Lady de Kothschild and Elfie.

Extracts from her Notebooks
with
A Preface by her Daughter
CONSTANCE BATTERSEA

LONDON
ARTHUR L. HUMPHREYS
187 PICCADILLY, W.

I have tried to collect and to put into some consecutive form a number of extracts, taken from various authors, often with her own comments, which were amongst my dear mother's papers.

These extracts form a valuable index to forty years of reading! They are occasionally to be found scattered through her diaries, but more generally entered in small unpretentious note-books, which she always kept by her side, where she could transcribe in pen or pencil the passage that struck her fancy. Often the marks of the pencil were faint, or the pen was remiss in its duty, but if the instrument so employed was at times faulty, her own exquisite literary taste was never so.

Although, as far as possible, a continuity of dates has been faithfully observed—from 1860 to 1907—for a selection of extracts, still there occurs many a gap in the notes on books during those years, for which it would be difficult to find an explanation other than the fact that some note-books were probably destroyed or lost in the lapse of time.

I have every reason to conclude that the passages in prose or verse, that were entered unsigned, and not

between inverted commas, were by my dear mother's own pen, in addition to those which bear her usual signature: 'L. de R.'

The little note-books reveal a wide range of reading and a great variety of authors. My mother was not merely a comprehensive, but also a very discriminating reader. Books were indeed her beloved companions, from her earliest youth to within a few months of her death, at the age of eighty-nine, and with them she spent some of her happiest hours.

To a great extent they helped to keep her mind fresh and young. She was never alarmed at critical investigations either in Theology or in Science, and eagerly accepted (if she thought them wise) new methods of dealing with philanthropic work and with social questions. Nor was she ever afraid of the principles of a true liberalism.

Thus she read with warm interest the newest books, making herself acquainted with the very last results of research in many fields. But this love of critical study did not prevent her from returning again and again, with renewed pleasure and interest, to some of her old and well-read favourites.

When quite young she became deeply engrossed in the study of metaphysics, and was laughingly taken to task by an older relative for wasting her time and that of one of her cousins over such useless and ungrateful literature. Many years afterwards (1874) Mr. Matthew Arnold in writing to my mother said:—

'You must read my metaphysics in this last "Con-

temporary"—my first and last appearance in that field where you, I know, are no stranger.'

At the age of nineteen, on the eve of her marriage, in March 1840, she drew up the following somewhat austere plan for the days of the week, and when, after a time, it had to be discarded, she embarked upon further studies, preparing herself for the superintendence of her children's education, and for the many philanthropic schemes that occupied her mind and her heart:—

'SUNDAY—Without any attempt at order: read as much of new publications, newspapers, magazines as possible.

Monday—Household and newspapers ... till ½ past 10. A chapter of Locke on the Human understanding ... , 11. Drawing ... , 11. New publications ... , ½ past 1. Geography ... , 12. past 1. Geography ... , 14. Tuesday—Household accounts and newspapers ... , ½ past 1. Letters ... , 12. Drawing ... , ½ past 1. Letters ... , 12. Drawing ... , 12. past 1. Letters ... , 12. Drawing ... , ½ past 1. Locke ... , 12. Drawing ... , ½ past 10. Locke ... , 12. Drawing ... , ½ past 10. Locke ... , 12. Drawing ... , ½ past 10. Locke ... , 12. Drawing ... , ½ past 10. Locke ... , 13. Drawing ... , ½ past 14. History ... , 2. Ancient Literature ... , 44.

All through her life she began the day by reading a few verses from the Bible, and the many well-marked passages that I have found are a proof of the care she gave to this study, and of her predilection for the Psalms and for the writings of some of the Prophets.

The following words were written after she had made her plan of life:—

'In order to regulate my conduct rightly, I must diligently study the Word of God, and pray earnestly for the knowledge of my duties and the strength to fulfil them, and be vigilant in constant self-examination. My present duties are to give an example of virtue and piety; to influence, if possible, the conduct of those around me; to make my husband as happy as lies in my power, fulfilling his desires and in all things giving way to his wishes; to employ industry, attention, and judgment in directing those persons and affairs which are under my control. My first object now must no longer be simply to know, but to make use, and the best use, of that which I know; to advance the happiness and comfort of all those around us.'

Severe towards herself as she was indulgent to others, my mother never allowed herself to read a work of fiction until the studies and business of the day were well over, and even then she regarded fiction as a delightful amusement, a sort of dissipation of the mind, of which to taste sparingly.

In her early days she read both Italian and German, but as years crept on, the only language, other than English, that attracted her was French. A governess to whom she had been devoted—a native of Geneva, and

a most cultivated and charming personality—had early embued her with a taste for the French language, whilst two years spent in Paris at the beginning of her married life, before the upheaval of 1848, when social intercourse was at its pleasantest and brightest, brought her into contact with many distinguished men and women of that period. It was then that she thoroughly enjoyed, amongst other things, the unrivalled performances at the Théâtre Français, the great actress Rachel being at the very height of her fame.

To the last she was a constant reader of the Revue des Deux Mondes, delighting in the crisp and lucid style of French prose.

Although purely comic literature never could have appealed to her, yet her keen sense of humour made her appreciate much that was delicately humorous in literature, and some works of Dickens stood high in her favour; she did not care for his sentiment, but enjoyed his fun and his humour.

She often spoke with happy pride of her early friendship with Mr. Thackeray, and she would read and re-read The Newcomes, Pendennis, and Vanity Fair, always finding fresh interest in their pages. In Pendennis there occurs the following beautiful and touching passage, which the great author wrote as a picture of my mother:—

'What one sees symbolised in the Roman churches in the image of the Virgin Mother, with a bosom bleeding with love, I think one may witness (and admire the Almighty bounty for) every day. I saw a Jewish lady only yesterday with a child at her knee, and from whose

face towards the child there shone a sweetness so angelical that it seemed to form a sort of glory round both. I protest I could have knelt before her too, and adored in her the Divine beneficence in endowing us with the maternal "storgé" which began with our race and sanctifies the history of mankind."

The daughter of Mr. Thackeray, a writer herself of much charm and tenderness—Lady Ritchic—was from her very earliest days beloved by my mother, who in another instance transmitted the warm feelings of friendship she had entertained for a writer of one generation, to his children of the next.*

Mr. Matthew Arnold's acquaintance with my mother sprang from their first meeting at the Jews' Free School in the East End of London, which Mr. Arnold used to visit in his official capacity of School Inspector. The acquaintance rapidly ripened into friendship, and the happy days of Inspectorship remained unbroken, even when the scene had changed from London to Buckinghamshire, where Mr. Arnold came regularly during the 'sixties' to inspect, amongst others, the schools my parents had established in the village of Aston Clinton.

In 1863 Mr. Arnold wrote to his mother: 'Lady de Rothschild I am very fond of.' And her name constantly appears in the collection of his letters, edited by Mr. G. W. E. Russell. Alluding to a relation of my mother's, he wrote: 'A very remarkable person,

^* Lucy and Eleanor Arnold, daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Matthew Arnold, married—Lucy, to Mr. Frederick Whitridge of New York, Eleanor, to the late Honble. Armine Wodehouse, and now, the wife of the present Lord Chamberlain, Lord Sandhurst.

with a man's power of mind and with great enthusiasm, but,' he adds, 'my unapproached favourite is, and will always be, Lady de Rothschild.'

As an author, Lord Beaconsfield was nearer to her than as a politician. She had known him in the early days as Mr. Disraeli, when he was a brilliant and most amusing talker; he often appeared at her mother's hospitable table, and was greatly attracted by the charm of his hostess's young daughter. It was on one of those occasions that the lady he was about to make his wife—Mrs. Wyndham Lewis—was present. The engagement had not been announced, and my mother and her sister, to their infinite amusement, surprised many a nod, wink, and toast given and taken between that happy pair. When the news was made public within the next few days, the two sisters expressed their astonishment that their young and brilliant friend should marry a lady who, in their eyes, seemed to be already quite elderly; but until the end of their lives both Lord and Lady Beaconsfield (Mr. and Mrs. Disraeli) were, and remained, my dear mother's devoted friends.

The very first time that my mother consented to accompany me on a motor drive, was to visit the beautifully situated churchyard at Hughenden—within fourteen miles of Aston Clinton—where she stood beside the grave of her old friend, Lord Beaconsfield. She talked of him and her acquaintance with him in early days to the astonished sexton, who shook his head unbelievingly at the fact that my mother's acquaintance with the great statesman dated back to the years before his marriage.

Mr. Gladstone she knew less intimately; but she keenly enjoyed the two visits that he paid her at Aston Clinton, during the Easter weeks of 1888 and 1890, when the great statesman was singularly alive to the clearness of her understanding and the quickness of her grasp.

She had known Samuel Rogers; she had been introduced to Guizot, and had dined by the side of Balzac; she had sat and listened to Macaulay*, and had entertained Bulwer, Tennyson, Browning, Bernal Osborne, Charles Villiers, John Delane, Lord Lyndhurst, Dean Stanley—who mentioned her once in a letter as 'that distinguished daughter of Israel,'—Bishop Wilberforce, and his son the present Archdeacon of Westminster, whose name is affectionately mentioned in the diaries, and many others: authors, prelates, statesmen, &c., of the great Victorian era. Indeed, although she was deeply interested in men of letters she often maintained that they gave of their best to their writings.

George Eliot's early novels appealed greatly to my mother, Adam Bede and Silas Marner being her special favourites, but unfortunately, the pleasure of a personal acquaintance with that great author had been denied her. On the other hand, she not only claimed acquaintance with, but also the friendship of, Mrs. Humphry Ward, whose name, most affectionately mentioned, occurs again and again in the diaries.

Frances Power Cobbe attracted her by her strong intellect, her brilliant penmanship, as well as by her breezy humour, whilst my mother was greatly struck by

* Sir George Trevelyan, Lord Macaulay's nephew and biographer, was a favourite and frequent visitor at my mother's house.

the courage and steadfastness with which Miss Cobbe fought a desperate and seemingly losing battle against scientific research in the animal world.

Through all the years of her life, my mother found constant companionship in her faithful dogs. She had one of these affectionate creatures always with her, and their devotion proved a great solace as the years crept on: to her loving and tender heart vivisection was therefore doubly abhorrent, and she could not bear to dwell upon the painful facts that had been brought to her notice.

Responsive as my mother was to the charm of literature, she had a beautiful and refined style of her own, with much originality of thought and grace of diction. She had been repeatedly urged to allow some of her writings to appear in print, but with very few exceptions had always refused to publish them. She wrote two of the chapters that appeared in a book of Essays, called, 'A few words to the Jews by one of themselves,' which emanated from the brilliant pen of her elder and only sister*; also a story that came out in one of the volumes of the Cheap Jewish Library—a publication long extinct—and some other contributions to a little collection of Sabbath Class Addresses—all published without her name.

It was her custom to make a list of books in advance that she intended reading, and she generally kept to her purpose, and it was wonderful what she accomplished. I hardly ever saw her without a book

^* Mrs Haratia Manteflara

in her hand. But she had not a good verbal memory, so that she never could quote correctly, which caused her much annoyance. How often she wished that she could have beguiled sleepless hours by repeating favourite passages from favourite authors. She used greatly to enjoy reading aloud to us as children, and was also a very good listener: when in after-years her eyesight began to trouble her in the matter of reading small print, I constantly read the Parliamentary speeches in the Times aloud to her, and enjoyed her wonderfully discriminating and pertinent remarks. Her judgment was never obscured by prejudice, nor was she ever carried away by sentiment or personal interest in the speakers.

In the year 1892 my mother spent three weeks with us at the Pleasaunce, Overstrand, our Norfolk home: there she met daily and in the pleasantest intimacy Lord Morley, or as he then was, Mr. John Morley. They soon became friends, and it was in answer to one of her questions that Mr. Morley wrote for her his definition of 'Holiness'—which appeared later in an article that he published in the Ninetcenth Century. At the end of that brief summer holiday, when my mother left us to return to her own home, Mr. Morley, gazing sadly at her accustomed but then empty chair, exclaimed: 'Your house has lost one of its chief charms and attractions.'

I venture to quote a few lines from a letter written to me by Lord Morley within a week after my dear mother's death:—

'When we were all at Overstrand nineteen years ago

I had a chance that I shall never forget of learning something of her rare gifts and most admirable qualities, her real love of truth and passion for justice, her interest in the things that are worth being interested in, her good taste and right judgment in books and the spirit of literature; her kindly yet firm views of men and women and human life.'

My mother was always very cosmopolitan in her tastes; she loved foreign travel and foreign languages—perhaps the result of having spent six years of her early life, from the age of ten to sixteen (1831-1837) travelling in Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, in the company of her widowed mother, and for the benefit of the health of her sister, to whom she was passionately attached and whose death, at a comparatively early age, brought her for the first time face to face with a poignant grief. The only daughter* of this, her only sister, claimed and always held a warm place in my dear mother's affections.

