Thus Lady Fanny came home to find the country-side preparing for a mid-winter election.  Her uncle, George Elliot, was standing for the home constituency against Lord John Scott, whom he just succeeded in defeating.  In most constituencies, however, the Liberals triumphed more easily, and when the new Parliament met they were in a majority of more than a hundred.  In April Lord John Russell carried his motion for the appropriation of the surplus revenues of the Irish Church to general moral and religious purposes, so Peel resigned.  Melbourne again became Prime Minister, and in the autumn of the same year, 1835, Lord Minto was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty.

This meant a great change in Lady Fanny’s life; henceforward for the next eight years more than half of every year was spent by her in London.  There is a change, too, in the spirit of her diaries.  Her nature was the reverse of introspective and melancholy, but at this time she was often unhappy and dissatisfied for no definite reason; her diaries show it.  It is not likely that others were aware of this private distress.  She was leading at the time a busy life both at home and in society, and there were many things in which she was keenly interested.  The troubles confided to these private pages were not due to compunction for anything she had done, nor were they caused by any particular event; they expressed simply a general discontent with herself and a kind of Weltschmerz not uncommon in a young and thoughtful mind.  For the first time she seems glad of outside interests because they distract her.

The months in London were broken by occasional residence at Roehampton House and by visits to Bowood.  At Bowood with the Lansdowne family she was always happy.  There she heard with delight Tom Moore sing his Irish melodies for the first time.  There was much, too, in London to distract and amuse her:  breakfasts with Rogers, luncheons at Holland House, and dinner-parties at which all the leading Whig politicians were present.  But society did not satisfy her; she wanted more natural and more intimate relations than social gatherings usually afford.

    LONDON, May 9, 1835

    We went to Miss Berry’s in the evening.  I thought it very tiresome,
    but was glad to see Lord John Russell and his wife.

    BOWOOD, December 26, 1835

The evening was very quiet, there was not much to alarm one, and the prettiest music possible to listen to.  Mr. Moore singing his own melodies—­it was really delightful, and a kind of singing I never heard before.  He has very little voice, but what he has is perfectly sweet, and his real Irish face looks quite inspired.  The airs were most of them simply beautiful, and many of the words equally so.

    January 31, 1836, ADMIRALTY