The sad story of what follows cannot be told in other words than those in
which it has already been given to the world, with all the skill of an
artist combined with the tenderness of a brother, and with that fulness of
authentic detail which only one source could supply.[4]

'Although he had suffered often from the unhealthy and depressing climate
of Calcutta during the summer and autumn of 1862, and thus, to the eyes
that saw him again in 1863, he looked many years older than when he left
England, yet it was not till he entered the Hills that any symptom
manifested itself of the fatal malady that was lurking under his apparently
stout frame and strong constitution. The splendid scenery of those vast
forests and snow-clad mountains inspired him with the liveliest pleasure;
but the highly rarefied atmosphere, which to most residents in India is as
life from the dead, seemed in him to have the exactly reverse effect.

'It was on the 12th of October that he ascended the Rotung Pass, and on the
13th he crossed the famous Twig Bridge over the river Chandra. It is
remarkable for the rude texture of birch branches of which it is composed,
and which, at this late season, was so rent and shattered by the wear and
tear of the past year as to render the passage of it a matter of great
exertion. Lord Elgin was completely prostrated by the effort, and it may be
said that from the exhaustion consequent on this adventure he never
rallied. But he returned to his camp, and continued his march on horseback,
until, on the 22nd, an alarming attack obliged him to be carried, by slow
stages, to Dhurmsala. There he was joined, on the 4th of November, by his
friend and medical adviser, Dr. Macrae, who had been summoned from
Calcutta, on the first alarming indications of his illness. By this time
the disorder had declared itself in such a form as to cause the most
serious apprehensions to others, as well as to himself the most distressing
sufferings. There had been a momentary rally, during which the fact of his
illness had been communicated to England. But this passed away; and on the
6th of November Dr. Macrae came to the conclusion that the illness was
mortal. This intelligence, which he communicated at once to Lord Elgin, was
received with a calmness and fortitude which never deserted him through all
the scenes which followed. It was impossible not to be struck by the
courage and presence of mind with which, in the presence of a death
unusually terrible, and accompanied by circumstances unusually trying, he
showed, in equal degrees and with the most unvarying constancy, two of the
grandest elements of human character--unselfish resignation of himself to
the will of God, and thoughtful consideration, down to the smallest
particulars, for the interests and feelings of others, both public and
private.

'When once he had satisfied himself, by minute inquiries from Dr. Macrae,
of the true state of the case, after one deep, earnest, heartfelt regret
that he should thus suddenly be parted from those nearest and dearest, to
whom his life was of such inestimable importance, and that he should be
removed just as he had prepared himself to benefit the people committed to
his charge, he steadily set his face heavenward. He was startled, he was
awed; he felt it "hard, hard, to believe that his life was condemned;" but
there was no looking backward. Of the officers of his staff he took an
affectionate leave on that day. "It is well," he said to one of them, "that
I should die in harness." And thenceforth he saw no one habitually, except
Dr. Macrae, who combined with his medical skill the tenderness and devotion
at once of a friend and of a pastor; his attached secretary, Mr. Thurlow,
who had rendered him the most faithful services, not only through the
period of his Indian Vice-royalty, but during his last mission to China;
and Her who had shared his every thought, and whose courageous spirit now
rose above the weakness of the fragile frame, equal to the greatness of the
calamity, and worthy of him to whom, by night and day, she constantly
ministered.

'On the following day, the clergyman whom he had ordered to be summoned,
and for whose arrival he waited with much anxiety, reached Dhurmsala, and
administered the Holy Communion to himself and those with him. "We are now
entering on a New Communion," he had said that morning, "the Living and the
Dead," and his spirit then appeared to master pain and weakness, and to
sustain him in a holy calm during the ceremony, and for a few hours
afterwards. "It is a comfort," he whispered, "to have laid aside all the
cares of this world, and put myself in the hands of God;" and he was able
to listen at intervals to favourite passages from the New Testament. That
evening closed in with an aggravation of suffering. It was the evening of
the seventeenth anniversary of his wedding-day.