Living abroad under very pleasant conditions, at a most impressionable age, she enjoyed many advantages denied to those who lead an entirely insular existence. She made acquaintance with the celebrated pictures of the Continent, and as she had great artistic taste—indeed, she became a very good artist, devoting much time first to portrait and later to flower painting—she took special delight in visiting the foreign churches and galleries.

My mother gave her heart to Italy at a very youthful age, and loved it for the magic of its skies, its language, and its people. Long afterwards, when we were entering the Plains of Lombardy over the Simplon Pass, my mother said she felt as if she were returning home. When a child she took part in some winter festivities at Naples, where one of her relatives had a palace on the Chiaja, and she recalled a theatrical performance given by amateurs, in which Pauline de la Feronnaye—so well known in later life as Mrs. Augustus Craven, the author of Le Récit d'une Sœur—acted most brilliantly, with others of that gifted family.

My mother loved beautiful scenery from the days of her childhood onwards, and she remembered, in an astonishing way, places and scenes that had appealed to her in her youth, and that she revisited later. She was particularly fond of the Lake of Geneva, and the Villa Diodati, sacred to the memory of Byron, where she had passed some happy months of her girlhood. She used to linger over the memories of the gay Christmas-times she had spent in Berlin, of the crowded streets, the Christmas-trees standing in every window, and the general spirit of friendliness and good-comradeship amongst the Germans of that date.

Yet she longed to put an end to the exile of six years' standing and return to her English home. There, in 1837, an intensely happy life awaited her, spent between London and the country, with her mother, a very witty and clever woman, her gifted sister, and two devoted and much-loved brothers, who shared many of her occupations and pleasures.

Worth Park, my grandmother's (Mrs. Montefiore's) country home, once an old farmhouse, transformed into a comfortable country residence, was the happy scene of her girlhood life.*

It was there that she first showed her vivid interest in the welfare of the labouring classes, in their educational and other needs. In those days schools in the country districts were few and far between; in fact, in many places they did not exist.

The ignorance amongst the rural population being appalling, the two young sisters set themselves a congenial task in starting and superintending a village school, which they did with the help of a clergyman's widow and her daughters, and which, owing to the fostering care and energy of my mother and my aunt, became a great success. My mother enjoyed herself immensely in teaching the children, and this love of teaching never left her. Thus, many years later, when, as a young married woman, she began to interest herself in the rapidly-growing Jewish charities of the metropolis, she took a very prominent and active part in the management of the Jews' Free School, of which my father was the very active President. From that time for a period of more than forty years she would most regularly attend the Committee meetings and acquaint herself with all the working of that gigantic institution. Even when she lived during so many months of the year at Aston Clinton, she, who was

My grandfather, the younger brother of Sir Moses Montefiore (Abraham Montefiore by name), died when my mother was a child of three years old.

never physically strong, would travel up to and down from London in the dark winter days, taking her accustomed place at the Committee table, hearing the children repeat their lessons, and encouraging the army of teachers.

Meanwhile it had not escaped her attention that the Jewish working girls in the East End of London were often in need of instruction, even of the most elementary order, and it was in their interest that she succeeded in starting evening classes for reading, writing, and arithmetic, in the house of a capable and warm-hearted woman who, with her daughters, gave much of her time to the welfare of her co-religionists.*

Mrs. Harris not only supervised the educational classes of the young working girls, but also, with my mother's warm approval, inaugurated for their benefit Sabbath Classes for religious instruction. It was for these audiences that my mother wrote a number of short addresses, which were faithfully read by Mrs. Harris to her weekly congregation. The many excellent Clubs for Jewish working girls of to-day, with their long lists of subjects that are dealt with evening after evening, with their singing and dancing classes, their social evenings, and holiday homes, in a great measure owe their existence to these her first attempts at bringing a gleam of the spiritual and intellectual joy that illumined her own life into the lives of her less-favoured sisters.

^* One of Mrs. Harris's daughters, Emily by name, was specially interested in the work initiated by my mother, and to her untiring efforts their lasting success was greatly due.

Acquaintance with the Jewish school-children and the Jewish working girls did not end there: my mother, with my father's warm approval, sought them out in their own small tenements, and joined a band of ladies who were beginning to learn the value of personal acquaintance with the poor, and also the difficult lesson of how to bring order and method into charitable work.

But her human and religious sympathies were wider than any one form of creed, thus it was not only in London, but also in the country in her Buckinghamshire home that my mother never rested until educational advantages were placed within reach of the village children, and it was entirely owing to the efforts of my parents that excellent schools sprang into existence in the villages of Aston Clinton and of Halton, fully ten years or more before the great educational movement of 1870. The autumn and winter months were invariably spent at Aston Clinton from 1853 onwards, and there my mother threw herself heart and soul into all that concerned the welfare of the people. Fortunately my father also took a very lively and practical interest in village and villagers.

Both my parents lived in friendly relationship with many of the neighbouring clergy, and my mother reckoned amongst her most esteemed friends, the rector* who spent twenty-three years of his life at Aston Clinton, and his successor, the present incumbent. †

My sister and I began at an early age to visit the schools of our village, which soon became the object of

^* The Rev. Thomas Williams. + The Rev. J. R. Cohu.

many a morning walk, where two very young teachers might often have been seen solemnly holding their classes, learning probably more than they taught.

May I be allowed to say here that from our earliest age my dear mother made us realise that we should learn to take our greatest pleasure in trying to help others to a fuller and happier life; indeed, we were taught by her example, as well as by her words, that the duties we had set ourselves should not be put on one side for any pleasurable excitement that might come in our way. She spared no pains to make us see life as she saw it, and she never neglected the greatest of all her duties—the education of her children—for any other pursuit, however engrossing it might have been.

For nearly forty years my mother was assisted in the furtherance of many philanthropic schemes for the benefit of the village people by a very devoted and most energetic German lady—Miss Molique* by name well known in the musical world, but who unselfishly gave up a musical career for village work, undertaking the initiation of a Village Library, a Domestic Training Institution, a most successful Evening School for boys, and many other organizations.

During all these busy years, my mother possessed the rare quality of being able to combine with her absorbing human interests, her love of literature, in which she found unfailing delight; her mind was thus attuned to great things, and her standard both in art and authorship was a very high one—only the best satisfied her, and when

* Daughter of the celebrated composer and violinist, Bernhard Molique.

she took the pen herself, it was held by a capable and well-practised hand.

She was an excellent letter-writer—interesting, humorous, original—but her correspondents were few. To her daughters, when absent from her, she wrote almost daily, and with her two brothers*—both admirable in their power of letter-writing—she freely corresponded in the most charming and intimate manner: also with a beloved cousin and sister-in-law—her namesake and lifelong friend, a woman of rare personal charm and ability—the mother of her niece, Lady Rothschild, whose married and widowed life was spent at Frankfort.†

My mother was of a reserved and shy disposition; it was with difficulty that she could express her deepest feelings, and it is only from her note-books and diaries that some idea may be gained of her spiritual nature.

She had no sympathy with any very pronounced doctrine; she hated the fanaticism of extreme dogmatic belief, and she welcomed liberal thought in religion as in politics. But she could not bear irreverence, and clung with beautiful fidelity to many old customs that belonged to the days of her youth.

Her Quaker friends, of whom she had several, paid her, as she always said, the great compliment in telling her that she might really have belonged to the Society of Friends, so constantly was she seen dressed in the

^* Joseph (the father of Sir Francis Montefiore) and Nathaniel Montefiore, who lived respectively until 1880 and 1883.

^† Baroness Charles de Rothschild, the youngest sister of my father.

soft neutral tints in which they delighted, and so uncongenial to her were the excitements and noisy amusements of the world. In fact, as one of her devoted friends, Dr. Kalisch* (to whose daughter she stood in very friendly relationship),† once said: 'She was in the world, but not of it.'

She was extraordinarily just and fair: generous by nature and equally generous in all her judgments, she had a strong sense of right and wrong. Gentle in manner and in speech, she had, notwithstanding, a very decided personality, that deeply impressed those amongst whom she lived, and who sought and valued her opinion.

Young in mind, she was very fond of young people, entered readily into their feelings, loved them for their gaiety, good spirits and enthusiasm. She had a keen sense of humour, and enjoyed bright and witty conversation. Her sons-in-law, † both gifted with a happy sense of fun and a flow of high spirits, were often struck by her vivacity and ready response. In fact, one of the two, who from his undergraduate days had loved and deeply reverenced her, used laughingly to tease his wife by declaring that she was not as young as her mother, and that those of his friends, who had had the privilege

• A distinguished Hebrew scholar and critic of Biblical and Talmudic literature. Died 1885.
  • † Mrs. Hoster.

^‡ Lord Battersea (as Cyril Flower)—M.P. for the borough of Brecon from 1880 to 1885; M.P. for South Beds. from 1885 to 1893; also served in Mr. Gladstone's Government; died 1907. The Honble. Eliot Yorke, son of the 4th Earl of Hardwicke, equerry to H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh; M.P for Cambridgesbire; died 1878.

tionate hospitality. From old days her family had been on the friendliest terms with many members of the great house of Bedford. Lord Charles Russell (1807–1894) was a frequent visitor at Aston Clinton, and in his son, Mr. George Russell, she found a link with those traditions of the past. He was her constant visitor in London, and carried on a most charming and original correspondence in prose and in verse with her when she was in the country.

As she grew older the circle of her friends increased, and her advent to London brought year after year tried friends and pleasant acquaintances to her door. Indeed, she was the centre of her family; to both young and old she extended a bright welcome, and no one ever felt that her interests were limited to the past, or that the present had no audible voice for her ear.

She had no infirmities of age; she never lost faith in humanity, nor her hope and belief in a future life and in the goodness of God. She was never bitter or despairing, but, believing in the best, drew forth that which was best in every human being with whom she came in contact.

I feel compelled to admit that this short notice, or preface to the 'Extracts,' is in no sense of the word a complete biographical Memoir of my dear mother. It is very difficult for a daughter to write her mother's biography as it should be written, and I fear that, for me, it would be an impossible task. But I have tried, however inadequately, to give some slight picture of her

personality, in youth as well as in age, and thus to make the 'Extracts,' with the comments by her own fascinating pen, more living and interesting.

I should like to conjure up her portrait as I recall her best in late years, sitting, book in hand, pencil and note-book by her side, in her favourite little blue drawing-room at Aston Clinton. 'It seemed to me a sort of shrine,' wrote Lord Rosebery, 'and a centre from which radiated goodness and sympathy.' From her chair she could see across the lawn, where the venerable yew-tree spreads its heavy branches, and she could watch the many birds, large and small, from the lordly pheasant to the tiny tom-tit, that came hopping up to her windows for their daily food. Then her gaze would travel to an open space, purposely cleared for her in a group of trees, dividing the lawn from the park, where cows and sheep were placidly grazing, and still further on she would get a glimpse of the 'grey, square church tower' and of 'the red roof of her own village school.'

A homely scene, indeed, a quiet picture of English country life—a scene, to quote my mother's own words, that 'she had looked on for many a year, that she knew as it were by heart, and yet that always presented itself in some new aspect.' Such a landscape as is not uncommon, but to her its quiet beauty meant a great deal. It meant home life, in its fullest, deepest, most precious sense; it also meant village life—that is to say, outside, wider interests. It meant pre-eminently work for others, unselfish, constant work, that only ended when life on earth ended

It will be seen that this book mainly consists of extracts from my mother's favourite authors (sometimes merely titles of books), together with comments of her own, to which are added a few short passages from her diaries.

• (1) A mention of Queen Victoria's Jubilee in 1897; and of a visit from King Edward VII., when he was Prince of Wales, in the same year.
• (2) Of personages connected with statesmanship, literature, and art.
• (3) Of politics, as showing that my mother retained her liberal sympathies until the very end of her life.
• (4) Of the Franco-Prussian War, 1870, and the Boer War, 1899-1902, which called forth her expressions of grave anxiety and distress.

I have also inserted a paragraph about a favourite little dog of my mother's, showing her intense affection for her constant companions. There are many other such passages throughout her diaries, all very touching to those who knew her.

Constance Battersea.

1919.

1860.

Michelet's 'Louis XIV.'

A curious, but often most unpleasing volume. What a picture of depravity, of bigotry and cruelty is the great and generally considered most glorious reign in the French history! Neither indecent details of court intrigues, nor horrible accounts of the relentless and savage persecutions of the Protestants, are spared the reader, who arises indignant and sickened by the perusal of the horrible deeds committed under the rule and often by the command of this great monarch. Michelet's style is eloquent, terse, but sometimes so condensed as to be somewhat confused and difficult to understand.

**June 28th.**

Wolff's 'Travels and Adventures.

Dr. Wolff is an honest enthusiast, excessively vain and extraordinarily credulous. His adventures related by himself, in the third person, are extremely amusing.

Aston Clinton, September 23rd

Sainte Marie Madelaine. Par Lacordaire.

