Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 2.djvu/128

 was in the habit of having all the doors and windows of his house opened every morning from five till seven, which kept it cool till three in the afternoon.

"I said my enjoyments in life had always been many books and a few friends, and these were indispensable to happiness. Books, he replied, were as easily had in Sydney or Melbourne as in London, only a few months later, and a few shillings dearer. As regards friends, he added, smiling a little cynically, if you insist on that luxury you must import it.

"My constant friend John Forster invited me to meet Mr. Latrobe, the first Governor of Victoria, who confirmed all the favourable statements. On the whole, I am content with this information and proceed with my preparations."

Before quitting Parliament there was some work which it was my peculiar duty to do. After the escape of Meagher and Mitchel the Government allowed Smith O'Brien and his remaining associates to return to Europe with the sole condition that they must not revisit the United Kingdom. It is a significant tribute to the character of O'Brien among men who knew him well that I had little difficulty in obtaining the signatures of a hundred and fifty members of Parliament to a memorial requesting that this restriction might be withdrawn. Sir Fitzroy Kelly and Henry Bailie, Spooner and Alexander Hamilton, Whiteside and Napier, signed as willingly as Cobden, Bright, Lord Goderich or Milner Gibson. The Secretary of the Admiralty and the Secretary of the Board of Control felt free to urge this measure on the Cabinet of the Administration to which they belonged; but I wanted something more—the assent of the Leader of the Opposition. When I mentioned it to Mr. Disraeli in the House he asked me to come and talk it over with him in Park Lane. My diary contains this account of the interview:—

"I was received in his library, a convenient room on an upper floor and well lined with books. He spoke immediately of my intention of leaving the House of Commons. I was too impatient, he said. Human life might be likened to a wheel; it was constantly turning round, and what was at the bottom to-day would be at the top some other day. The wheel, I said, was worked with a strong pulley by the party