“There is to be a great Candahar debate in the Lords to-night. Lord Lytton speaks remarkably well—as an old debater would—and great interest is felt in the event. All the same Candahar will be given up; and some time hence, if we have soldiers left, we shall probably have to fight our way back again to it.
“Pray give our united kind regards to Captain Burton. I shall be so glad to hear any news if anything transpires at Trieste.
“Yours very sincerely,
“W. H. Smith.”
CHAPTER XXIV
THE SHADOWS LENGTHEN
(1881–1885)
O tired heart!
God knows,
Not you nor I.
The next four or five years were comparatively uneventful. There was little hope of promotion from the new Government, so the Burtons resigned themselves to Trieste with what grace they might; and though they were constantly agitating for promotion and change, neither the promotion nor the change came. Burton hated Trieste; he chafed at the restricted field for his energies which it afforded him; and had it not been for frequent expeditions of a more or less hazardous nature, and his literary labours, life at the Austrian seaport would have been intolerable to him. With Isabel it was different. As the years went on she grew to love the place and the people, and to form many ties and interests which it would have been hard for her to break. Notwithstanding this she warmly seconded her husband’s efforts to obtain from the Foreign Office some other post, and she was never weary of bringing his claims before the notice of the Government, the public, and any influential friends who might be likely to help. Indeed the record of her diary during these years is one of continuous struggle on her husband’s behalf, which is varied only by anxiety for his health.
“I am like a swimmer battling against strong waves,” she writes to a friend about this time, “and I think my life will always be thus. Were I struggling only for myself, I should long before have tired; but since it is for my dear one’s sake I shall fight on so long as life lasts. Every now and then one seems to reach the crest of the wave, and that gives one courage; but how long a time it is when one is in the depths!”