where he had been Private Secretary to the Viceroy. The position never
suited his too independent character, and when the Chinese, perplexed
over Russian questions, invited him to the Middle Kingdom, he gladly
accepted their invitation.

Unfortunately the visit was a failure. His advice was unpractical, and
though, as the first prophet of "China for the Chinese," he found
a fundamental truth, he found it too soon for immediate utility. On
political matters he and the I.G. disagreed; the latter was far too
wise to hold with Gordon's somewhat visionary idea that China could
raise an army as good as the best in the twinkling of an eye; and when
Gordon left Peking after a very short stay, he left disappointed and
disgusted.

It was, however, characteristic of him that before he had got farther
than Hongkong he wrote an affectionate letter to his old friend,
acknowledging himself in the wrong and giving the highest praise to
that friend's policy. This, with all the rest of Gordon's letters to
the I.G., was burned in the Boxer outbreak of 1900.

But what nothing could destroy was Robert Hart's admiration for the
soldier hero. If the apparent inconsistencies of his character were
numerous, all of them added force and picturesqueness to it, and only
served to increase the affection of one who knew him and understood
him most thoroughly.




CHAPTER V