"As his staff officer there were two points he used to impress on me--'No difficulty' and 'No finality.' Difficulties, like hills, were useful for the exercise they give in surmounting them. There is no difficulty that cannot be overcome somehow. No finality is the watch-word of progress. What may seem best to-day can be improved upon to-morrow, but that is no reason for deferring action indefinitely: 'The best is the enemy of the good.' Act on what seems good at the moment, and trust to time and opportunity to find something better to act on later. But act, and act promptly. This, I think, sums up the principles he tried to instil into me, and his example illustrates his teaching. "I never served under a chief who thought more quickly, decided more readily, or acted more promptly." During the last week of November 1894 the {120} Viceroy, Lord Elgin, arranged to hold a Durbar at Lahore. There was to be a great gathering of the native princes of the Punjab, and a concentration of British, Native, and Imperial Service troops. The Viceroy and the Commander-in-Chief both had large camps, to which they invited guests from all parts of India. Having received the offer of a tent and the hospitality of his camp from Sir George White, Gatacre selected the two best-looking chargers in his stable and repaired to Lahore in the highest spirits. [Sidenote: 1894] In a letter written a little later, however, he confesses that it was not the attractions of the Durbar that took him so far out of his command at such a busy time of the year, but the expectation of seeing some one again whom he had recently met as she passed through Bombay. For the guests a Durbar week is a holiday; the General was a free man--he had only to look on and enjoy himself. There were many official functions where every one was gloriously apparelled, but he looked as splendid as any in that brilliant company; and there were many social festivities which afforded opportunity for daily intercourse. It was during the picturesque pageants of the Lahore Week that I came under the spell of the General's charm. To know him was to love him, as many another has since said to me. During that week we learnt to know one another, and at the end of it he wrote a frank manly letter to my father, Lord Davey, begging him to sanction the idea of our marriage. {121} I regret that the kindly reply to his honest exposition of the whole matter has not been preserved; its purport being in accordance with our hopes, the engagement was made known, and I had the gratification of hearing my General's praises on all sides. In some letters of December 1894 he intentionally writes about himself, and supplies us with the incentives which inspired him. "I am always thinking of how I can get on, not for the sake of the money it brings, but for soldiering itself." And again: [Sidenote: Soldiering first]