1848 ENGAGEMENT 3g 



belief which for her sake, if for nothing else, he was eager to 

 justify by his best exertions. 



He had not had, so far, much opportunity of entering 

 the social world ; but his visit to Sydney gave him an oppor- 

 tunity of entering a good society to which his commission 

 in the navy was a sufficient introduction. He was eager 

 to find friendships if he could, for his reserve was anything 

 but misanthropic. It was not long before he made the 

 acquaintance of William Macleay, a naturalist of wide re- 

 search and great speculative ability ; and struck up a close 

 friendship with William Fanning, one of the leading 

 merchants of the town, a friendship which was to have 

 momentous consequences. For it was at Fanning's house 

 that he met his future wife. Miss Henrietta Anne Heathorn, 

 for whom he was to serve longer and harder than Jacob 

 thought to serve for Rachel, but who was to be his help 

 and stay for forty years, in his struggles ready to counsel, 

 in adversity to comfort ; the critic whose judgment he val- 

 ued above almost any, and whose praise he cared most 

 to win ; his first care and his latest thought, the other self, 

 whose union with him was a supreme example of mutual 

 sincerity and devotion. 



It was a case of love, if not actually at first sight, yet of 

 very rapid growth when he came to learn the quiet strength 

 and tenderness of her nature as displayed in the manage- 

 ment of her sister's household. A certain simplicity and 

 directness united with an unusual degree of cultivation, had 

 attracted him from the first. She had been two years at 

 school in Germany, and her knowledge of German and of 

 German literature brought them together on common 

 ground. Things ran very smoothly at the beginning, and 

 the young couple, whose united ages amounted to forty- 

 four years, became engaged. 



The marriage was to take place on his promotion to the 

 rank of full surgeon — a promotion he hoped to attain speed- 

 ily at the conclusion of the voyage on the strength of his 

 scientific work, for this was the inducement held out by the 

 Admiralty to energetic subalterns. The following letter to 

 his sister describes the situation : — 



