The Romance of a Pro-Consul | Page 4

do sincerely value any honours I have received. Not
otherwise; and it is easy to understand that a distinction, granted
without adequate cause, might exercise a really pernicious effect upon
the tone of a nation.'
While Sir George awaited the Queen's commands at Windsor, she sent
him them. He was not to go on his knees, a usual part of the ceremony
of swearing in a Privy Councillor. She had remembered, with a
woman's feeling, that here was a patriarch, nimble no longer.
The meeting between Queen and servant was stately, in that they were
the two people who linked most intimately Great and Greater Britain.
To them Oceana was a living, sentient thing, not merely a glorious
name and expanse. It had squalled in their ears. They could go back to
the beginnings, could witness the whole panorama of the Colonies
unroll itself. They stood for the history of a high endeavour, which had
been nobly crowned. Oft, there had been weary clouds across the sky,
not seldom heavy darkness. But the sun was kept shining, and finally
all had become light. Oceana was grown up, and she gathered the four
corners of her robe into that Windsor audience chamber.
Of the Queen's order Sir George had the simple deliverance, 'It showed
how careful Her Majesty is to manifest a strong consideration for all
those who come in contact with her, a most taking quality in a
Sovereign.' Yet, for the first time in his life, he was to disobey that
Sovereign. Nothing, not even her protest of 'No, no,' could stop him
from getting down on his knees, as if he had been a younger subject.
The infirmities were conquered by his desire to pay to the Queen that
reverence and loyalty which had always been hers. The bonds of age
were burst, although his quaint complaint about himself that very
evening was, 'You know I want a minute or two to get in motion.'
Despite bowed shoulders and rusty joints, he still had something of the
lithe, strenuous carriage of his youth. In his dignity of manner, there

almost seemed to you a glimpse of the gallant age when forbears had
gone whistling to the headsman. He was of a line which counted in
English history, which among its women had a Lady Jane Grey. His
mother, with the mother's wistful love and pride, had traced that line for
him. He was not deeply moved, unless by the romance and the tragedy
that gathered about it.
But the aristocrat abode in the democrat, nature's doing. He was of the
people in being whole-souled for them; he was not by them. Verily, he
had been through the winters in their interest. The ripe harvest was in
his hair, which had become thin above a face, rugged with intellect;
over a broad, decisive brow, strewn with furrows. It was a head of
uncommon shape, with bumps and a poise, indicating at once the
idealist and the man of action. There it spoke truly, for Sir George was
both; the two were one in him.
The chief secret of his personality seemed to rest in his eyes, and it was
in them you met the dreamer of dreams. 'So I was often called,' he
would mention, 'and the answer is to hand. Many of the dreams which I
dreamt have been realised; that knowledge has been permitted me.
Whether it is any comfort I'm not sure, because, after all, my dreams
are not nearly exhausted.
'Dreaming dreams! I trust that Englishmen will never cease to do that,
for otherwise we should be falling away from ourselves. To dream is to
have faith, and faith is strength, whether in the individual or in the
nation. Sentiment! Yes, only sentiment must remain, probably, the
greatest of human forces governing the world.'
The store, reflected in Sir George's eyes, was what gave him his control
over men. In those depths, blue as a summer sky, were many lights,
which caught Robert Louis Stevenson and were comprehended of him.
The return observation was, 'I never met anybody with such a bright, at
moments almost weird, genius-gifted eye, as that of Stevenson.' Sir
George could fire imagination in the most ordinary mortal, carrying
him off into enchanted realms. He sailed to strange skies, a
knight-errant of a star, and he could tow the masses with him. He lifted
them out of themselves, and put a label on their vague yearnings. They

had imagination, the instinct upward, and were grateful to have it
discovered.
The poetry of Sir George's nature flavoured his language, alike in
manner of delivery and turn of phrase. It had a quaint old-world style; it
fell slowly, in a low, soothing voice. He might have spent his, days in
the cloister, rather than in