I do not suppose Lord Ripon troubled much as to whether he was popular or not, he was there to do the best for the country and its people, according to his light, after that it must be left in the lap of the gods. The public opinion I have heard expressed of the Viceroys during the time Lord William was on the staff ran as follows--that Lord Lytton was charming, hard-working, and that his work would live long after him; Lord Ripon unpopular, as it was thought he would make life impossible for the white man in the country owing to his enormous sympathy with the natives; Lord Dufferin, popular but left a great deal in the hands of his private secretary; Lord Lansdowne, universally popular, and Lady Lansdowne especially so. These being the only Governor-Generals under whom Lord William served I need go no further. He spoke of them all with affection and gratitude, saying he had received “the greatest kindness from all officially and individually.” I must confess when he said this I felt much as I do when parents say they love all their children alike, which cannot be in the least true; they may love them all, but it must be in different ways and degrees, so I think Lord William felt, if he had spoken literally, he had affection for all his chiefs but in different ways and degrees. Even Viceroys have a good deal to “put up with.” First and foremost they have to act on orders from home, after which, if the measures do not prove successful or satisfactory, the blame of course falls on the Viceroy’s head; then when settling down and getting into his stride, finding help and comfort in some of his staff--say the Military Secretary, that office bringing the individual more closely into association with him than the rest, forming an important part of his daily life--it has not been unknown for one Military Secretary after another to find that their health will not stand the strain, or that they wish to return to their regiment, another has married a wife who will not live in India and so on, so resignation follows on resignation, leaving the unhappy Viceroy in a constant state of explanations and instructions to new-comers, and with nobody to lean on, while possibly feeling anxious over work of which he has had no previous experience and hardly knows where to turn to find someone who does. Occasionally, perhaps, Viceroy and members of the staff find “incompatibility” a reason for divorce.