n of the troops, etc. As it has, thank God,
turned out to be a hoax, a most wicked hoax, of some stockjobbing
or traitorous wretch at Liverpool, I shall not waste your time and
sympathies by telling you of the anxious hours we spent till seven
in the evening, when the truth was made out.

And now let us trust that real rebellion may not be in store. It is
dreadful to think of bloodshed, of loss of life, of the desolation
of one's country and of the many, many imaginable and unimaginable
miseries of civil war; but one thing I feel would be more dreadful
still, weak and womanly as I may be in so feeling--to see one's
husband unable to prevent the miseries, perhaps accusing himself of
them, and sinking, as I know mine _would_, by degrees under
his efforts and his regrets. Let us trust and pray, then, that we
are not doomed to see the reality of so gloomy a picture. It is
always difficult to me to look forward to great political failures
and national misfortunes, perhaps because I have never known any;
but the alarm of yesterday has made them seem more possible.

_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_

LONDON, _August_ 3, 1848

... I do not care for my country or my husband's success a bit more
than is good for me, and I often wonder at and almost blame myself
for not being more disturbed about them.

I know that he does his best, and that is all I care very deeply or
very permanently about; though there may now and then be a more
than commonly anxious day. If I thought him stupid, or mean, or
ignorant, or thoughtless, or indifferent in his trade, I should not
be satisfied with his doing his best even; but as I luckily think
him the contrary of all these things, I am both satisfied and calm,
and his own calm mind helps me to be so. Sometimes I think I care
much more about politics at a distance than when I am mixed up in
them. The fact is that I care very much for the questions
themselves, but grow wearied to death of all the details and
personalities belonging to them, and consequently of the
conversation of lady politicians, made up as it is of these details
and personalities. And the more interested I am in the thing
itself, the more angry I am with the nonsense they talk about it,
and had rather listen to the most humdrum domestic twaddle. Mind, I
mean the regula