Not yet, poor soul! A few more darksome hours
And sore temptations met and overcome,
A few more crosses bravely, meekly carried,
Ere I can proudly call the tried one home.
Nerve then thy heart; the toil will soon be done,
The crown of self-denial nobly earned and won.
From Lady Burton’s Devotional Book “Ten.”
Lady Burton remained at Trieste three months after her husband’s death. We have seen how she spent the first weeks of her bereavement, locked up with his manuscripts and papers. During that time she would see no one, speak to no one. When her work was done, all her husband’s wishes as to the disposal of his private papers carried out, and the manuscripts duly sorted and arranged, she came out from her seclusion, and put herself a little in touch with the world again. She was deeply touched at the sympathy which was shown to her. The Burtons had been so many years at Trieste, and were so widely known there and respected, that Sir Richard’s death was felt as a public loss. A eulogy of Sir Richard was delivered in the Diet of Trieste, and the House adjourned as a mark of respect to his memory. The city had three funeral requiems for him, and hundreds of people in Trieste, from the highest to the lowest, showed their sympathy with his widow. Her friends rallied round her, for they knew that her loss was no ordinary one, and she had consigned to the grave all that made life worth living for to her. Nor was this sympathetic regard confined to Trieste alone; the English press was full of the “dead lion,” and the dominant note was that he had not been done justice to while he was alive. Lady Burton was greatly gratified by all this, and she says a little bitterly: “It shows how truly he was appreciated except by the handful who could have made his life happy by success.”
Her first public act after her husband’s death was a defence of his memory. She had fought so hard for him when living that it seemed only natural to her to go on fighting for him now that he was beyond the reach of praise or blame. Colonel Grant had written a letter to The Times anent an obituary notice of Sir Richard Burton, in which he defended Speke, and spoke of the “grave charges” which Speke communicated against Burton to his relatives and to the Geographical Society. Lady Burton saw this letter some time after it appeared. She knew well enough what it hinted at, and she lost no time in sending a reply wherein she defended her husband’s character, and prefaced her remarks with the characteristic lines:
He had not dared to do it,