" They said: "Yes", and it was over.'
Such was the sequence of events which ended in General Gordon's
last appointment. The precise motives of those responsible for
these transactions are less easy to discern. It is difficult to
understand what the reasons could have been which induced the
Government, not only to override the hesitations of Sir Evelyn
Baring, but to overlook the grave and obvious dangers involved in
sending such a man as Gordon to the Sudan. The whole history of
his life, the whole bent of his character, seemed to disqualify
him for the task for which he had been chosen. He was before all
things a fighter, an enthusiast, a bold adventurer; and he was
now to be entrusted with the conduct of an inglorious retreat. He
was alien to the subtleties of civilised statesmanship, he was
unamenable to official control, he was incapable of the skilful
management of delicate situations; and he was now to be placed in
a position of great complexity, requiring at once a cool
judgment, a clear perception of fact, and a fixed determination
to carry out a line of policy laid down from above. He had, it is
true, been Governor-General of the Sudan; but he was now to
return to the scene of his greatness as the emissary of a
defeated and humbled power; he was to be a fugitive where he had
once been a ruler; the very success of his mission was to consist
in establishing the triumph of those forces which he had spent
years in trampling underfoot.
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