Very eloquent nonsense. Strange that such a book should be written by such a man in the nineteenth century.

Aston Clinton, October.

The Arrest of the Five Members by Charles I. in 1641-42. By JOHN FORSTER.

The work of a very prejudiced partisan. A good article upon it in the Quarterly Review.

October 28th.

The Professor at the Breakfast Table. By OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

Bold, quaint, but full of thought.

Letters, &c. of Lord Auckland.

Personal History of Lord Bacon. By Dixon.

The style of the author does not inspire one with much confidence. Too flowery and dramatic and superficial for a calm, historical investigation, but still from his pages it appears to me that Bacon has been hardly judged. Had he not been so great a man, intellectually so far beyond his age, his faults and shortcomings would have been looked upon as merely examples of the difference between our epoch and that in which he lived. A man who not only left such a legacy of wisdom to posterity, but was constantly employed in doing good service to his country, cannot, because he failed in some instances to rise above his contemporaries be called the Meanest of Mankind.

January 13th, 1860.

Motley's History of the United Netherlands.

Perhaps rather too long and detailed, but very interesting. Elisabeth's fame is darkened and Leicester's made rather brighter in these pages.

The Eastern Church. Lectures by ARTHUR STANLEY.

Great Expectations. By DICKENS.

The first and last volume written in his best style.

Buckle's second volume.

Nineteenth volume of 'L'Histoire du Consulat et de l'Empire.' By Thiers.

The Early and Middle Ages of England. By Pearson.

My Life, and what shall I do with it?

Addressed to very independent young and old maids, consequently completely adapted to only a small circle of readers; but containing many good and useful things. The last words of the book might often be pondered over with advantage: 'Women of wealth, women of talent, women of leisure, what are you doing in God's world for God?'

Elsie Venner. By OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. Very clever, though very American.

Stanley's Canterbury Sermons.

The following extract, taken from the vi. sermon, is a good example of the spirit of liberality which breathes through all the volume: 'Ceremonies, customs, usages change from country to country and from age to age. They cannot be imitated, they cannot be adapted. But

good and gracious acts of love and of justice and of truth, energy surmounting all difficulties, patience enduring all hardships; these and the like qualities of the good neighbour of the Parable are always near us, can always be repeated, can always be honoured. "Go" on thy journey, "go" on thy business, "go" home and "do" with all thy might whatsoever of good or true, in times past or times present, at home or abroad, thou hast seen or heard, "go and do likewise."

Year by year changes gather round us. We shall not be this year as we were last year. If we remain the same the things around us change; if things around us remain the same, yet we see those around us change, and our relative positions, thoughts, duties, feelings change with them. But one thing changes not, and that is the duty and privilege of keeping the Commandments of God. If we have kept them before, we can keep them no less now. If the keeping of them, if the striving to keep the Commandments of God has been a lantern to our feet and a light to our path, in former times, rejoicing the heart and enlightening the eyes, so we may humbly trust that it will be still, whatever changes have befallen us, whatever changes may befall us.—Sermon xiv.

Life of Pitt. By LORD STANHOPE

Œuvres et Correspondance inédites d'Alexis de Tocqueville.

Deeply interesting are the letters contained in these volumes—displaying constant mental activity and profound reflection, with warm, affectionate feeling.

The one blemish in De Tocqueville's character appears to me to be the contempt with which he looked down upon mankind in general. The reception his books met with should have proved to him how many are capable of appreciating true excellence. Though an enemy to all intellectual repute, he often enjoyed the calm tranquillity of Tocqueville. In one of his letters he mentions the happiness he finds in his country retreat, and then says, 'C'est encore avoir l'âme agitée que de jouir passionnément de la paix. Tel est en ce moment mon cas.'

1862

Chateaubriand et son Groupe Litteraire. Par SAINTE BEUVE.

Aston Clinton, February.

Felix Mendelssohn's 'Reisebriefe.'

How simple, fresh, childlike, poetical and affectionate must have been the spirit that dictated these letters!

London, May 31.

Gravenhurst; or, Thoughts on Good and Evil. By SMITH.

A difficult, possibly an insurmountably difficult subject eloquently treated, though perhaps in rather a superficial, or, at least, in two brief a manner. The conclusion at which the author arrives is the satisfactory one, that good and evil are necessary ingredients in the progress and happiness of the world, and that the latter, though constantly changing and diminishing, must always coexist with what we can understand at present of freedom

of will, and will ever continue to be the greatest incentive to the highest virtues, the noblest deeds and the active energies of mankind. 'I think it well to see that it is by overcoming evil, as well moral evil as natural evil, that we rise in the scale of creation. This very fact convinces us that evil was not brought here otherwise than beneficently—is in fact part of the scheme of a benevolent Creator. This may aid us, too, in supporting manfully the unavoidable, and in combating manfully all remediable evils. He who seeks truth and loves goodness has God upon his side.'

London, July 27th.

Literary Remains of Mrs. Trench.

Another example of a good and clever woman being the mother of a distinguished man.

The qualities and talents only half developed in the woman, partially concealed perhaps in domestic life or really shorn or clouded by delicate health and the daily round of petty household cares—those qualities and talents reappear in man, and, flourishing in a genial soil, bring forth lasting fruit.

Aston Clinton, September 18th.

Fifth volume of Guizot's 'Memoirs.'

Interesting as it relates to living characters and to well-known incidents; but how small do many events now appear, that caused such agitation and labour only twenty years ago. What an immense deal of writing, talking and intriguing about the Syrian question!

England triumphed, but Turkey remained equally weak and tottering. Aston Clinton, September 18th.

Correspondence of Leigh Hunt.

A vein of tender and even religious, as well as of poetical feeling, runs through all Hunt's letters. How tender and kind a husband and father they show him to be, how faithful and good a friend!

September 28th.

One of the great uses of Art is to teach us how to look into Nature.

Here is the same idea much better expressed from the Cornhill Magazine, June 1862:—

'Moreover the mere physical aspect of things becomes clearer to many of us in a picture than in the reality. A man who has walked about his fields for twenty years sees them painted by Gainsborough and then begins to understand them. . . . The original, whether in Nature or in Human Nature, is so vaguely great: we want a neat precise translation without too much of that restless, palpitating life, which distracts our senses and makes our thoughts a dream.'

June 1st

A song, a song!
The dull to rouse, the sad to cheer,
To waken smiles, to chase the tear
A song, a song!

A song, a song!

Now full of glee, clf-like and wild,

Strange measure of some mountain child,

A song, a song!

A song, a song!
A simple, sweet, old-fashioned ditty
That gently pleads for love and pity;
A song, a song!

No song, no song!

That tender voice, that artless lay

Are stealing fast my heart away:

No song, no song!

L. DE R.

Life of Washington Irving. First and second volumes, composed principally of his letters.

They are the productions of a kind, generous and genial man, and contain indications of the humour and pathos found in his writings, more of the former than of the latter. One must esteem and like the author of those simple yet gracefully penned letters which abound in good and affectionate feelings, but I do not think they give evidence of much power or originality of mind.

October 12th.

Owen, a Waif.

One of the most interesting novels I have read for a long time. The story is very, indeed most, improbable, but the writing is simple and vigorous, the characters are well drawn and the lessons conveyed, without any preaching, by the tale itself, are great and pure.

October 28th.

On The Origin of Species. By DARWIN

A theory strange and ingenious with apparently, however, many cogent reasons on its side which fascinate, at least, the unlearned reader.

We follow the author with interest and pleased surprise whilst he attempts to show how species grow, as it were, out of varieties, the latter becoming more and more distinct by the process of Natural Selection, until, after the lapse of ages, they bear but a faint resemblance to the ancestors from whom they sprang. By inheritance or community of descent is explained the similarity of pattern in members of the same class, the natural system of classification being a genealogical arrangement, and likewise the existence so often met with of rudimentary or useless organs and the resemblance of the embryos of distinct animals.

We are, however, rudely startled when we find that man can form no exception in Darwin's theory, that he can boast no higher parentage than any other Mammalia, and that his mind and reason have merely been developed by the all-powerful effects of Natural Selection.

Aston Clinton, October 29th.

Religio Chemici.

These Essays by George Wilson are extremely interesting, written with much true religious feeling and practical thought. They convey also considerable instruction in a clear, pleasant manner.

1863.

'Let no cry be heard. Crush the escaping groan on the yet quivering lips of the desires thou hast strangled. Uncover not the pale faces of thy departed. Utter not their names aloud. Know thyself and bear to be

unknown. Strike down this beggar heart that prowls for alms and stops men's pity in the public place. Justify the whole endeavour in the perfect deed. Slay thyself and hide the knife. Even so, and as, in large compassion of fond eyes, young graves set grieving, kind nature makes much haste to cast over the hillocks of the recent dead her grassy carpet of the tender green; so silently and for others' sakes with such a noble haste do thou, too, hide beneath the serenity of a smiling face the sorrow of thine immortal soul!"—The Ring of Amasis, by Owen Meredith.

Aston Clinton

Life of Father Mathew

Life of Burke.

Life of William Blake.

Seventh and eighth volumes of Froude's 'History.'

Less paradoxical and one-sided than his former volumes—beautifully written and full of interest, but somewhat too long. His materials, foreign letters, despatches, &c. not sufficiently digested and made part of the parative.

Hard Cash. By CHARLES READE.

Full of talent and of absurdity, of beauty and of hideous exaggerations. Enough material for half-a-dozen

Life of Theodore Parker.

Rather too much spun out—the style of the author a bad imitation of that of Parker himself.

1864.

Pensées, Maximes et Correspondance de Joubert. Still very interesting from the genius, the worth, the nobility, the originality of the subject of the Memoir. He was a great thinker and also great in deeds of beneficence, kindness and mercy. Though his words were often burning, and his indignation and wrath against injustice, fanaticism and intolerance full of bitter sarcasm, there was an immense deal of tenderness in his nature displayed in a variety of ways—in his love for children and his almost passionate fondness for flowers—a nosegay always bloomed upon the table from which he preached.

Aston Clinton, September

Histoire Elémentaire et Critique de Jésus. Par A. PEYRAT.

The very opposite of Renan, a sort of French Colenso. Mr. Peyrat displays the same cold, pitiless good sense as the Bishop of Natal, and proves how improbable, nay, how impossible are the various narrations contained in the Gospels. I naturally agree with his view of the New Testament, but is it not strange that the world should owe the greatest strides it has made in civilization, morality, and, to use one of Parker's words, the humanities of life, to a falsehood and an illusion? what great truth must not have been wrapped up in those fables.

Aston Clinton, September 30th.

all dogmas to be judged by their effects, by the works they produce, by the lives and conversations to which they lead. . . . . Nor shall I now shrink from specifying the heads of an universal faith, which are also the fundamental dogmas of Scripture. They are these:—There is a Supreme Being, who delights in justice and mercy, whom, all who would be saved, are bound to obey, and whose worship consists in the practice of justice and charity towards our neighbour.'

Fireside Travels. By Russell Lowell.

A quaint, prettily written book, addressed to 'Story' and somewhat in his style, but more thoughtful and vigorous.

November 27th.

Lectures on the Science of Language. Second Series. By Max Muller.

'The names given by the early framers of language repose chiefly on wit and fancy—thus "wheat" was called "the white plant" (Sanskrit "sveta," white). In Sanskrit "silver" is counted white and called "Sveta." "Sarit," meaning "goer" from "sar" = to go, became the name of "river." "Sara" was used for "sap." The Latin "ævum," meaning "going," became the name of "time, age," and its derivative, "æternus," was made to express "eternity." That on which a thing stands is called its "base," and "basis" in Greek meant no more than going, the ground on which it is safe to walk. The moon was called "luna" from lunus = "the shining;" the stars "stellæ" from Sanskrit "the strewers of light."

1866.

On the Origin of Language. By E. B. Tylor. (F. R.)

'Every one recognizes the fact that certain expressions of face, as well as certain interjectional sounds, correspond to certain feelings, but it is not thus generally recognized that there is a real connection between the expression of the face and the sound which comes from it. The human body is, among other things, an instrument for producing vocal sounds, and the different attitudes of mouth, cheeks, &c., which belong to different feelings of the mind, modify the position of the vocal organs, and thereby the sounds uttered.'

The above might explain many interjectional cries from which various words owe their origin.

The old and weary wish for the 'wings of a Dove' to fly away and be at rest; the young who are sad and distressed, would rather be carried away by the wings of the swallow to new scenes and sunny climes.

To the young there is Hope, to the old only Repose.

June 20th.

Les Apôtres. By ERNEST RENAN.

Ecce Homo.

The Philosophical Works of Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke.

La Révolution. Par EDGAR QUINET.

Ninth and tenth volumes of Froude's 'History of England.'

The Gay Science. By DALLAS.

Always suggestive, and brilliant at times. The 'Gay Science' leaves no very clear impression on the mind.

According to Mr. Dallas, the aim of Art is pleasure, and the criticism of Art consequently, if it be a Science, the Science of pleasure, but it is just in that Science that he appears to me to be least explicit.

