After the year 1870 I did no more diplomatic work. I did not resign definitely until 1873, but in 1871 I was appointed once more to St. Petersburg, and knowing that I could not afford so expensive a post, I asked to be placed _en disponibilité_, and so became a gentleman at large. I was very sorry when the time came for cutting off my humble connection with Downing Street after fourteen very happy years and a fairly adventurous diplomatic career. There is—or was—in the Diplomatic Service a certain freemasonry, the great advantage of which was the almost confidential intimacy to which the younger members were admitted by the veterans of the profession, who always seemed ready to help in our education. I am grateful to their memory for much kindness. When I entered the Foreign Office, among the Princes of Diplomacy who had laid down their arms, none could compare as a maker of history with Lord Stratford de Redcliffe. It sounds a little inept to talk of laying down arms when speaking of a diplomatist, and yet in his case the metaphor is not so very inappropriate. He had been a fighting man all his life. He fought his own Government and made them swallow his policy whole: he fought the great Tsar Nicholas and we know how that ended: he fought Mentchikoff over the Holy places and beat him as the lion in the legend did the unicorn, and the poor unicorn had to run out of the town, give up diplomacy and take to soldiering in the Crimea, where he was beaten again. For half a century Lord Stratford had been always in the lists, and now he had come home, full of years and full of honour, to pass what was left to him of life in rest and peace. A scholar and no mean poet, he had at his command the enjoyment of a learned leisure. He was, I think, the handsomest old man that I ever saw. He was of middle height, straight and still active. His features were such as a Pheidias would have loved to copy. A brow like that of the Olympian Zeus was crowned with silvery white hair; the blue eyes flashed clear and brilliant, his complexion was as beautiful as that of a young girl.