country" and have no other associations but that one, when politicians seem
necessarily great men? The love-dreams of adolescence have often been
celebrated; but among young creatures whose lives give plenty of play to
their affections in a spontaneous way, such dreams seldom vie in intensity
with the mysterious call of religion or with the emotion of patriotism. It
stands for an emotion which seems as large as the love of mankind, and its
service calls for enthusiasm and self-devotion. The Mintos were in the
thick of politics and the times were stirring times. "Throughout the last
two centuries of our history," says Sir George Trevelyan in his Life of
Macaulay, "there never was a period when a man, conscious of power,
impatient of public wrongs, and still young enough to love a fight for its
own sake, could have entered Parliament with a fairer prospect of leading a
life worth living and doing work that would requite the pains, than at the
commencement of the year 1830." Her father was not only the most genial and
kindest of fathers, but he was to her something of a hero too. His
political career had not begun during these days at Minto; still he was in
the counsel of the leaders of the day--Lord Grey, Lord John Russell, Lords
Melbourne and Althorp--great names indeed to her. And the new Cabinet was
soon to appoint him Minister at Berlin.

The country was under the personal rule of the Duke of Wellington, who had
sorted out from his Cabinet any who were tainted with sympathy for reform;
but, as the election of July which resulted in his resignation showed, the
country, however one-sided its representation might have been in the House
of Commons, had been long in a state of political ferment. This state of
affairs, the gradual breaking up of the Tory party dating from the passing
of the Catholic Emancipation Bill, the brewing social troubles, and the
prospect of power crossing to the party which was determined on meeting
them with reform, made politics everywhere the most absorbing of themes.