1867.

Memoirs of George III. By Jesse.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting,
The soul that rises with us, our life's star
Hath had elsewhere its setting.
And cometh from afar;
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home.'
WORDSWORT

Adam and the Adamite or the Harmony of Scripture and Ethnology. By Dominick McCausland.

Mr. McCausland has made for himself a theory, and, as usual, finds what he looks for in the Bible. In the Scripture account of the Creation and Deluge he sees nothing that conflicts with Science. The Deluge was but a partial flood, and Adam was not the first man, but the first of a new race of men quite distinct from that of the Negro or Mongol already in existence.

The Reign of Law. By the DUKE OF ARGYLL

1867.

The old year was rapidly approaching its end and the bells rang merrily, but the wind mocked their joyous notes and sighed and wailed. At one moment the glad sound reached my ear—the next, it was lost in a dismal chant—the angry shrieking and plaintive sobbing of the wind—prophesying, as it were, wickedness and sorrow, misfortune and disaster. But in the midst of the wild mournful turmoil came again the merry chime; did it foretell the happy days that awaited us intermingled with many dark and sad ones? The golden threads that fate was weaving upon a sable ground? I tried not to hear the wind and only listened to the bells, with a half-superstitious dread of the former—but alas! the wind was near and around me, making the trees groan and shake by its rough handling—and the bells seemed so far away! Still the hopeful peal rose ever and anon above the blast, like the voice of human sympathy, or the mercy of our God! And the raging wind could not completely drown it. For an hour I listened with an aching heart to the war of the wind and the bells, then the storm subsided, and the bells ceased likewise. The overture had been played out, and the New Year began

Aston Clinton, January.

There is a light well known to us, for it is the light which visits us at morning and evening, making the day begin and end in beauty, which has the magic power of imparting its own loveliness to all it shines upon. It idealises the commonest things, and the fairest look doubly fair under its soft yet glowing

radiance; it turns the dull, grey clouds into gold, stone into marble, it gives a brighter gleam to the jewel and lends a glory to the little wayside flower.

How much death resembles this beauty-giving light! Those it touches with its ice-cold hand lose in an instant their earthly stains and imperfections, and appear to us altogether good and beautiful, and every incident, however trifling, connected with them, is taken from the category of passing events and becomes full of meaning and interest. A halo is thrown around them, they are canonised by death. Whilst here they were poor mortals like ourselves, but death has unfolded their wings, and as, alas! they soar away from us they become transformed not only in the present but in the past. They were angels then and now.

Time is like the policeman whose rude office it is to make poor loiterers move on. The houseless wanderer has found a sheltered nook, or a patch of warm sunlight, or only a stone step where he would so willingly sit down and rest were it only for a few moments, but the inexorable policeman cries, 'Move on; move on.'

And the stern necessity of ever moving on, of constant change, is likewise the inexorable law of all human beings, of all living things.

1870

Lectures and Philosophical Remains of Professor Ferrier.

Institutes of Metaphysic. By FERRIER.

Powerfully written and reasoned with great clearness.

'Society we must have, but let it be Society and not exchanging news or eating from the same dish.'—
Society and Solitude, by Emerson. February.

We emerge from the Inane, haste stormfully across the astonished earth; then plunge again into the Inane. . . . But whence, O Heaven, whither? Sense knows not; Faith knows not; only that it is through Mystery to Mystery. —Sartor Resartus, by Carlyle.

Reading 'The Cloister and the Hearth' and Kingsley's 'Christmas in the West Indies.'

Full of beautiful and interesting descriptions of Nature September 15th.

'The benefits of affection are immense and the one event which never loses its romance is the encounter with superior persons on terms allowing the happiest intercourse.'—Society and Solitude, by Emerson.

The country seems strangely quiet considering what is going on abroad; war more horrible in this enlightened, civilized age, than it has almost ever shown itself.

The Emperor a prisoner; the Empire a thing of the past, and France a Republic.

Much alarmed for our relatives at Paris

September

1871

Peace seems now about to be concluded; but, alas! how long will misery and mourning outlast the war that has occasioned them!

'La sainteré de cette vie est dans le travail et dans la peine,'—Pensées, par Bourdaloue.

Reading Hawthorne's Note Books.

Full of thoughtful and suggestive passages. He had not much knowledge of art; but here and there his deep poetic temperament seemed kindled by some picture or statue, and he would describe them with enthusiasm. The Venus de Medici and Michael Angelo's statue of Lorenzo de Medici appear to have produced more effect upon him than any other work of art.

'What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined for life to strengthen each other in all labours, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent, unspeakable memories at the moment of the last parting.'

Adam Bede, by George Eliot

1879

If you are descending a river with a strong current, a little breeze blowing in a contrary direction will hardly retard the progress of the boat, or be felt by the passengers; and so in life, if we are much engrossed with one great thought or grief, with an ardent hope or fear, a thousand little ills and pleasures, disappointments and vexations, will pass without affecting us in more than a very slight degree; the current is speeding us on, and we hardly feel the wind that is playing around us. To the really good man, that current is Faith and trust in all that is good and holy, the love

of God leading him on to blessed deeds; but often it is some absorbing sorrow or regret, or maybe a ray of hope, which, though far away, shines still on some distant spot of our earthly horizon.

July 21st.

Made the acquaintance of Berthold Auerbach; he was extremely amiable and is very easy to get on with, evidently a vain but kind and generous man; commonlooking, with a stout, short figure, but a fine brow and bright eye. He talked of himself, his works, his friends from monarchs downwards, he repeated his bon-mots and repartees; but still he seemed interested in others and anxious to give pleasure. Cadenabbia, September.

Finished 'Deutsche Liebe.'

A truly charming little tale, prettily written with some pretty thoughts, but rather thin and shadowy.

Read a pretty story of Auerbach's, 'Die Stief-mutter.'

'Ueber allen Gipfeln
Ist Ruh',
In allen Wipfeln
Spürest du
Kaum einen Hauch;
Die Vöglein schweigen im Walde
Warte nur, balde
Ruhest du auch!—Göfthe.

'What a blessing it is to mortals, what a kindness of Providence, that life is made so uncertain, that death is thrown in among the possibilities of our being; that these awful mysteries are thrown around us into which

we may vanish! For without it how would it be possible to be heroic; how should we plod along in common places for ever, never dreaming high things, never risking anything?

By NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

1873.

Reading 'Memoirs of Baron Bunsen.'

A real German, hard-working, yet somewhat mystical; he was an excellent man, following through his busy, well-filled life the highest and noblest aspirations. In religious matters he tried to combine modern criticism and ancient faith, perfect freedom with the Christian dogma. Many-sided in his views and feelings, he seemed to make friends among the good and great in every camp.

March 3rd.

Enigmas of Life. By W. R. GREG

Very well written; result of much thought, but the Enigmas remain Enigmas still. The great riddles, the mysterious perplexities of life are not—apparently cannot be—solved or made clear. Fortunately, there is no difficulty in seeing what we are required to do. Though we cannot see God, the path He has marked out for us is visible to us all. Though we cannot know Him, we can read His will and His laws in conscience, history and nature

Literature and Dogma. By MATTHEW ARNOLD.

A remarkable book, showing, as the author says, the powerful influence of the 'Zeit Geist' which allows

him to write so boldly, and to attack without the least reserve the long-received dogmas of religion. Experience and reason are his only guides to faith, and these lead him to recognise an eternal Power that makes for Righteousness—or more fully perhaps—'the Eternal Power, not ourselves, by which all things fulfil the law of their being.'

There is, it appears to me, a want of clearness about the 'Power not ourselves, which makes for rightcousness'—at times it is spoken of as all we can positively know of the Deity—at times it seems to melt away into a mere tendency, or a system of laws without any lawyer. As such it is not what the Bible appears to teach, to proclaim, the One Holy Spirit to be obeyed, loved and worshipped.

Is it not, as presented by the author, too impalpable and shadowy to be our 'Refuge, our present help in trouble,' our Father, our Judge and our Redeemer?

Animals and their Masters. By the Author of 'Friends in Council.'

Yery pleasant reading, like all the books of Helps. Perhaps somewhat too discursive to leave any very definite impression on the mind—or rather many definite ideas. The author is quite right in what he says about cruelty to animals being generally caused by want of knowledge about them and defective power of imagination—two defects, which should be specially considered, in the education of the people.

Much interested in 'Die Kinder der Welt,' by AUERBACH.

It is beautifully written, and though a novel with a purpose, not in the least dull. There are parts of it rather too much spun out, and it has the fault which all novels have—written to prove either a theory, or to destroy one—that the story is moulded by the author to substantiate his views. Consequently one is always inclined to take up the other side of the question, and instead of enjoying the novel, dispute its truth.

In 'Die Kinder der Welt' it is religious belief of every kind which is attacked—not harshly or angrily—but calmly and coolly treated as being legendary and imaginative, more or less hurtful to the human race, which has now outgrown the age of fables! The characters described in 'Die Kinder der Welt' are with one exception all not only excellent, but generally happy, tho' there is no Holy One that leads them to righteousness—no hope of immortality to gild their hereafter; their religion is made to appear, if harmless, at least perfectly useless to Mankind.

May.

Just finished Mrs. Grote's 'Life' of her Husband.

There is a want of tenderness and delicate affection in the writer, but she has given us an interesting Memoir of the Historian, who was as simple and courteous in his manner as he was learned and profound. Devoted to historical and philosophical studies, he had but little love for the beauties of nature, and was eminently happy when leading the life of a laborious student among his books and a few congenial friends, such as J. S. Mill and Sir G. C. Lewis.

July 3rd.

VISITORS:—Mr. Story,* Mr. Motley:† both very pleasant as well as very clever—also Mr. Frederick Locker.‡

July 6th, Synday.

Read Lord Houghton's Essay on Walter Savage Landor.

Very interesting and well written. Must read again some of his (Landor's) magnificent prose and thought-laden poetry. His love for flowers, which would not allow him to pick them, appears in the following lines:—

'And 'tis and ever was my wish and way,
To let all flowers live freely, and all die—
Whene'er their genius bids their soul depart—
Among their kindred, in their native place.
I never pluck the rose, the violet's head
Hath shaken with my breath upon its bank,
And not reproached me. The tiny sacred cup
Of the pure lily hath between my hands
Felt safe, unsoiled, nor lost one grain of gold.'

Finished the first volume of 'Récit d'une Sœur.' §
These, indeed, are the darkest of earthly shadows, but
they cannot dim the light of hope and love and religious
fervency which illumine its pages—a light borrowed
possibly from humanly-lighted fires, but God must have

• * W. W. Story, the well-known American sculptor, also author of Roba di Roma.
• † John Lothrop Motley, the distinguished author of The Dutch Republic, and the Life and Death of John Barneveldt, &c.

‡ Charming writer of verse, and very pleasant talker, author of London Lyrics.

§ By Mrs. Augustus Craven.

Read 'Lucian' in the 'Ancient Classics for English Readers.'

A very entertaining little volume. It is curious that writing more than a century after Christ—he was born about A.D. 120—he should hardly ever allude to Christianity, particularly as in his Dialogues of the Gods and other of his works, he satirises the various systems of philosophy taught at that time. Once he mentions Christians by name, and classes them with Atheists and Epicurcans. . . . In another place, speaking of Christians, he says: 'You know they still reverence that great man, him that was crucified in Palestine for introducing these new doctrines into the world.'

October.

Read the 'Autobiography of John Stuart Mill.'

Extremely interesting. There was much poetry and feeling in the logician and Political Economist; but I was struck with one strange omission, in his Autobiography—the man who declared he owed not only his happiness but so much of his mental culture to his wife, and on her account respected and looked up to woman in general, never even mentions the name of his own mother!

Began Adam Smith's 'Wealth of Nations,'

which I find very interesting, though occasionally, to my shame, I do not understand him. October 31st.

Read the first part of 'Sara Coleridge.'
Her letters are charming, full of thought, of clever criticisms, and of sound sense, with occasional poetical descriptions.

Finished the second and, I regret to say, last volume of Sara Coleridge's Letters.

In the latter part of her life how much broader she becomes in her religious, or rather theological views! Here is one very liberal confession:—'My own belief is that the whole logical truth is not in the possession of any one party' (I would substitute or add the word faith), 'that it exists in fragments amongst the several parties and that much of it is yet to be developed.'

December 4th.

Reading James Martineau's 'Endeavours after a Christian Life.'

Much pleased with its fervent eloquence. This is true and well said: 'How welcome would it often be to many a child of anxiety and toil, to be suddenly transferred from the heat and din of the city, the restlessness and worry of the mart, to the midnight garden or the mountain top! And like refreshment does a high faith, with its infinite prospects ever open to the heart, afford to the worn and weary. No laborious travels are needed for the devout mind, for it carries within it Alpine heights and starlit skies, which it may reach with a moment's thought, and feel at once the loneliness of Nature and the magnificence of God!'—From' Great Principles and Small Duties.'

