us.  But I do not dwell upon past enjoyments, but upon present blessings, and I do lie and talk and read and write and think cheerfully and gratefully.

Dearest, I know you cannot see much of the children, but when you do, pray be both Papa and Mama to them.  Do not let their little minds grow reserved towards you, or your great mind towards them.  Help them to apply what they hear you read from the Bible to their own little daily pleasures and cares, and you will find how delightfully they take it all in.

    God bless you, my dearest.  Pray go out every day, and take Isabel
    and Bessy or one of the small ones with you sometimes to enliven
    you.

    Lady John to Lord John Russell

    EDINBURGH, January 26, 1846

Your mention of the dreams which you had had of happiness for Ireland made me sad, and you know how I shared in those dreams....  I like the way in which politics are talked here, it is far enough from the scene of action for them to lose much of their personality, and for all the little views to be lost in the greater—­and yet the interest is as great as in London.

    Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby

    EDINBURGH, January 28, 1846

Well, I wonder what you will say to the debate or rather the explanations in Parliament.  Are not John’s and Sir Robert’s speeches a curious contrast? and is not John a generous man? and is not Sir Robert a puzzling one? and was there ever such a strange state of parties?  What an unhappy being a real Tory must be, at least in England, battling so vainly against time and tide, and doomed to see the idols of his worship crumbled to dust one after another.  In your benighted country [Italy] their end is further off; but still it must come.  I am reading a book on Russia that makes my blood boil at every page.  It is called “Eastern Europe and the Emperor Nicholas,” and I am positively ashamed of the reception we gave that wholesale murderer in our free country.

    Lord John to Lady John Russell

    CHESHAM PLACE, February 1, 1846

The Ministry will carry their Corn Measure, but will hardly last a month after it.  What next?  I think the next Government will be Whig, as the Protection party have no corps of officers in the House of Commons.  So that their only way of avenging themselves upon Peel is to bring in a Liberal Ministry.

    Lady John to Lord John Russell

    MINTO, February 7, 1846