The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-06-16
LORD ROBERTS.
PICTURESQUE DESCRIPTION or
THE FIELD ma RSH.iL

plains Some of the Generals Success
With His Men and His Work.
Since Lord Roberts assumed control OF
British destiny in South Africa there
have been many attempts to delineate,
for the benefit Of the public, his person.
al characteristics and his doings at the
front. None has so pleased the British
people as the brilliant sketch of the
field marshal which Julian Ralph con-
tributes to the Daily Mail. For pic
turesque description Of the man whose
actions daily rivet the worlds attention,
it is unequaled. While the gifted
American correspondent frankly admits
that he has fallen under the magnetic
spell Of the little man who controls the
greatest army England ever had, he
! also manages to explain and partially
dissect that magnetism, with such fas-
cination as we'll nigh effaces traces OF
the glamor under which the sketch was
| written. He says:
1.-THE first time the correspondents
saw him was at a railway car window
at Modder river He sent for them
and addressed them as one who speaks
to friends. 1t seemed to them that he
lifted every disability and brushed away
every limitation which had hampered
and almost crippled them in their work
up to that time They We're to write
what they pleased. he said, and this was
not to be censored Only their tele-
| grams would be scrutinized. They We're
to go wherever he went, whatever they
| willed to go.
Many had never seen him before, but
| all surrendered to the spell that sur
| charges the atmosphere around him
during this brief interview in which he
revealed that sympathy, trust and
frankness and that breadth of view
which are among his most marked
traits. They looked on his face as upon
the face of a man-leader; a man born to
ride in the van of men, to be followed
and obeyed
ITO me his face suggests the front of
a granite mountain, scanned, lined bat
tered by storm, strain and racking
change. 1t records acquaintance with
every trial to which mortals are put, all
suffered in the solitude of undivided re-
sponsibiity Care, worry, sickness,
danger, unceasing reflection, all had left
their marks there, yet all were written
across a gentle, sympathetic counte-
nance, never gay or merry, yet seldom
stern, and wholly ignorant of passion.
II have known many great faces but
that of Lord Roberts ic a face apart.
fancy that, in the minds Of their wor-
shippers, some of the soberer gods of the
old mythologles had faces like his.
In person he is Little Bobs.' He is
one of those small packages in which
the gods have so often packed military
genius. as if it were rare commodity,
not obtainable in bulk. He dresses in
serge khaki, which, plain as that al
ways must be, he renders the more
plain by Kidding it of all orders and |
decorations. There are men on his staff |
there was even an American newspa-
per reporter with one of the armies
who wear a line and half OF ribbons. |
But the chief, who is entitled to per-
haps four lines, appears every day, for |
every duty and function with tunic as
bare of decorations as that of any civil
ian. He Is so neat and precise in his |
dress that | suspect he must have been
dandy in earlier life, He is uick and |
nervous in his movementsq and his
constant habit is to thrust either one or
both hands under his beta practice
which makes it easy for artists to ia
miliarize his figure with the public He
is instantaneous and direct in CONVEX
sation, and goes as straight to the point
in view as well aimed bullet to tar
get, | have noticed that when he meets
new people he advances toward them
eagerly, listens intensely, and in three
minutes either engages the new ac-
quaintance in earnest conversation or
has done with him with a desisive nod
of parting.
with the army in South Africa his
headquarters form a court-almost as if
he were part of the royalty he repre-
sents. You do not call upon him You
sign your name in book, and he sends
for you later If he wants to see you. 1t
may be duke whom you find in the
central sale of the residepcy-as it was
In my case-and who offers the register
for you to sign.
THE field marshal works continuous
ly, and to do so has to be free from in
therefore visitors meet him
ciiiy At luiitll VI ulHitT. III f1ipe11lIOn-
tein, where he was living between walls,
bis table was a small one, standing a
few feet from the head of the very
large, long table, at which sat his staff
his ponderous, impressive staff of dis
tinguished men of the aristocracy. You
dined with Bobs in khaki, of course, at
his small table--if you were highly bon
bred; or you may dine with his staff
and be presented to him after the meal
FOR as long or brief an interview an he
pleases.
That is precisely the amount and ex-
tent of state about his surroundings,
But all state vanishea when you touch
he hand of the little man and talk with {
1im about the two subjects which en-
gross him-the war around him and
politics at home [
IF you wonder that politics find such ,
'pecious Judgment as they do in his
mind, you have not remembered how ,
politics have affected him in his career 1
Us general, here in South Africa !
when he could have prevented this war
~ vastly smaller one-in Kandahar; $
n many fields. ,
Lord Roberts never smoked tobacco, /
md with drink he has little to do. A g
glass of wine with two OF the three |
meals suffices for him. He breaches
emperance to his soldiers and they all [
NOW that he shows no ra tiapno ,,-;tl, | !,