December 90th

Reading with astonished admiration the 'Memoirs of Mary Somerville.'

What an extraordinarily gifted and modest woman she was—soaring in her scientific works far, far away from the comprehension of us ignoramuses, and yet retaining all her feminine graces, and not neglecting any of her household occupations or motherly duties.

December~25th.

1874.

Read in James Martineau's 'Discourses':

Sorrow no sin.' How true is this! 'You cannot sever them: grief and love must stay or go together.' —Endeavours after a Christian Life. January 3rd.

Much interested in Lady Minto's 'Life of the First Lord Minto.'

He was hard-working, kind, genial, patriotic, cheery, without any great brilliancy, an adoring husband, a very tender father. Besides his own letters, chiefly to Lady Elliot, there are many interesting ones from Burke and Wyndham, and many amusing ones from his sister-in-law, Lady Malmesbury, and a few from Lady Palmerston, whose good and social qualities reappeared in her distinguished son, the 'bright little Harry' mentioned by Lord Minto.

St. Leonards, February.

Motley's 'Life and Death of John Barneveldt,' the great Dutch Statesman.

The first volume rather long and heavy; but the second, containing the trial and execution of Barneveldt, and

the trial and imprisonment of Hugo Grotius, with the dramatic story of his escape, very interesting. Barneveldt suffered through the religious intolerance of that age—an intolerance quite as great on the side of the Protestants as on that of the Catholics.

Certainly, the world has made some real progress in the last two hundred years!

April.

Lord Rosebery* very pleasant, quite above the young men of the day.

July 29th.

1880.

• 'L'homme est infiniment supérieur à la nature, mais la nature est toujours inépuisable dans sa monotonie. On sait qu'elle reste, qu'elle doit rester ce qu'elle est; on n'eprouve en sa personne ce besoin d'aller en avant qui, fait qu'on se lasse d'une société, d'une conversation qui ne satisfait pas. Qui a jamais trouvé que les arbres devraient devenir rouge, bleus, que le soleil d'aujour-d'hui avait tort de ressembler au soleil d'hier. On n'invoque point là le progrés de la nouveauté et voilà pourquoi la nature nous tire de l'ennui du monde en même temps qu'elle nous repose de son agitation. Il lui à été donné d'être toujours la même, sans être jamais insipide.'—Guizot.
• 'Exalt the Lord my God, and worship at his holy Hill; for the Lord thy God is holy' (Psalm xeix.) 'The
• * The Earl of Rosebery, connected with my mother through his marriage with her niece, Hannah de Rothschild.

Lord our God is holy,' that is the great blessed truth which science cannot establish, but which is revealed to us by conscience and which the prophet feels and sees, tho' it escapes the gaze and searching examination of the acutist scientist. But though not among the truths which illumine his field of vision, it fills the heart of man and sanctifies his life, and it is his beacon and his consolation.

'Le temps vous apprendra comme à moi, à ne pas dedaigner les joies du second rang et à enjouir sans les compter pour plus qu'elles ne valent.'—Guizor.

London, June 6th

• 'Prendre son parti, qu'est ce? Chasser les pensées, de regret, en substiteur d'autres organiser à nouveau ce qui vous reste.'—Pensées de Doudan. July 9th.

• 'Nuk ein enges Hertz wächst nicht, aber ein weites wird grösser; jenes verengen die Jahre, dieses dehnen sich aus.'—Jean Paul.

  August 11th.

• 'The wise man says of the virtuous woman: "Her hands hold the distaff." I could say much about these words. Your spindle is a mass of good desires. Spin every day a little; carry out the thread of your wishes into execution and you will do much."—Letters of François de Sales.

  Cromer, August 26th.

1884

Read a well-written article in the Revue des Deux Mondes by Caro, on the second volume of Amiel's Journal. A sad account of a beautiful, but too sensible

and morbid mind. These, however, were consolatory words after speaking of the deceptions and miseries of this life, he says:—

'Le mystic et partout, n'importe pourvu que le monde sait l'œuvre du bien et que la conscience du devoir ne nous ait pas trompés, donner du bonheur et faire du bien voilà notre aurore de salut, notre phare, notre raison d'être.'

This again, written when he was suffering from an illness he knew was fatal:—

'La mort elle-même peut devenir un consentement donc un acte moral.

Caro finishes his article with these words to those who, like Amiel, live too much merely a life of selfexamination and analysis:—

'Et maintenant, occupez-vous un peu des autres, sous peine de trouver le châtiment de cette inclusive attention à vous-même dans une sorte d'incapacité, de vivre et d'énervement. Quel est le moraliste qui a dit que, pour retrouver son moi actif vivant, il faut savoir le perdre ou tout au moins l'oublier.'

October 1st.

Reading the last two volumes of Carlyle's 'Life.'

What a strange compound of noble generous sentiments and extraordinary insight and powers of description with irritability, frequent incapacity of seeing talents and worth, and coarse exaggeration; but he was a genius and had really a tender, loving heart, in spite of his selfishness and sometimes really brutal conduct to the wife who was so dear to him.

October.

Reading Croker's 'Letters and Papers.'

Find them interesting and amusing, while I expected they would be rather heavy and dull. November 15th

A quaint description of age:-

'His limbs failing him, and his trunk getting packed with the infirmities which mean that one is bound on a long journey.'—The Poet at the Breakfast Table.

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

1885.

Reading with great interest 'Letters of George Eliot.'

Hamble Cliff, February 14th.

Read with much interest 'Autobiography of Henry Taylor' and Mahaffy's 'Greece.'

Aston Clinton, March.

I do not know who wrote this, but it is very true:— 'L'номме ne peut rien faire de mieux; pour s'elever dans l'ordre des sentiments que de se rapprocher du

Reading Greville's 'Memoirs.'

Parts of which are very interesting, parts dull, but all well written.

'Charles Darwin.' By GRANT ALLEN.

Somewhat too wordy. I should have liked more of Charles Darwin himself and his letters, and less of Grant Allen.

November.

Reading 'Vie intime de Voltaire' and 'Mrs. Keith's Crime.'

The latter a well-written, clever, but horribly painful story. Why write anything so distressing from the first to the last line? It certainly has the merit of complete originality.

Aston Clinton, November 23rd.

Rise of Silas Lapham.

Very original and clever. The following seems to me a new and true way of looking at the possible effect of our failings:—

'Nothing can be thrown quite away, and it can't be that our sins only weaken us.' December.

1886.

'Des pas infiniment petits et des périodes infiniment longues, dit Strauss, tels sont les deux passe partout qui ouvrent des portes accessibles naguère au seul miracle.'

January.

Reading the last chapters of Scherer's article on Melchior Grimm.

What a sad finale to a prosperous career! And a short article on a sudden termination to a successful life—that of poor General Grant. Aston Clinton, January.

Reading 'La Morte.' By BOURGET.

According to the author, founded on fact, though apparently written to prove the necessity of religion to direct our conduct, and make our lives both good and happy.

Reading with much pleasure 'Oceana.'

Though I do not always agree with Mr. Froude's political or religious views, the following I thought very good:—

'Do we really know in what a Nation's greatness consists? Whether it be great or little depends entirely on the sort of men or women that it is producing. A sound nation is a nation that is composed of sound human beings; healthy in body, strong of limb, true in word and deed, brave, sober, temperate, chaste, to whom morals are of more importance than wealth or knowledge, where duty is first, and the rights of men are second, where in short, men grow up and live and work having in them what our ancesters called "the fear of God."

The realm of imagination is the realm of might-be, our haven of refuge from the shortcomings and disillusions of life; it is, to quote Spenser:

'The world's sweet Inn from care and wearisome turmoil.'—Lowell, On the Choice of Books.

February.

Reading Harrison's Essays.

Remarkably well written, but he has evidently 'Comte' upon the brain.

March.

'Only we'll live awhile as children play,
Without to-morrow, without yesterday.'—
MARY ROBINSON, Aston Clinton, March.

'The Melancholy of Melancholies,' Keats would say to us, is that of the joy which must pass away and of beauty which must fade and die;

'She dwells with beauty, beauty that must die:
And joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu.'

May.

Reading Legouvé's 'Memoirs of Sixty Years.'

Much pleased with the following sentences—taken from a letter of Béranger:

'Et bien, pauvre enfant, courez donc après la gloire, c'est un mirage qui vient vous chercher du fond des déserts; prenez bien garde qu'il ne vous y entraine; un seul moyen vous est offert pour éviter ce malheur; occupez vous d'être utile—c'est la loi que Dieu impose à tout homme. Ne faites pas comme tous ceux qui se contentent de l'art pour l'art. . . . La nature a marqué un emploi à toutes les facultés qu'elle distribue, il ne faut que chercher. . . . mais surtout occupez vous plus des autres que de vous même.

May.

'IT is great vanity to think any one will attend to a thing because it is your quarrel.'—Steele. July.

'METHUSALEH might be half an hour telling what o'clock it was; but as for us post-diluvians, we ought to do everything in haste, and in our speeches as well as our actions, remember that our time is short.'—

Reading with much painful interest 'Children of Gibeon,' by BESANT.

1887.

Reading Shelley's 'Life.'

Hayward's Letters very commonplace.

Reading the last two volumes of Greville's 'Memoirs'—chiefly political, and 'Lectures on History,' by STUBBS.

Suggestive and thoughtful, but rather one-sided.

February.

How we got our Bible.

A most interesting little book. The most faithful copyists were the Jews.

Reading 'Emerson in Concord.'

Talking of Slavery, he says: 'They who help, and they who hinder are all equally diligent in hastening its downfall. "Blessed be the unbelievers."'

• 'Do the Duty of the Hour.'
• 'The Sabbath is my best debt to the past, and binds me to some gratitude still. It brings me that frankincense out of a sacred antiquity.'
• 'Oxe should dignify, entertain, and signalise each journey or adventure by carrying to it a literary masterpiece and making acquaintance with it on the way.'
• 'Ir is dainty to be sick, if you have leisure and convenience for it.'
• 'The delight in another's superiority is my best gift from God—for here the moral nature is involved, which is higher than the intellectual.'

'To me the difference of churches looks so frivolous that I cannot easily give the preference that civility should to one or another. To old eyes how supremely unimportant the form under which we celebrate the justice, love and truth, the attributes of the Deity and the soul.'

His own last days were serene and happy. In 1864 his journal says: 'Within I do not find wrinkles and used heart, but unspent youth.'—EMERSON.

1889.

L'OMBRE passe et repasse Et sans repasser l'homme passe.

'Time flies, we say; ah no! Alas! time stays, we go.'

'IDLENESS is the greatest prodigality in the world. It throws away that which is invaluable in respect of its present use, and irreparable when it is past, being to be recovered by no power of out or hand.'

JEREMY TAYLOR: Holy Living and Dying.

1800

Reading Justin McCarthy's 'George II.'

Amusing and useful in recalling what one has read to one's (my) waning memory.

'This is the way physicians end or mend us—
Secundum Artem; but though we sneer
In health, when ill, we call them to attend us
Without the least propensity to jeer.'
Very true.

Don Juan.

Into the Justice sempiternates

The power of vision that your world receives,
As eye into the ocean penetrates,
Which, though it sees the bottom near the shore,
Upon the deep perceives it not, and yet
It is there, but it is holden by the depth.'

Par. xxxi. 37, Divine Comedy, Dante.

THE time shall come when free as seas or wind Unbounded Thames shall flow for all mankind; Whole nations enter with each swelling tide, And seas but join the regions they divide.'

ALEXANDER POPE

Reading the 'Correspondence of Princess Lieven and Earl Grey.'

Interesting, but there is a want of humour, and a sameness of subject in Princess Lieven's letters, which make them sometimes rather heavy and wearisome reading. She must have been a remarkably clever woman, with a great deal of head, but not much heart. There is more feeling in Lord Grey's letters, as well as great dignity and sincerity.

Re-reading 'Obiter Dicta,'*

which I had quite forgotten; only remembering that I liked it very much. The article on Carlyle extremely interesting.

Much pleased with this quotation from Goethe's Faust. It is the Earth Spirit that speaks:—

'It is thus at the roaring loom of time I ply,
And weave for God the garment thou seest Him by.'

1890.

Reading 'The Jews under the Roman Rule,' by Morison, and 'Kingsley's Life and Letters.'

The former a somewhat dry account of bare facts, the latter full of interesting and poetical details about a most interesting and poetical individual.

Reading Walter Scott's 'Journal.'

How bravely he bore his financial reverses!

September.

Just finished two long, but still very interesting, volumes of Kingsley's Life and Letters. Though too violent and positive he was a delightful man, with a loving heart and a true poetic feeling.

Much pleased with 'A Window in Thrums,' by J. M. Barrie.

Full of humour and pathos. I like this:-

Let us no longer cheat our consciences by talking of filthy lucre: money may always be a beautiful thing; it is we who make it grimy.'

