Life of Ahmad — Page 690
ADDRESSES RULERS AND THE RULED as 690 sycophancy Ahmad as would have presented some ignoble petition before the Government to get some material reward. He could have at least tried to regain his ancestral estate, for which, he knew, his father had tried so hard all his life. But it is a fact which even his bitterest enemies cannot challenge that Ahmad as never asked any favour of the British government. To show that Queen Victoria really deserved praise I quote from the Historians’ History of the World : 'Queen Victoria was a ruler of a new type. . . She not only captivated the affections of the multitude, but won the respect of thoughtful men. . . Her whole life, public and private, was an abiding lesson in the paramount importance of character. John Bright said of her that what specially struck him was her absolute truthfulness. . . She gradually became in later years the mother of her people and the link between all parts of a democratic empire, the citizens of which felt a passionate loyalty for their venerable queen. . . Her own life was by choice, and as far as her position would admit, one of almost austere simplicity and homelines, and her subjects were proud of a royalty which involved none of the mischiefs of caprice or ostention, but set an example alike of motherly sympathy and of queenly dignity. . . She acquired. . . a popularity which no British sovereign, and perhaps no sovereign in the