Letters 19 



upon my memory was that of Sir Charles Napier, the 

 conqueror of Scinde. Fancy a very large, broad-winged, 

 and fierce-looking hawk in uniform. Such an eye ! 



When the coffin and the mourners had passed I closed 

 up with the soldiers and went up under the dome, where 5 

 I heard the magnificent service in full perfection. 



All of it, however, was but stage trickery compared 

 with the noble simplicity of the old man's life. How the 

 old stoic, used to his iron bed and hard hair pillow, would 

 have smiled at all the pomp submitting to that, how- 10 

 ever, and all other things necessary to the " carrying on 

 of the Queen's<joi|ernment." 



I send Tennyson's ode by way of packing it is not 

 worth much more, the only decent passages to my mind 

 being those I have marked. 15 



The day after to-morrow I go to have my medal 

 presented and to dine and make a speech. 



[To Miss Heathorn. London, July 6, 1853. On his 

 new aims and purposes.] 



I know that these three years have inconceivably altered 20 

 me that from being an idle man, only too happy to flow 

 into the humors of the moment, I have become almost 

 unable to exist without active intellectual excitement. I 

 know that in this I find peace and rest such as I can 

 attain in no other way. From being a mere untried 25 

 fledgling, doubtful whether the wish to fly proceeded 

 from mere presumption or from budding wings, I have 

 now some confidence in well-tried pinions, which have 

 given me rank among the strongest and foremost. I have 

 always felt how difficult it was for you to realize all 30 

 this how strange it must be to you that though your 

 image remained as bright as ever, new interests and pur- 