^* By the Rt. Honble. Augustine Birrell.

Reading 'Coningsby.'

Much pleased with a good deal I had forgotten.

August 29th.

Reading the Memoirs of the 'Duc de Nivernois.'
Most entertaining.

Looked over Lord Houghton's 'Life,' and now plunged into Darkest England—written powerfully and convincingly.

December.

1891.

Reading, with great interest, 'Physical Religion,' by MAX MÜLLER.

He tries, and I think succeeds in proving that:

'The human mind such as it is and unassisted by any miracles, excepting the eternal miracles of Nature, did arrive at the concept of God in its highest and purest form, did arrive at some of the fundamental Doctrines of Religion.'

'There is a God above all the gods, whatever their names, whatever their concepts may have been in the progress of the ages, and in the growth of the Human Mind.'

('He who above the gods was the one God.'—Rig Vedu.)

'The Commandment to overcome hatred by love is an old rule in the eyes of Buddha, as it was in the eyes of Confucius.'—Max Müller.

March.

'Bar thy door not to the stranger,

Be he friend or be he foe;

For the tree will shade the woodman,

While his axe doth lay it low.'

I READ with much interest the late Dean Church's well-written book on the 'Oxford Movement' and 'The Publisher and his Friends'—the amusing collection of the correspondence and reminiscences of Murray's father and grandfather, the Founder of the Firm.

The flowers my guests, the birds my pensioners, Books my companions and but few besides.'

W. S. LANDOR.

'I STROVE with none, for none were worth the strife;
Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art.
I warmed both hands before the fire of Life;
It sinks, and I am ready to depart.'

W. S. LANDOR.

Finished the 'Life' of Laurence Oliphant.

Reading 'Coriolanus.'

'In a drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy tree,
Thy branches ne'er remember
Their green felicity.
To know the change and feel it,
Where there is none to heal it,
Nor numbèd sense to steal it,
Was never said in rhyme.'

Keats: Happy Insensibility.

Reading the Life of Tait,

in two rather ponderous volumes. He was an excellent, hard-working, though not brilliant man, and because he was calm, moderate, and many-sided in his views and judgments on Church matters, was always getting into hot water with both parties of High and Low Churchmen.

Reading 'Felix Holt,' which I had almost forgotten.

Finished reading 'Japanese Girls and Women,' by Miss Bacon.

Very interesting and amusing.

Commenced 'Mungo Park.'

It is interesting now to turn from the present to the past wonders and discoveries in Darkest Africa.

Reading: Tess of the D'Urbervilles.

Little Minister. By BARRIE.

David Grieve. By Mrs. Humphry Ward.

Lord Rosebery's 'Pitt.'

Esther Vanhomrigh. By Mrs. Woods.

The Lives of Palmerston and Lord Salisbury. Edited by TRAILL.

Reading 'Boileau,' by Gustav Lauson

Green's 'History of the English People.'

March 1st.

Just commenced 'The Prophets of Israel,' by ROBERTSON SMITH.

'The revelation recorded in the Bible is a jewel which God has given us in a setting of Human History.'

April 16th.

'Every act we sow may come up a habit.'

Theodore Parker.

Monday, July 3rd

An Armenian Monk's Legend:

'Craignant que l'homme ne fut semblable aux Dieux, ainsi que le serpent l'avait promis, l'Eternal créa le vigne afin qu'il devint semblable aux bêtes.'

This would be a good text for a Temperance Lecture.

July 19th.

Reading Morley's 'Voltaire' and Caird's Essays.

September 29th.

Occupied myself by reading four volumes of Morley's Works.

October 20th

1892

Began Marbot's 'Memoirs.

Reading Jenny Lind's Biography.

Much too long; full of needless matter, tiresome repetitions, but still interesting, as the picture of such an interesting, original being, and unlike any other celebrated singer or actress.

Finished 'Jenny Lind.'

How wonderfully she carried out all charitable, benevolent wishes, fulfilling her earliest and dearest aspirations!

'Sorrows are hard to bear
And doubts are slow to clear.
Each sufferer has his say,
His tale of weal or woe;
But God has a few of us
Whom He whispers in the ear.
The rest may reason and welcome,
Tis we musicians know.'

Browning: Abt Vogler

February

1893.

Finished Claude's* (Mr. C. G. Monteflore) most interesting Lectures.

I admire immensely his learning, modesty, his calm, cultured, judicial tones, and the religious spirit with which he treats his difficult subject. January.

Reading 'The Beauties of Nature.' By Sir John

Full of interesting information, but given in rather too detailed a manner.

'The great Ash Tree "Yggdrasil" bound together Heaven, Earth, and Hell. The three Fates or Normas sitting under it spinning the thread of Life.'

'The rich buttercup Its tiny polished um holds up, Filled with ripe summer to the edge.'

LOWELL.

* The Hibbert Lectures

'To the happy mixture of sunshine and rain we owe the greenness of our fields.'—HAMERTON.

February 16th.

'When I remember all
The friends so linked together
I have seen around me fall
Like leaves in wintry weather,
I feel like one
Who treads alone
Some banquet hall deserted,
Whose lights are fled,
Whose garlands dead,
And all but he departed.'—Moore.

February~21st.

I have been reading 'Venetian Studies,' by Brown. Very interesting.

The Life of Wycliffe.

An interesting subject—not, however, very well treated; still, it gives one many instructive glimpses into the fourteenth century.

April 11th.

I have been reading with much interest the two somewhat over-bulky vols. of the 'Life and Letters of Lord Sherbrooke'—our old friend, Robert Lowe.

He was very fond of animals—a trait in his character which was new to me. The following lines, written

for a horse's epitaph, would suit our little Canine Cemetery:—

'Soft lies the turf on those who find their rest
Beneath our common Mother's ample breast;
Unstained by meanness, avarice, or pride,
They never cheated and they never lied.
They ne'er intrigued a rival to misplace;
They ran, but never betted on the race.
Content with harmless sports and simple food,
Boundless in faith and love and gratitude.
Happy the man—if there be any such—
Of whom his Epitaph can say as much.'

May 22nd

Heine's 'Family Letters and Writings.'
Witty, and still more, pathetic.

May 24th.

Reading Grant Duff's 'Renan.' Very eulogistic and interesting.

Life of Keble.

Pearson's 'Fate of Nations.'

Full of knowledge of the past, but trust not of the future. Cruelly pessimistic.

'SLEEP, thou art named Eternal! Is there, then, No chance of waking in the noiseless realm?'

Symonds. June 11th.

Reading Chalmers' 'Life,' by Mrs. OLIPHANT.

Very interesting and well written. Explaining what I did not understand before, the rift in the Scotch Church, which took place in 1834.

June 19th.

Read 'Napoléon Intime.'

Essays. Horace Walpole. By Dobson.

August 8th.

Reading 'Life's Greatest Possibility,' by MARTIN MORRIS*.

A great subject for so young a man; clever, thoughtful, and somewhat original, though in style and mannerism it often reminds me of Carlyle.

August.

Reading the 'Life' of Abraham Lincoln.

What a strange, interesting, original personality! Full of fun and humour, but also of sadness and pity! The following lines by Charles Mackay he thought much of:—

'Tell me, ye winged winds,
That round my path may roar,
Do ye not know some spot
Where mortals weep no more?
Some low and pleasant vale,
Some valley in the West,
Where free from toil and pain
The weary soul may rest?
The loud wind dwindled to a whisper low,
And sighed for pity, as it answered "No."

'Tell me, thou mighty deep,
Whose billows round me play,
Know'st thou some favoured spot
Some island far away,

^* The present Lord Killanin.

Where weary man may find
The place for which he sighs,
Where sorrow never lives,
And friendship never dies?
The loud waves rolling in perpetual flow
Stopped for a while, and sighed, but answered,
"No."

'And thou, serenest Moon,
That with such holy face
Dost look upon the earth,
Asleep in Night's embrace,
Tell me, in all thy round,
Hast thou not seen some spot
Where mortal man might find a happier lot?
and a cloud the moon withdrew in woe,
a voice sweet, but sad, responded, "No."

Oh! tell me, Hope and Faith,
Is there no resting-place
From sorrow, sin and death?
Is there no happy spot
Where mortals may be blessed,
Where grief may find a balm
And weariness a rest?
Taith, Hope, Love, the best to mort

Faith, Hope, Love, the best to mortals given, Waved their bright wings and whispered, "Yes. in Heaven."

September 22nd.

Have been reading with great pleasure Stanley's Lectures on the Scottish Church.'

What a beautiful mind he had, and how beautifully he expressed his appreciation for what is good, true, and noble.

October 4th.

Begun second part of William George (known as 'Ideal') Ward's Life.

Interesting, as he was such an original and strong personality. It seems extraordinary that he should have gone over to the Faith which requires such complete submission of intellect and will. What an extraordinary and logical intellect he had! How much humour and fun in his daily life.

Aston Clinton, Sunday, 22nd

Have finished 'Ward' and am reading with great pleasure Lowell's Letters.

They are full of poetry and the love of nature, delightfully expressed; he has much fun too, but I do not think his humour equal to his serious moods and poetic instinct; he had also a kind and loving heart.

November 1st

I have been reading some of Bacon's Essays and his 'Life.'

I delight in his grand Elizabethan style, which presents so well his stately poetic thoughts. Alas! why were his acts not always as fine and noble as his writings!

December 1st.

'To My OLD YEW TREE*. (By L. de R.)

'Welcome, far-branching, sturdy old Yew Tree,
Through many years an unchanged friend to me!
In summer days from blinding glare and heat,
Beneath your shade I find a sheltered seat.
In winter's gloom, when others' stems are bare,
Your green boughs whispering, wave their banners fair,
On which can happ'ly feast dim eyes like mine,
Reading unwritten tales of "Auld Lang Syne."

**December 4th.**

1894.

I am reading two volumes of hitherto unpublished Letters of Walter Scott.

Full of interest—making one still more intimately acquainted with the fine character and affectionate, lively nature of the great author.

Aston Clinton, January 7th.

I have begun Stanley's 'Life.'

and am delighted with it. What a beautiful character! so truthful, tolerant, devoted, affectionate, simple and modest; he reminds me, in many respects, of my nephew, Claude Montefiore.

January 25th.

Just finished Lady Granville's Letters.

Very amusing, chatty writing and pleasant reading.

March 22nd

* The old yew tree standing in the grounds at Aston Clinton, facing the windows of the drawing-room where my mother always

Reading the Duke of Marlborough's 'Life.' By LORD WOLSELEY.

Lord Clive. By SIR CHARLES WILSON.

I do not know about personal morality, but certainly political morality and conduct in general are very different in the nineteenth to what they were in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

'Un petit malheur, c'est presque un bonheur; les petits malheurs vainquent les grands.'—Victor Hugo.

Yesterday I went with Constance to pay Mr. Gladstone a visit on Dollis Hill. It was a strange, fine, somewhat sad picture to see the old venerable statesman lying on a seat shaded by trees on the picturesque lawn, looking well and cheerful, with the hope of soon being able to see to write again. In the meantime talking with his extraordinary enthusiasm and vigour of Homer's genius, of Japanese talents, and of the hundred thousand uses which can be made of paper. Was there ever such a versatile mind?

July 2nd.

Reading 'The Message of Israel.

Extremely interesting and clever, but also rather disturbing and upsetting. In these pages the Bible assumes a new position and explanations which strike out quite a novel view of its various authors. Comparison between Spartans and Israelites—Lycurgus and Moses.

September.

Rhoda Broughton* left us this morning after spending two days here: I find her no less bright and amusing than when last I saw her.

The Pleasaunce, Overstrand, September 14th.

Reading with much pleasure a little book: Ruskin's 'Letters to a College Friend.'

'The object of all art is not to inform, but to suggest, not to add to the knowledge, but to kindle the imagination. To put plain text into rhyme and make it easy; not so to write a passage which every time it is remembered shall suggest a new train of thought, a new subject of delighted dream. It is the mystic secrecy of beauty which is the seal of the highest art, which only opens itself to close observation and long study.' October.

Wrinkles are the frontlets that Time puts between our eyes to remind us of fleeting years and coming death.

L. DE R.—October.

Reading Froude's 'Erasmus.'

October 27th.

The poor Tsar† died yesterday. How well I remember his stalwart form and good-natured face, when he was shooting here more than twenty years ago.

Finished James Payn's amusing pages of autobiography or rather 'Memories' as he calls them.

November 2nd.

^* Author of 'Cometh up as a Flower,' 'Nancy,' and other novels.

^† The Tsar, Alexander III., when Czarevitch, accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh, visited my parents at Aston Clinton n 1874.

Reading Mrs. Augustus Craven's 'Life.'

A brilliant, elever, excellent, truly religious, though perhaps rather a narrow-minded woman in matters of Faith. Her thoughts, letters, and friends, extremely interesting.

'C'est par l'esprit que l'on s'amuse, c'est par le cœur qu'on ne s'ennuie pas.'—Madame Swetchine.

