wife, I mean to renew and improve my relations with her, if she has no objection....  She is very interesting to me, as having kept herself pure from the world with a fresh and natural and not ungifted mind in the world’s most crowded ways.  I recollect some years ago going through the heart of the City, somewhere behind Cheapside, to have come upon a courtyard of an antique house, with grass and flowers and green trees growing as quietly as if it was the garden of a farm-house in Northumberland.  Lady John reminds me of it.

The charm of her company, apart from the kindliness of her manner, lay in an immediate responsiveness to all that was going on around her, and the sense her talk and presence conveyed of a life controlled by a homely, dignified, strenuous tradition.  It was the spontaneity of her sympathy which all her life long drew to her defenders, dispirited or hopeful, of struggling causes, and so many idealists, confident or resigned, shabby or admired.  Any with a cause at heart, an end to aim at beyond personal ends, found in her a companion who seemed at once to understand how bitter were the checks or how important the triumphs they had met, and to them her company was a singular refreshment and inspiration, amid the polite or undisguised indifference of the world.  She could listen with ardour; and if this sympathy was there for comparative strangers, still more was it at the service of those who possessed her affection.  She reflected instantaneously their joys and troubles; indeed, she made both so much her own that those she loved were often tempted at first to hide their troubles from her.  Such natures cannot usually disguise their emotions, and though she could conceal her own physical sufferings so as almost to mislead those with whom she lived, her feelings were plainly legible.  If anything was said in her presence which pained her, her distress was visible in a moment; and as a beautiful consequence of this transparent expressiveness, her gaiety was infectious and her affection shone out upon those she loved with tenderest radiance.

* * * * *

After Lord Russell’s death political events can no longer be used as a thread to connect her letters and other writings together; but the following passages, chosen over many years, will, it is hoped, give to those who never knew her some idea of her as she is remembered by those who did.

On Lady Georgiana Peel’s first birthday after the death of her father Lady Russell sent her the following verses: 

    To GEORGY

    For her Birthday, February 6, 1879.

    TUNE:  "Lochnagar."

      What music so early, so gently awakes me,
        And why as I listen these fast falling tears;
      And what is the magic that so swiftly takes me
        Far back on my road, o’er the dust of dead years?

      Voice of the past, in thy sweetness and sadness
        Thy magic enthralling, thy beauty and power,
      Oh voice of the past! in thy deep holy sadness,
        I know thee and yield to thee one little hour.