Among his friends who knew how warm a heart beat under that cold exterior, the news inspired the hope that here was the talisman which would reveal the hidden treasures of his nature. The stiff form would now unbend; the political leader would figure as a genial host; the martinet would become a man. Assuredly their estimate was correct. Pitt's nature needed more glow, wider sympathies, a freer expression. A happy marriage would in any case have widened his outlook and matured his character. But a union with Eleanor Eden would have supplied to him the amenities of life. We picture her exerting upon him an influence not unlike that which Wordsworth believed that his sister had exerted upon his being: thou didst plant its crevices with flowers, Hang it with shrubs that twinkle in the breeze, And teach the little birds to build their nests And warble in its chambers.[438] It was not to be. After toying with this day-dream, Pitt suddenly broke away to Downing Street. His letter to Auckland, written there on 20th January 1797, announced the decision of the Minister in chillingly correct terms. In pathetically halting and laboured phraseology he implied that he had throughout observed a correct aloofness. After five long sentences of apology to the father he proceeded thus: Whoever may have the good fortune ever to be united to her is destined to more than his share of human happiness. Whether, at any rate, I could have had any ground to hope that such would have been my lot, I am in no degree entitled to guess. I have to reproach myself for ever having indulged the idea on my own part as far as I have done, without asking myself carefully and early enough what were the difficulties in the way of its being realised. I have suffered myself to overlook them too long, but having now at length reflected as fully and as calmly as I am able on every circumstance that ought to come under my consideration (at least as much for her sake as for my own) I am compelled to say that I find the obstacles to it decisive and insurmountable.[439]