'On the following morning, Lady Elgin, with his approval, rode up to the
cemetery at Dhurmsala to select a spot for his grave; and he gently
expressed pleasure when told of the quiet and beautiful aspect of the spot
chosen, with the glorious view of the snowy range towering above, and the
wide prospect of hill and plain below.

'The days and nights of the fortnight which followed were a painful
alternation of severe suffering and rare intervals of comparative
tranquillity. They were soothed by the never-failing devotion of those that
were always at hand to read to him or to receive his remarks. He often
asked to hear chosen chapters from the Book of Isaiah (as the 40th and
55th), sometimes murmuring over to himself any striking verses that they
contained, and at other times repeating by heart favourite Psalms. At times
he delighted to hear his little girl, who had been the constant companion
of his travels, repeat some of Keble's hymns, especially those on the
festivals of St. John the Evangelist and of the Holy Innocents.

'Until his strength failed him, he was carried at times into the verandah,
and showed by words and looks his constant admiration at the grand
evidences of God's power and goodness in the magnificence of the scenery
before him; and on one such occasion was delighted with the sublime
description of the wonders of nature in the 38th and 39th chapters of the
Book of Job.

'At times he was able to enter into conversation and argument on serious
subjects. When, under the pressure of his sufferings, he was one night
entreating to be released--"O that God would in mercy come and take me"--
Dr. Macrae reminded him of the dread of pain and death which seems to be
expressed in the account of the Agony of Gethsemane, and he appeared to
find much comfort in the thought, repeating once or twice that he had not
seen it in this light before, and several times saying with fervour, "Not
my will, but Thine be done." At other times, he could even be led, by way
of steadying his wandering thoughts amidst the distraction of restlessness,
to fix them on his school and college days, to tell anecdotes of his hard
reading, or to describe the visit to Oxford of his venerable friend Dr.
Chalmers. He dwelt in this way on a sermon of Dr. Chalmers at Glasgow,
which he remembered even in detail, and from which he quoted some eloquent
passages, bringing out the general scope of the sermon, to the effect that,
rather than teach people to hate this bad world, we should teach them to
love and look up to a better one.[5]

'It will naturally be understood that long converse was nearly impossible.
As occasions rose, a few words were breathed, an appropriate verse quoted,
and a few minutes were all that could be given at any one time to discourse
upon it. It is characteristic of his strong, cheerful faith, even during
those last trying moments, that he on one occasion asked to have the more
supplicatory, penitential Psalms exchanged for those of praise and
thanksgiving, in which he joined, knowing them already by heart; and in the
same strain of calm yet triumphant hope, he whispered to himself on the
night when his alarming state was first made known to him, "Hallelujah; the
Lord God Omnipotent reigneth. We shall all meet again."

'That thought was raised to its highest pitch by the sight of a portrait of
a beloved son, who had died in England during his absence. It arrived in
the close of those sad days. He recognised it with a burst of tenderness
and delight which at once lifted his mind above the suffering of his mortal
illness. Again and again he desired to see it, and to speak of it, with the
fixed conviction that he and his "angel boy," as he called him, would soon
meet in a better world. "Oh, when shall I be with you?" "You know where he
is; we shall all go to him; he is happy."

'Every care had been taken for the public interests, and for the interests
of those still nearer and dearer to him. He had laid the most solemn charge
on his faithful secretary to conduct Lady Elgin home on her mournful and
solitary voyage. He had given to Dr. Macrae, with the tenderest marks of
affection, a turquoise ring: "We have had a long struggle together; keep
this in memory of it." He had dictated a telegram to the Queen resigning
his office, with a request that his successor might be immediately
appointed.