December:

'That sweetest music—the praises of a friend.'

'SHE did not keep me in the ante-chamber of her mind, but let me go into the boudoir at once.'

MARIA EDGEWORTH.

Tring, Wing, and Ivinghoe,
Old Hampden did forego,
For striking the Black Prince a blow.

'Called on Mrs. Humphry Ward to-day. Found her, as ever, very pleasant and sympathetic. Talked over Mrs. Augustus Craven and Miss Edgeworth, &c., &c.' December 27th.

The one or two immortal lights Rise slowly up into the sky
To shine there everlastingly.'

MATTHEW ARNOLD

1805

'LES bons intentions ne sont pour rien dans les ouvrages de l'Esprit.'—MADAME DE STAËL. January.

'On ne se détache jamais sans douleur.'—Pascal.

Reading 'Life and Letters' of Dean Church. Very interesting.

All but great Death.

Death, the one thing that is
Which passes not with passings of the day.

Finished 'Dean Church.'

Reading 'History of the English Novel,' by Walter Raleigh.

Reading 'Grote.'

Vol. 4. Chapter 31.

Vol. 5. Chapter 45.

Vol. 8. Chapters 67, 68.

January 20th.

'For manners are not idle, but the fruit
Of loyal nature and of noble mind.'

Guinevere. April 10th.

His honour rooted in dishonour stood, And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true.

Elaine.

Reading Tennyson's 'Idylls of the King,' which I had half forgotten. How beautiful they are in their purity, passion, and pathos!

Much interested in Jusserand's 'Literary History of the English People.'

Reading Coleridge's Letters.

May 6th.

Reading Dean Church's Letters.

Sensible, affectionate, tolerant! Warmed by his intense love of Nature; but after Coleridge's extraordinary effusions, they seem rather cold and commonplace.

Reading 'Degeneration.'

A great deal of truth in the author's severe and sometimes amusing criticisms; but is he not occasionally wanting so much in sympathy with views, ideas and aspirations foreign to his own disposition and character, that he becomes unfair and unjust?

'So for the Mother's sake the child was dear,
And dearer for the mother was the child.'

(Much admired by Lamb.)

Coleridge

Reading 'The Life of E. A. Freeman,' by STEPHENS.

The Rise of Wellington. By LORD ROBERTS.

May.

Continuing 'Freeman.'

He is too one-sided and intolerant.

Juna

Read Queen Victoria's 'Life,' by Mrs. FAWCETT.

A difficult task, extremely well executed.

July.

'The scythe of Time has a blunt as well as a keen edge, and has as much power to heal as to wound.'

September 16th.

• 'ALAS! what a city of the dead is the human heart; why go to the cemeteries? let us open our reminiscences, how many tombs!'—FLAUBERT.
• 'On se tire de l'avenir comme des mauvais chemins on ne voit personne demeurer au milieu.'

Madame de Sévigné

'Tous les détails sont admirables quand l'amitié est à un certain point.'

'Dare a great thing: the thing thou triest
Lifts thy straining mind;
Though thou mayst not reach the highest,
Something high thou'lt find.'
From the German by John Stuart Blacker

'Angels holy, high or lowly,
Sing the praises of the Lord.
Earth and sky, all living nature,
Man, the stamp of thy Creator,
Praise ye, praise ye God the Lord.'
J. S. BLACKH

On the deep sea's brim,
In beauty quite excelling,
White and tight and trim,
Stands my lady's dwelling.
Stainless is the door
With shiny polish glowing:
A little plot before
With pinks and sweet peas growing.
When a widow weeps,
She with her is weeping;
When a sorrow sleeps
She doth watch its sleeping;
When the sky is bright
With one sole taint of sadness,
Let her heave in sight,
And all is turned to gladness.'
MISS HERRIETTA BIRD.

'The sun gives light and heat; light for knowledge, heat for love.'

'THERE is truth as well as beauty in that old conception which finds the Divine rather in gentleness than in violence.'—WALKER.

'In all primitive languages and cosmogonies the moon takes its name from a root which signifies the "measurer," while the sun is the "bright or shining one."

LANG.

In primitive languages the moon appears as male and the sun as female in the older mythologies, which is still maintained in modern German.

'Gon's in His Heaven,
All's right with the world.'

Pippa Passes: Browning.

'Love thou thy land with love far brought,
From out the storied past and used,
Within the present, but transferred
Thro' future time by power of thought.'

TENNYSON

'Creed pass, rites change, no altar standeth whole, Yet we her memory, as she prayed will keep, Keep by this life in God and union there.'*

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

* The two last lines are on my dear mother's last resting-place.

AUBREY DE VERE asked Tennyson whether he were a Conservative. 'I believe in progress,' said Tennyson, 'and I would conserve the hopes of man.'

'FALLING with the weight of cares
Upon the great world's altar stairs,
That slope through darkness up to God.'
TENNYSO

'LE bruit est pour le fat, la plainte pour le sot. L'honnête homme trompé, s'éloigne et ne dit mot.'

'To have known him, to have loved him, to have had a place in his regard is a part of our life's unalterable good.'—G. R.* on Matthew Arnold.

Reading 'Life of Blackie.'

What a clever, original, energetic individual, always hard at work on serious subjects, yet full of fun, song, and humanity!

Just commenced 'Human Origins,' by LAING. Not only interesting, but till now it seems to me that it emphasises one's ignorance upon the origin of man.

Reading dear Matthew Arnold's Letters.

They are delightful to me, and must give great pleasure to all who knew him well, recalling so vividly the affectionate, modest, simple nature of the man; but the poet and the charming prose-writer is not so vividly portrayed in these pages.

Sunday, October 24th.

* The Right Honourable George Russell.

Reading passages from Tennyson and Browning, I am also getting slowly through the somewhat painful pages of Haydon's Life.

December 18th.

Reading Macaulay's 'Life.'

What an extraordinary memory and what a wonderful untiring industry! How terribly idle these delightful passages make one feel!

December 19th.

Finished this morning Macaulay's 'Life.'

What a happy life and death! What a contrast to that of poor Haydon's! December 23rd.

Reading three volumes of Haydon's 'Life.' ecoming more interested in it. Christmas Day

1896.

Reading with great pleasure and admiration my nephew Claude's* 'Bible for Home Reading.'
Full of beautiful thoughts; a real picture of his truthful, kind, and religious spirit, but doubtless he will shock the very orthodox.

May 30th.

'Dieu a donné le Prêtre au monde, la charge du prêtre est de donner le monde à Dieu.'—Bourger.

Read with pleasure and interest 'The Life and Letters of Oliver Wendell Holmes'; and also with interest and amusement 'Travel and Talk,' by the Rev. H. R. HAWEIS.

London, January 26th.

* Mr. C. G. Montefiore.

'Truth in closest words will fail, While truth embodied in a tale Will enter in at open doors.'

TENNYSON

'Truth for ever on the scaffold, wrong for ever on the throne,

Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the door unknown

Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.' Lowell.

For acuteness and valour the Greek,
For excessive pride the Roman,
For dulness the creeping Saxon,
For beauty and amorousness the Gaidhi

OLD IRISH POEM,

• 'L'hlusion et la sagesse réunies sont le charme de la vie et de l'art.'—Jourert.
  • 'YES, I am proud, I must be proud to see Men not afraid of God, afraid of me; Safe from the bar, the pulpit and the throne, But touched and scared by ridicule alone.'

Popr

• WHEN the wine goes in the man, Then the wit goes in the can.'
• · Whosoever is not actively kind is cruel.'—Ruskin
• 'A RIGHTEOUS man studies his beast.

Saying of a Rabbi.

'Shake an ass and go— Chacun à son gout.'

Youth cannot return: there are no birds, says the Spanish proverb, in last year's nest.

'Love or friendship is only l'égoïsme à deux.'

'IL n'y a dans la vie que deux ou trois réalités, et l'amitié en est une.'—Victor Hugo.

CHARLES LAMB used to call himself 'a matter of fiction man.'

'Он, the little more, and how much it is, And the little less, and what worlds away.'

'Home: word so full of tenderness, a sound that is so often sad because it hath been sweet.'—John Nichol.

'Bur my soul from out that shadow which lies floating on the floor

Shall be lifted nevermore.

'Memory, the only fountain of perpetual youth.'

'THE Hebrews were right in having no present tense in their grammar; the present is so fugitive, only the past and the future seem permanent.'

Longfellow, in a letter to Nichol.

'WE are such stuff as dreams are made of, and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep.'—The Tempest.

'That time of life thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves or few or none do hang
Upon those boughs that shake against the cold
Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang.

• 'The word advice changed from the French avis. The French avis was the Latin advisum—from ad, to, and visum, seen. Mon avis, my at sight or my view. L'avenir, the future, that which is to come, ce qui est à venir.'—Max MÜLLER.
• 'Painting and sculpture being forbidden for Israel, those who vividly realised the unseen harmonies of things, and felt within themselves a power coercing them to give their thoughts vivid expression, were forced to throw all their passion into psalms or prophecies. The literature of the Psalms and the Prophets represents the arts as well as the religion of Israel. —Abbott, The Spirit on the Waters.

1897.

ALMOND-TREE, called the wakeful tree in Hebrew, because it is the first to wake from the sleep of winter.

• 'Never let a day pass without making some one happy.'—Sydney Smith.
• 'True poetry is the remembrance of youth, of love, the embodiment in words of the happiest and holiest moments of life, of the noblest thoughts of man, of the greatest deeds of the past. Neither is the element of pleasure to be excluded. For when we substitute a higher pleasure for a lower one, we raise men in the scale of existence.'—Jowett.
• 'Utilitarianism is condemned by Jowett mainly because it destroys the ideal meaning of such words as truth, justice, honesty, &c.—words which have a

simple meaning and have become sacred to us, the words of God written in the human heart. 'In the future all things like the stars in heaven will shed their light on one another.'—Jowerr.

'LE malheur est fait d'envie, quiconque admire de tout son cœur n'envie pas. Le malheur est fait de regrets, en admirant on oublie; de rancunes, en admirant on pardonne; de doutes, en admirant on croit.'

Article on Ruskin by Robert de la Sizeranne.

Philosophy has been defined as the home-coming of the soul.

'Our sensibilities are so acute, The fear of being silent makes us mute.'

POETS LAUREATE.

DAVENANT, Dryden, under Charles II. and James II. Shadwell under William III. Tate under Queen Anne, Colley Cibber under George II., called by Pope the King of Dunces. Johnson wrote of him:

'Great George's acts let tuneful Cibber sing For nature formed the poet for the King.'

Whitehead, Warton, George II. Pye, Southey, Wordsworth, George III. Queen Victoria: Tennyson, Alfred Austen!! Both Wordsworth and Tennyson borrowed their court dress from Rogers.

'Religion does not consist in the knowledge and belief even of fundamental truths; no, education and religion consist mainly in our being brought by them to a certain temper and behaviour.'—Butler.

'Now if we are to be brought to a temper and behaviour, our affections must be engaged and a force of beauty or of sentiment is requisite for engaging them.'

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

'LEs sauvages sont l'antiquité moderne, La vie est un devoir.'—Jосвект.

'Things are what they are, and the consequences of them will be what they will be; why then should we desire to be deceived?'—BUTLER.

'The maker of bows was termed a bowyer, of arrows a fletcher (flêche) frequently met as surnames. Yew in ancient British signifies existent and enduring, having the same root as Jehovah.'

'The whole scene of man's visible life, no longer the mere vestibule of an invisible futurity, has a worth and dignity of its own which philosophy delights to honour and only fanaticism can despise.'—J. MARTINEAU.

'By fits the Lady Ash
With twinkling fingers swept her yellow keys.'
TEXNYSON.

'In 1716, two women were hanged for witchcraft: in 1736, penal statutes against witchcraft were repealed.'

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

'In this vale of Time, the hills of Time often shut out the mountains of Eternity.'

'The each man find his own in all men's good And all men work in noble brotherhood.'

TENNYSON.

• 'Le cœur a ses saisons que la raison ne connait pas.'
  RENAN.
• 'Memories of books, memories of places, they should be our jewels, our garden of delight.'—Miss Clough.
• 'Take the little pleasures of life, watch the sunsets and the clouds, the shadows in the streets, and the misty light over our great cities, these bring joy by the way and thankfulness to our heavenly Father.'

Miss Clough.

1897.

Reading Jowett's 'Life.'

Very interesting; full of interesting thoughts.

April 16th.

Reading Countess Potocki's 'Memoirs.'

Gossipy, but amusing notes. Napoleon figures among them with many well-known characters.

