out to take place is a far more
serious matter than any of those which have preceded it; and that the
vast amount of labour devolving upon the Governor-General of India,
the insalubrity of the climate, and the advance of years, all tend to
render the prospect of our again meeting more remote and uncertain.

Independently of any such forebodings, there were sorrows on which it is
hardly necessary to dwell, but which were felt keenly by one so devoted to
'that peaceful home-life towards which he was always aspiring;'[1] the pain
of tearing himself again from the children now growing up to need in an
especial manner a father's presence, and of leaving the mother of these
children, for a time at least, to contend alone with cares and anxieties
from which it would have been his greatest happiness to shield and protect
her. Something, too, there may have been of the depression which breathes
in the poet's complaint, 'the roll of mighty poets is made up'--a feeling
that the work of pacifying and settling India had been so thoroughly
accomplished by Lord Dalhousie and Lord Canning, that the field no longer
contained any laurels to be reaped by their successor. 'I succeed,' he used
to say, 'to a great man and a great war, with a humble task to be humbly
discharged.'

[Sidenote: Visit to Osborne.]
[Sidenote: Sails for India.]

But these thoughts and feelings, though they may have dimmed the brightness
of his anticipations, could not for long overcloud that 'unfailing
cheerfulness' which contributed much to make him throughout life so
successful himself, and so helpful to others: still less could they for a
moment check the alacrity with which he set himself to prepare for his new
duties. For some time he remained in London; after which he spent several
pleasant months in Scotland, laying up a store of happy recollections to
which his thoughts in after days often turned. Early in January 1862,
accompanied by Lady Elgin, he went to Osborne on a visit to the Queen; who
even in those early days of widowhood, roused herself to receive the first
Viceroy of India ever appointed by the sole act of the Crown. On the 28th
of the same month he quitted the shores of England; and, after a rapid and
uneventful journey, reached Calcutta on March 12. As Lady Elgin was unable
to accompany him, he resumed the habit of conversing with her, so to speak,
through the medium of a journal; from which some brief extracts are here
given,