'With this exception, public affairs seem to have faded from his mind. "I
must resign myself to doing no work. I have not sufficient control over my
thoughts. I have washed my hands of it all." But it was remarkable that, as
the end drew nearer, the keen sense of public duty once more flashed up
within him. It was on the 19th that he could not help expressing his wonder
what was meant by his long lingering; and once, half wandering, he
whispered, "If I did not die, I might get to Lahore, and carry out the
original programme." Later on in the day he sent for Mr. Thurlow, and
desired that a message should be sent, through Sir Charles Wood, expressive
of his love and devotion to the Queen, and of his determination to do his
work to the last possible moment. His voice, faint and inaudible at first,
gained strength with the earnestness of the words which came forth as if
direct from his heart, and which, as soon as pronounced, left him prostrate
with the exertion. He begged, at the same time, that his  "best blessing"
might be sent to the Secretaries of the Indian Government, and also a
private message to Sir Charles Wood in England.

'These were his last public acts. A few words and looks of intense
affection for his wife and child were all that escaped him afterwards. One
more night of agonized restlessness, followed by an almost sudden close of
the long struggle, and a few moments of perfect calm, and his spirit was
released.

'His death was on the 20th of November, and on the 21st he was privately
buried, at his own request, on the spot selected beforehand.'

*       *       *       *       *

He was cut off, as those felt most keenly who were most capable of judging,
'just at the moment when his best qualities were about to show themselves;'
just when the information and experience which he had accumulated were
beginning to ripen into confidence in his knowledge of the country; and to
the historian his figure must remain as an unfinished _torso_ in the
gallery of our Indian rulers. But those who have read the foregoing pages,
more especially the fragments which they contain of his own words and
writings, will have derived from them some impression of the varied
ability, the steady conscientious industry, the genial temper, the
'combination of fertility of resource with simplicity of aim,' of firmness
with tact, of cautious sagacity with prompt resolution, which might have
found even larger scope in the government of India than in the active and
eventful life which has been described.

These attributes, however, do not make up the man, such as he lives in the
memory of those who saw him most nearly. Beneath the manifold outward
workings of his strong and capable nature there flowed a 'buried life' of
depth more than proportionate.

After his death, one who had known him long and intimately, on being asked
what he considered to be the most distinguishing characteristic of his
deceased friend, answered at once, 'Disinterestedness: he seemed utterly
incapable of regarding any subject except with a view to the interests of
his country. And next to that,' he added, 'affectionateness; I never can
forget the grief he showed at the death of his first wife; I thought he
never would have held up his head again.' How this tenderness deepened and
mellowed in the husband and father of later years, some slight indications
may be found in the letters that precede.

Disinterested devotion to public duty; tender and affectionate sympathies;
a passionate love of justice, showing itself especially in a religious
regard for the rights of the weak; all resting on the foundation of a firm
and loving trust in God; these, far more than his ability or his eloquence,
are the qualities that made him what he was: the qualities, by the exercise
and imitation of which, those who seek to do him honour may best perpetuate
his memory.

There is one spot from which that memory is not likely soon to pass away:
the spot towards which, in his most distant wanderings, his thoughts turned
with even more than the ordinary longing of a Scotsman for the place of his
birth, and always with the fond hope that he might be permitted--

life's long vexation past,
There to return, and die at home at last.

