard from
Highland hilltop the signal of battle, but never in Celtic hero's
long record of honour has such answer been sent back to Highland
or to Lowland as when this great heart stopped its beating, and
lay 'steadfast unto death' in the dawn at Khartoum. The winds that
moan through the pine trees on Craig Ellachie have far-off
meanings in their voices. Perhaps on that dark January night there
came a breath from heaven to whisper to the old Highland rock, 'He
stood fast! Craig Ellachie.'
"The dust of Gordon is not laid in English earth, nor does even
the ocean, which has been named Britannia's realm, hold in 'its
vast and wandering grave' the bones of her latest hero. Somewhere,
far out in the immense desert whose sands so often gave him rest
in life, or by the shores of that river which was the scene of so
much of his labour, his ashes now add their wind-swept atoms to
the mighty waste of the Soudan. But if England, still true to the
long line of her martyrs to duty, keep his memory precious in her
heart--making of him no false idol or brazen image of glory, but
holding him as he was, the mirror and measure of true
knighthood--then better than in effigy or epitaph will his life be
written, and his nameless tomb become a citadel to his nation."
The statue of Gordon stands in noble reverie in Trafalgar Square, at the
centre of the Empire for whose honour he died.
In St. Paul's Cathedral he lies in effigy, and engraven upon the
cenotaph can be seen the most splendid epitaph in the world.
His true greatness has been recorded by Sir William Butler in
resounding and glorious English; and his last great act of stainless
nobility has received a deathless tribute.
Your loving old,
G.P.
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