The first act in the drama of his public life was thus concluded. He had done well, he had mastered the details of a difficult profession, in his own words he “had learnt his business.” He was esteemed by his comrades and his superiors as a competent officer in all respects; beyond this, however, nothing more was said or thought of him at that time. All this has been and yet will be recorded of hundreds of British officers in India, before or after him, whose names are nevertheless not written in the roll of fame. _Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona multi_: indeed many men as good as he then was are now living and will still live. Furthermore, many officers have, in the course of their first ten years, shown more signs of genius, or talent, or statesmanlike accomplishments, than he had displayed up to this time. When he sailed from Calcutta for England in 1840 neither he himself nor his friends had, on a retrospect of his first ten years, formed any idea of the career which he was to run during his second ten years, and had never, even in day-dreams, caught a vision of the destiny which awaited him during his third ten years. The elements of his character were being gradually fused into granitic consistency. To him was applicable that British metaphor, which though familiar is never trite because the proofs of its truth are oft-recurring: the sturdy oak grows slowly, but in proportion to that slowness is the ultimate strength to bear the weight, withstand the strain and resist the storm.
Returning to England during the summer of 1840, he found the home of his youth at Clifton much altered. His father had passed away, his sister Letitia had married, but his mother remained to benefit by his affectionate assistance. Though his health was not re-established, yet his energy and spirits revived under the European skies, and his vivacity astonished both friends and acquaintances. He proceeded to Bonn, and stayed there for a time with his sister-in-law, the wife of George Lawrence who was in Afghanistan. Then he paid visits in England and travelled in Scotland and Ireland. In Donegal he was so fortunate as to meet Harriette, daughter of the Reverend Richard Hamilton, whom he married in August 1841, thus forming a union of the very happiest character. He proceeded to the continent of Europe on a wedding-tour, passing through Switzerland to Italy, and gathered notions, in his practical way, regarding the policy and strategy of ancient Rome. He particularly noticed the campaigns of Hannibal, to which he often alluded in after-life. But the Indian ailments partially reappeared in the malarious climate of the Roman campagna. At Naples, in the beginning of 1842, he received news of the disasters at Caubul and hurried home to England, sorely anxious regarding the captivity of his brother George amidst the Afghans. In London he had a grave relapse of illness, but was sufficiently recovered by the autumn to start for India by the overland route, after bidding a last farewell to his mother.