And perhaps it was this same
consciousness of a command of his subject which had impelled him
to write a dispatch to Lord Raglan, blandly informing the
Commander-in-Chief in the Field just how he was neglecting his
duties, and pointing out to him that if he would only try he
really might do a little better next time.
Lord Raglan's reply, calculated as it was to make its recipient
sink into the earth, did not quite have that effect upon Lord
Panmure, who, whatever might have been his faults, had never been
accused of being supersensitive. However, he allowed the matter
to drop; and a little later Lord Raglan died--worn out, some
people said, by work and anxiety. He was succeeded by an
excellent red-nosed old gentleman, General Simpson, whom nobody
has ever heard of, and who took Sebastopol. But Lord Panmure's
relations with him were hardly more satisfactory than his
relations with Lord Raglan; for, while Lord Raglan had been too
independent, poor General Simpson erred in the opposite
direction, perpetually asked advice, suffered from lumbago,
doubted (his nose growingredder and redder daily) whether he was
fit for his post, and, by alternate mails, sent in and withdrew
his resignation. Then, too, both the General and the Minister
suffered acutely from that distressingly useful new invention,
the electric telegraph.
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