His diplomatic duties at first gave him some concern. He wrote to his daughter, 18 November, 1877: “Mamma has told you of my tribulations with gout--first in one foot, then in t’other. I could not write any letters during those six weeks. And then I had my moral acclimatization to go through with, which is not by any means ended yet. It _was_ rather tough at first--in a perfectly strange country, the only stranger, as it were, for all my fellow-diplomats had either been here some years or had experience elsewhere;--unable to speak the language fluently, and in a labyrinth of etiquette where, as in some old gardens, if you take a step in the wrong direction you are deluged with cold water. Well, philosophy is an admirable umbrella, but when we are caught in a sudden shower it’s no use remembering how we left it standing in the corner, as we always do.” Lowell thought himself too old to find the ceremonial parts of his occupation even amusing. They bored him; but he had a genuine human interest in the living part of what he saw and did. It was for him like reading a bit of history, not from books but from men, and it was not long before he had an opportunity of taking part in a ceremony, the marriage of the young King; and in the narrative which he gives of the event, as well as preliminary comments in despatches to the State Department, 13 December, 1877--6 February, 1878,[70] he not only gives an agreeable description of the affair, but indicates with some clearness his own personal interest as a student.