'Wherever else he was honoured' (to borrow again from the author already
quoted), 'and however few were his visits to his native land, yet Scotland
at least always delighted to claim him as her own. Always his countrymen
were proud to feel that he worthily bore the name most dear to Scottish
hearts.  Always his unvarying integrity shone to them with the steady light
of an unchanging beacon above the stormy discords of the Scottish church
and nation.  Whenever he returned to his home in Fifeshire, he was welcomed
by all, high and low, as their friend and chief. Here at any rate were
fully known the industry with which he devoted himself to the small details
of local, often trying and troublesome business; the affectionate
confidence with which he took counsel of the fidelity and experience of the
aged friends and servants of his house; the cheerful contentment with which
he was willing to work for their interests and for those of his family,
with the same fairness and patience as he would have given to the most
exciting events or the most critical moments of his public career. There
his children, young as they were, were made familiar with the union of
wisdom and playfulness with which he guided them, and with the simple and
self-denying habits of which he gave them so striking an example. By that
ancestral home, in the vaults of the Abbey Church of Dunfermline, would
have been his natural resting-place.  Those vaults had but two years ago
been opened to receive the remains of another of the same house, his
brother, General Bruce, whose lamented death--also in the service of his
Queen and country--followed immediately on his return from the journey in
which he had accompanied the Prince of Wales to the East, and in which he
had caught the fatal malady that  brought him to his untimely end.... How
little was it thought by those who stood round the vault at Dunfermline
Abbey, on July 2, 1862, that to those familiar scenes, and to that hallowed
spot, the chief of the race would never return.  How mournfully did the
tidings from India reach a third brother in the yet farther East, who felt
that to him was due in great part whatever success he had experienced in
life, even from the time when, during the elder brother's Eton holidays, he
had enjoyed the benefit of his tuition, and who was indulging in dreams
how, on their joint return from exile, with their varied experience of the
East, they might have worked together for some great and useful end.[6]

'He sleeps far away from his native land, on the heights of Dhurmsala; a
fitting grave, let us rejoice to think, for the Viceroy of India,
overlooking from its lofty height the vast expanse of the hill and plain of
these mighty provinces--a fitting burial beneath the snow-clad Himalaya
range, for one who dwelt with such serene satisfaction on all that was
grand and beautiful in man and nature--

Pondering God's mysteries untold,
And, tranquil as the glacier snows,
He by those Indian mountains old
Might well repose.

'A last home, may we not say, of which the very name, with its double
signification, was worthy of the spirit which there passed away--"the Hall
of Justice, the Place of Rest." Rest, indeed, to him after his long
"laborious days," in that presence which to him was the only complete Rest
--the presence of Eternal Justice.'


[1] One of the Indian journals of the day described the ceremony as
follows:--'On Wednesday afternoon, the few Europeans in the station
collected at five o'clock in the Memorial Garden and Monument. None,
who had seen  the spot after the subsidence of the Mutiny could
recognise in the well-planned and well-kept garden, with its two
graveyards, and the beautiful central Monument on its grassy mound,
the site of the horrid slaughter-house which then stood in blood-
stained ruin about the well, choked with the victims of the foulest
treachery the world has ever seen.... The ceremonial was as simple as
it well could be, and few ceremonies could be more impressive.... The
Viceroy advanced to the top of the steps of the Memorial, and, through
the Commissioners, formally requested the Bishop to consecrate that
spot, and the adjacent burial-places. The Bishop, taking his place,
then headed a procession of the clergy and the people present, and
proceeded round the two burial-places and the interior of the Memorial
itself, with music playing and soldiers chanting the 49th, 115th,
139th, and 23rd Psalms. After this, his chaplain read the form of
consecration, which was signed by the Bishop; and, the 90th Psalm
having been sung, he shortly addressed those present in most feeling,
manly, and impressive terms befitting the occasion; and the ceremonial
concluded with prayers read by the chaplain of the station, closing
with the benediction by the Bishop.' The Bishop was the lamented
George Cotton. See his Life, p. 286.


[2] _The Company and the Crown._ By the Hon. T. J. Hovell-
Thurlow.

[3] One of the side valleys which run up northwards from the main
valley of the Beas.

[4] For permission to use this narrative the Editor has to thank
not only its author, Arthur Stanley, Dean of Westminster (and it is
but a small part of the obligations to him connected with this work),
but also the proprietors of the _North British Review_, in which it
appeared.

[5] 'The Expulsive Power of a New Affection.'--_Commercial
Discourses_, No. IX.

[6] That third brother, Sir Frederick Bruce, was laid in that same
vault, when his remains were brought home from Boston, where he was
suddenly cut off in 1867 at his post as Minister to the United States.