...I feel and know that all the rewards and honours in the world will ever be worthless for me as soon as they are obtained.  I know that always, as now, they will make me more sad than joyful.  I know that nothing that could be done would give me the pure and heartfelt joy and peace of mind that your love has given me, and, please God, shall give for many a long year to come, and yet my demon says work! work! you shall not even love unless you work.

Not blinded by any vanity, then, I hope...but viewing this stroke of fortune as respects its public estimation only, I think I must look upon the award of this medal as the turning-point of my life, as the finger-post teaching me as clearly as anything can what is the true career that lies open before me.  For whatever may be my own private estimation of it, there can be no doubt as to the general feeling about this thing, and in case of my candidature for any office it would have the very greatest weight.  And as you will have seen by my last letter, it only strengthens and confirms the conclusion I had come to.  Bid me God-speed then...it is all I want to labour cheerfully.

November 28.

...You will hear all the details of the Great Duke’s state funeral from the papers much better than I can tell you them.  I went to the Cathedral [St Paul’s] and had the good fortune to get a capital seat—­in front, close to the great door by which every one entered.  It was bitter cold, a keen November wind blowing right in, and as I was there from eight till three, I expected nothing less than rheumatic fever the next day; however I didn’t get it.  It was pitiful to see the poor old Marquis of Anglesey—­a year older than the Duke—­standing with bare head in the keen wind close to me for more than three quarters of an hour.  It was impressive enough—­the great interior lighted by a single line of light running along the whole circuit of the cornice, and another encircling the dome, and casting a curious illumination over the masses of uniforms which filled the great space.  The best of our people were there and passed close to me, but the only face that made any great impression 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 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, however, and all other things necessary to the “carrying on of the Queen’s Government.”

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.

The day after to-morrow I go to have my medal presented and to dine and make a speech.