n't care 'oo I am, I love that
man," he said rather huskily. Mrs. Despard has told how she forgot her
paper that night in shaking the ex-soldier's hand.

For this tact in dealing with his men, Sir John French has largely to
thank the vein of acute sensibility which runs through his character.
This sensibility can be traced in his mouth, which is remarkably
finely chiselled. We have seen it in his childhood, when he shrank
from some of the usual noisiness of boyhood. And Mrs. Despard has
crystallised it in a phrase. Feeling depressed on one occasion before
addressing a meeting on some reforms which she considered urgent, she
confessed to her brother that she was spiritually afraid. "Why," he
replied, "don't worry, I've never yet done anything worth doing
without having to screw myself up to it." French, very obviously, is a
man for whom spiritual doubt may have its terrors. One cannot figure
him as harbouring the narrow if sincere religion of a Kitchener or a
Gordon.

One might sum him up as the _beau-ideal_, not only of the cavalry
spirit, but of the scientific soldier. He can lead a cavalry charge
with the dash of a Hotspur: and he can plan out a campaign with the
masterly logic of a Marlborough. Unlike some of his contemporaries, he
has attained extraordinary mastery over the science of war without
himself becoming a scientific machine. In many ways he bears, in
character and temperament, a striking resemblance to his colleague in
arms--General Joffre. Although Joffre is three inches taller than
French--he is five foot nine--he is otherwise very similar in
appearance. There is the same short, powerful physique, the narrow
neck surmounted by a massive head and heavy jaw, and the same broad
forehead, with masterful eyes peeping from beneath bushy eyebrows.
Neither of these men on whom hangs Europe's destiny is in the least
degree strident or self-assertive. Indeed, both tend to be listeners
rather than talkers. Both have the same trick of making instantaneous
decisions. Both scorn to be merely "smart" in outward appearance; both
are devoted to efficiency in detail; and, most suggestive of all, each
finds himself eternally compared to General Grant! Probably the
latter's dogged personality forms the best possible common denominator
for these two remarkable men.

[Page Heading: AN OPPORTUNITY]

It is said that when news of the war in South Africa reached French,
momentarily obeying a natural impulse, he waved his han