its mechanical way, and is besides, a bureaucracy which has a good deal
of pride in regarding any new departure as a dangerous token of
disrespect to its old and consecrated tradition of simple obedience to
written orders and codified instructions. The highest originality is
smothered in a secretariat as its fitting cabinet. McNair knew these
attributes of the Indian Government, and never troubled his head about
preferment or official promotion. It is said he was on the eve of it,
and the State is believed to somewhat deplore the loss of an
opportunity for rewarding a servant it prized, doubtless, in its own
dull, routine sort of way. But he is now beyond earthly rewards or
distinctions, and neither the praise nor the blame of men can touch
him. In life he was very sensitive to kindness or coldness, but he was
of too masculine a fibre to allow the natural sweetness and contentment
of his disposition to be alloyed or marred by any such influence from
without. He loved his work for its own sake. It became his sole
occupation and serious aim in life. He deplores the weather in his very
last letter to me, most characteristically, because it interfered with
his "observations," which, with "the change" he hoped for and partly
realized, he would "_push_ along."

The epithet describes the simple, practical side of his character. His
later love of solitude was the natural outcome of that closer contact
with nature which made to him a living daily reality the command, "Thou
shalt have no other gods but Me." His last hours were ministered to
faithfully by a chaplain of the English Church in Mussooree. The
religious life of the family resigned itself speedily to that sovereign
will of heaven which means to all who have tasted of its majesty and
glory, and have seen glimpses of the wisdom and foresight that put
man's desires to shame, the submission of heart and mind in all their
integrity. Nay, more, as one from that inner circle very beautifully