510 THE STORY OF THE KHEDIVATE.

and the post can only be filled satisfactorily by a man prepared to co-operate, not only loyally, but cordially, with the British authorities. I fancy myself that when Nubar quitted office he was not without a hope that circumstances might arise which would necessitate his return to public life in a position of greater power and less responsibility. All men who have played a leading part in public affairs are apt to imagine that the world cannot well get on without them ; and Nubar was not altogether an exception to this rule. His sound judgment and his clearness of vision caused him to recognize fully the great benefits Egypt had derived from British administration ; but I have little doubt he entertained a belief that these advantages might have been more signal and more durable if they had been accomplished by the machinery he himself would have employed. Failing health and domestic reasons, combined with a sense that his services to Egypt had not received the full recognition they merited, tended somewhat to sadden his later years. He took no special interest in the politics of foreign countries, except in as far as they affected Egypt, and he felt keenly the absence of occupation. Not very long before his last illness, he complained to me that he had tried to occupy himself, first with agriculture, and afterwards with the compilation of his memoirs, but that he found these occupations did not divert his mind. " Egypt," he added, " has been the one interest of my life, and I find I am too old to take any new interest to heart"