a daffodil sky.” Similarly, Lyall, writing
with the enthusiasm of a young father for his firstborn,
said: “The child has eyes like the fish-pools
of Heshbon, with wondrous depth of intelligent gaze.”
But, though a poet, it would be a great error to suppose
that Lyall was an idealist, if by that term is meant
one who, after a platonic fashion, indulges in ideas
which are wholly visionary and unpractical. He
had, indeed, ideals. No man of his imagination
and mental calibre could be without them. But
they were ideals based on a solid foundation of facts.
It was here that, in spite of some sympathy based
on common literary tastes, he altogether parted company
from a brother poet, Mr. Wilfrid Blunt, who has invariably
left his facts to take care of themselves. Though
eminently meditative and reflective, Lyall’s
mind, his biographer says, “seemed always hungry
for facts.” “Though he had an unusual
degree of imagination, he never allowed himself to
be tempted too far from the region of the known or
the knowable.” The reason why he at times
appeared to vacillate was that he did not consider
he sufficiently understood all the facts to justify
his forming an opinion capable of satisfying his somewhat
hypercritical judgment. He was, in fact, very
difficult to convince of the truth of an opinion,
not because of his prejudices, for he had none, but
by reason of his constitutional scepticism. He
acted throughout life on the principle laid down by
the Greek philosopher Epicharmus: “Be sober,
and remember to disbelieve. These are the sinews
of the mind.” I have been informed on unimpeachable
authority that when he was a member of the Treasury
Committee which sat on the question of providing facilities
for the study of Oriental languages in this country,
he constantly asked the witnesses whom he examined
leading questions from which it might rather be inferred
that he held opinions diametrically opposed to those
which in reality he entertained. His sole object
was to arrive at a sound conclusion. He wished
to elicit all possible objections to any views to
which he was personally inclined. It is very probable
that his Oriental experience led him to adopt this
procedure; for, as any one who has lived much in the
East will recognise, it is the only possible safeguard
against the illusions which may arise from the common
Oriental habit of endeavouring to say what is pleasant
to the interrogator, especially if he occupies some
position of authority.
Only half-reconciled, in the first instance, to Indian exile, and, when once he had taken the final step of departure, constantly brooding over the intellectual attractions rather than the material comforts of European life, Lyall speedily came to the conclusion that, if he was to bear a hand in governing India, the first thing he had to do was to understand Indians. He therefore brought his acutely analytical intellect to the task of comprehending the Indian habit of thought. In the course of his researches he displayed that