" I
feel now that when the time comes, my complimentary self-determination
may be shrouded in the veil of a learned language, and if the words,
"His friends were many and true-hearted" are added in the vernacular
they will pass with men of Hellenic culture as an allowable example of a
free translation.
It will also have a certain support from one of the tablets with which
my tablet will be colleague, the tablet that commemorates the first Sir
Henry Strachey, the Secretary of Clive and a man who was for forty years
and more a Member of the House of Commons. This epitaph has not the
usual flowery pomposity that one would expect to find in the case of a
man of his age and occupation and position. It is reticent, if
conventional. One phrase, however, stands out. Henry Strachey is
described as "_an active friend_." That is much too great praise
for a man to claim for himself, but there is nothing that I should like
better than to be able to think when I boasted that my friends, like the
friends of Hermogenes, were many and cared for me, that I had helped to
make them so because in a world so full of passive friends I had at any
rate tried to be active.
* * * * *
I must begin with Lord Cromer, for I had a regard for him, and for his
wise and stimulating advice, which touches the point of veneration.
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