Page:Wives of the prime ministers, 1844-1906.djvu/128

WIVES OF THE PRIME MINISTERS that equal justice should be done to both without any spirit of antagonism.

Lady John Russell herself is an abiding example of the best type of woman, quick to sympathise, ready to counsel, who, while admiring her husband as a statesman and giving him every assistance in his public career, admired the man more than the politician. After the birth of their eldest son, she wrote:

It was the quiet, retired life she loved and preferred. Sir Henry Taylor met her in 1852—she was approaching forty—for the first time since her girlhood, when he had known her very well indeed. Of their meeting he wrote: "I recollect some years ago, in going through the heart of the city, somewhere behind Cheapside, to have come upon the courtyard of an antique house, with grass and flowers and green trees growing as quietly as if it was the garden of a farmhouse in Northumberland. Lady John reminds me of it." The words fitly sum up Lady Russell's character. 98