It is impossible to study any part of Charles Gordon’s career without being drawn to all the rest.  As his wild and varied fortunes lead him from Sebastopol to Pekin, from Gravesend to South Africa, from Mauritius to the Soudan, the reader follows fascinated.  Every scene is strange, terrible, or dramatic.  Yet, remarkable as are the scenes, the actor is the more extraordinary; a type without comparison in modern times and with few likenesses in history.  Rare and precious is the truly disinterested man.  Potentates of many lands and different degree—­the Emperor of China, the King of the Belgians, the Premier of Cape Colony, the Khedive of Egypt—­competed to secure his services.  The importance of his offices varied no less than their nature.  One day he was a subaltern of sappers; on another he commanded the Chinese army; the next he directed an orphanage; or was Governor-General of the Soudan, with supreme powers of life and death and peace and war; or served as private secretary to Lord Ripon.  But in whatever capacity he laboured he was true to his reputation.  Whether he is portrayed bitterly criticising to Graham the tactics of the assault on the Redan; or pulling the head of Lar Wang from under his bedstead and waving it in paroxysms of indignation before the astonished eyes of Sir Halliday Macartney; or riding alone into the camp of the rebel Suliman and receiving the respectful salutes of those who had meant to kill him; or telling the Khedive Ismail that he ’must have the whole Soudan to govern’; or reducing his salary to half the regulation amount because ‘he thought it was too much’; or ruling a country as large as Europe; or collecting facts for Lord Ripon’s rhetorical efforts—­we perceive a man careless alike of the frowns of men or the smiles of women, of life or comfort, wealth or fame.

It was a pity that one, thus gloriously free from the ordinary restraining influences of human society, should have found in his own character so little mental ballast.  His moods were capricious and uncertain, his passions violent, his impulses sudden and inconsistent.  The mortal enemy of the morning had become a trusted ally before the night.  The friend he loved to-day he loathed to-morrow.  Scheme after scheme formed in his fertile brain, and jostled confusingly together.  All in succession were pressed with enthusiasm.  All at times were rejected with disdain.  A temperament naturally neurotic had been aggravated by an acquired habit of smoking; and the General carried this to so great an extreme that he was rarely seen without a cigarette.  His virtues are famous among men; his daring and resource might turn the tide or war; his energy would have animated a whole people; his achievements are upon record; but it must also be set down that few more uncertain and impracticable forces than Gordon have ever been introduced into administration and diplomacy.