Aston Clinton, June 16th

Sixty years ago, about this time of day, I was waiting with my dear sister, Charlotte, at a window in St. James's Street to see the young Queen drive in her State Glass Coach down to Westminster Abbey to be crowned, and to-day here I am alone, with Elfie,* looking out of my window at Grosvenor Place, to see the crowds coming down to see the aged Queen. The guns are firing, and soon the thrilling scene will commence. I wish I could have witnessed it, but I do not feel

^* Elfie, a tiny Yorkshire terrier, my mother's constant companion.

equal to the fatigue of the ceremony . . . . . Everything passed off brilliantly, and not a hitch or a contretemps; of course the elements were propitious till the Queen had left London. . . . So ends the great London Jubilee, and to-morrow I hope the sun will shine on Portsmouth for the great Naval Review.

June 22nd.

YESTERDAY, the Prince of Wales* drove here from Tring, with Emmy (Lady Rothschild), Lady Randolph Churchill, and Lord Peel.† It was a sort of Rip Van Winkle visit. I felt very stupid and half inclined to cry. H.R.H. was extremely amiable, simple, and goodnatured, often alluding to his pleasing visit here 24 years ago. Of course I find him much changed, grown from a young man to a middle-aged one, but in expression rather improved than otherwise.

Aston Clinton, October 25th.

Reading Tennyson's 'Life,' with great interest and pleasure.

October 27th.

Much regret having come to the end of Tennyson's Life; have read few books that interested and engrossed me so much; and now I am reading In Memoriam.

November 8th.

Reading Rénan's 'Life' and 'The House of Blackwood.'

• * King Edward VII.
• † Viscount Peel, well known for many years as Speaker in the House of Commons.

1898.

• LA douleur lui échappe comme son plaisir.'

  JOUBERT.

• 'IL est impossible que Voltaire contente, et impossible qu'il ne plaise pas.'—Jourert.

• 'It faut faire du bien lorsqu'on le peut et faire plaisir à toute heure, car à toute heure on le peut.'

  JOUBERT.

• 'Il serait difficile de vivre méprisé et vertueux, nous avons besoin de support.'—Joubert.
  • 'Qui n'a pas l'esprit de son age De son age a tout le malheur.'

• 'Toujours occupé des devoirs des autres, jamais des siens, hélas!—Jourert.'

  • 'I sometimes do believe and sometimes do not,
    As those that fear they hope, and hope they fear.'

  As You Like It.

Timocracy—first stage in the downward progress when reason sinks to a lower level.

Oligarchy—when appetite becomes dominant love of wealth.

Democracy—a war of appetites.

Tyranny—despotism of the lowest appetites, the least compatible with the common life of society. The tyrant is the exact counterpart of the philosopher The philosophic king is at one with everybody and everything around him. The tyrant, his personality

concentrated in one single dominant passion, is absolutely alone—he is the enemy of his own better self, of the human kind, of God.

Lectures on Plato's 'Republic' by NETTLESHIP.

'CERTAINLY it is heaven upon earth to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in Providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.'—Bacon.

GIORDANO BRUNO died at the stake in Rome in 1600.

'O give no waye to griefe
But let beliefe
Of mutual love
This wonder to the vulgar prov
That bodies not we move.'

PEMBROKE.

'Qu'est ce qu'une grande vie? Une pensée de la jeunesse exécutée par l'âge mûr.'—Alfred de Vigny.

The Universal Register became The Times in 1788. Walter remained editor and proprietor till 1810, when Stoddart became editor, succeeded by Barnes, 1817, succeeded by Delane in 1841.

The Annals of Agriculture set up in 1788 by Arthur Young, received contributions from Ralph Robinson, Farmer of Windsor, and who was George III.

'DER Augenblick ist Ewigkeit' (Goethe), so let us make the best use of der Augenblick, and not be always thinking of the past or the future.

Wanhope—old English for despair.

• 'Passing through a valley of weeping they make it a place of springs' (eighty-ninth Psalm); that is what kind hearts do.
  • 'HE prayeth best who loveth best All things both great and small.'

COLERIDGE

Never to blend our pleasures to our pride
With sorrow to the meanest thing that lives.'

The Prussian royal family were the Burgraves of Nuremberg, and the Emperor gave them Brandenburg, the province where Berlin now stands, in the year of the battle of Agincourt.

• "Tis a great point in a gallery how you hang pictures, and no less in society how you seat your party."—Emerson.
• 'QUAND mes amis sont borgnes je les regarde le profil.'—JOUBERT.
• 'I am afraid of trusting myself far from home at this season of the year, as one can be sick and cross nowhere so comfortably as at home.'—Dr. Burney, 1791.

I quite agree.—1898, L. R.

'For there was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a glass.'—The Fool in 'King Lear.'

YESTERDAY morning at five o'clock, the great statesman passed away. All England is grieving for our Gladstone.*

Aston Clinton, May 20th.

* The Right Honourable W. E. Gladstone, four times Premier, born 1809, died 1898.

GLADSTONE'S FUNERAL.—I came up on the 26th, and found London dark and sad, as befitted the City mourning her great Statesman.

May 28th.

PAID Watts a visit. Delighted with the great artist, his noble works, and his gentle wife.

Claude's* portrait a marvellous likeness and magnificent painting! How delightful for Watts and for England that age should have no chilling, hurtful effect upon the brain, hand, or eye of the aged artist.

June 28th.

'So obsequious is the vain woman to fashion, that she would be ready to be reconciled even to virtue with all its faults if she had her dancing-master's word that it was practised at Court.'—Letters of Lord Hallfax to his daughter.

Lord Halifax born 1633.

'A LIGHT wind blew from the gates of the sun, And waves of shadow went over the wheat.'

TENNYSON.

• 'The river is green and runneth slow;
  We cannot tell what it saith,
  It keepeth its secrets down below,
  And so doth death.'—FABER.
• 'O Lord! where shall I find Thee?
  All hidden and exalted in Thy place;
  And where shall I not find Thee?
  Full of Thy glory is the infinite space.'

HALKEY

* Mr. C. G. Montefiore.

• 'GLORY,' says Robertson, 'to intellect and genius, but glory to gentleness and patience.'
• 'Truth is perilous in proportion as it is not spoken in love.'—MANNING.
• 'Arguments are the pillars of sermons, illustrations are the stained-glass windows.'—Fuller.
  • 'FLOWERS laugh before Thee on their beds, And fragrance in Thy footing treads; Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong and the most ancient heavens through Thee are fresh and strong.'—Wordsworth.
• 'What good is like to this? To do worthy the writing, and to write worthy the reading and the world's delight.'

Daniels' dedication to Sidney's 'Angel Spirit.

1899.

• 'Our foster-nurse of nature is repose.'-King Lear.
  • 'Her voice was very soft, Gentle and low, an excellent thing in woman.'
• AGE cannot wither her nor custom stale Her infinite variety.'—Antony and Cleopatra.
  • 'For his bounty
    There was no winter in it, and autumn 'twas
    That grew the more by reaping.'

Antony and Cleopatra

'One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.'

Troilus and Cressida.

'WE have made peace With no less honour to me.'

Coriolanus.

'The green leaves quiver with the cooling wind,
And make a chequer'd shadow on the ground.'

Titus Andronicus.

THERE was a Roman inland road from Clausentum, a small shipping-place on Southampton Waters, now called Bitterne, to Winchester.

'What a mania you have for improving everything about you; could you not spare a little of this reforming energy upon yourself?'

Companions of my Solitude, ARTHUR HELPS

'La force des choses' is only another word for 'La faiblesse des hommes.'—Quoted by MALLET.

Ameer—the origin of admiral.

LABOUR, so far as it is true and sanctionable by the Supreme Worker and World-founder, may claim brotherhood with labour; the great work and the little are alike definable as an extricating of the true from its imprisonment amid the false.

Carlyle, Letter to Sir Robert Peel, 1846.

• 'Horace says, "Where words abound sense is thinly spread, as trees over-charged with leaves bear little fruit."—Letter of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.
  • 'THE past is always secure.'—Horace Greeley.
• 'So use present pleasures that thou spoilest not future ones."—Seneca.

'As when a painter poring on a face
Divinely, through all hindrancies finds the man
Behind it, and so paints him that his face,
The shape and colour of a mind and life,
Lives for his children, even at its Best.'

Watts' ideal put into verse by Tennyson.

'A LITTLE grave is mine beneath the Yew,
And in the Heavens a soul that God doth save;
To me is given sweet rosemary and rue,
A little grave.

Yet, not to sorrow is my heart a slave,

For Love and Death keep a soft wee face in view,
And one hope makes my broken spirit brave,

For it is not here the life that is most true,
The life that breaks not like an ocean wave;
And yet I love, as God's earth loves the dew,

A little grave.'

Reading Stevenson's Letters, with great interest.

Aston Clinton, February 25th.

BOER WAR.—Spent a pleasant couple of hours collecting money for the wives and children of our fighting soldiers and sailors; I was received most amiably by all the inmates of the cottages in Halton village,* who seemed pleased to see me and to respond to my request.

Finished Stevenson's delightful Letters, and reading 'The Newcomes,' by THACKERAY.

* A very picturesque village in Buckinghamshire, belonging to my cousin Alfred de Rothschild.

Also finished reading Sir A. West's* 'Recollections.'

Pleasantly written-some parts very interesting.

December 11th.

A pleasant little visit last week from the two Miss Cholmondeleys, † Mr. Asquith, † and Mr. Haldane. § Christmas Day.

1900

The first piece of really good news from the war-Kimberley relieved by French. February.

Cronje capitulated with all his force on the 25th.

This morning came the welcome, happy news of the relief of Ladysmith.

London, March 1st.

'IT is almost a definition of a gentleman to say, he is one who never inflicts pain.'—CARDINAL NEWMAN.

'Leave out the adjectives and let the nouns do the fighting.'—Emerson.

Reading Rosebery's 'Napoleon: The Last Phase.' How sad and dull must those last years have been after such an eventful, dashing, brilliant life, to the prisoner watching the fall of the Empire he had raised! The two last chapters particularly well written and interesting.

• * The Right Honourable Sir Algernon West, G.C.B., late Chairman of Board of Inland Revenue, and formerly Secretary to Mr. Gladstone.
• † Mary and Victoria Cholmondeley. Mary Cholmondeley author of Red Pottage, and other novels.

  • The Prime Minister.

• § Viscount Haldane, Secretary of State for War, President of the Army Council.

Commenced John Morley's* 'Oliver Cromwell.' Enjoying the pleasant, inspiriting company of John Morley's Oliver Cromwell. I admire his [John Morley's] large-minded toleration towards all sides of party and of politics and all shades of religion and theology.

Just read a most interesting article in the Nineteenth Century, by Max Müller, on 'Religion in China.'

How sad to think that we shall hear no more words from that distinguished author! November 19th.

1901.

A PLEASANT little party stayed here during the last days of the year and century: dear Annie Ritchic, † reminding us of old days; Mary and Victoria Cholmondeley, Dr. ‡ and Mrs. Woods, Augustus Hare, § Colonel Collins, || Sir Algernon West, and Mr. Benson. ¶

What a terrible change has taken place since I last wrote, after our pleasant little party had just broken up. The dear Queen departed, the reign of Victoria ended, that of Edward VII. commenced.

• * Viscount Morley of Blackburn, Lord President of the Council.
  • † Lady Ritchie, daughter of Mr. Thackeray.
  • † The present Master of the Temple.
• § Author of many books: Walks in Rome, Walks in London and
  Two Noble Lives.
• || The late Lieut.-Col. Collins, for many years equerry to H.R.H. Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll.
  • T. E. F. Benson, author of many amusing novels

Several notabilities have also departed: Brooke Lambert,* Mr. Haweis,† our friend Frederick Myers,†—a melancholy commencement of the year and century.

February 3rd.

READING nothing very interesting, though some good articles in the magazines, and rather amused with Gray's 'Letters.'

March 6th.

Just finished an amusing volume containing the Correspondence of: Madame, The Princess Palatine, Madame Adelaide de Savoie, Duchesse de Bourgogne, Madame de Maintenon. They give one a curious idea of the customs that prevailed at the French Court during the latter part of the reign of Louis XIV.

March 18th.

Commenced 'Life and Letters of Phillips Brooks.'
Too long, but very interesting. He died at the early age of 57. Religious, broad-minded and gifted, with a kindly nature and happy sparkling humour.

March 20th.

Reading 'The Letters and Life of the Countess Granville.'

Composed of extracts from books, letters and Bible texts, chiefly from the Old Testament. May 8th.

• * The Rev. Brooke Lambert, well known for his philanthropic work, a Broad Churchman, Rector of South Lambeth.

• † The Rev. H. R. Haweis, a most original preacher, also author.

  ‡ Frederick W. H. Myers, a distinguished writer in prose and

• poetry: deeply interested in Psychical Research.

Reading with much pleasure Herbert Paul's* 'Mer and Letters.'

Much instruction given in a vigorous, racy and amusing style.

May 24th.

1902.

Peace declared 1st June. †

June 3rd.

1903.

'THE hour of need
Shows the friend indeed.'—Ennus

Finished reading 'Isabella D'Esté.'

Very interesting, though in parts rather exhaustive

'Dickens taught us the duty of gaiety, and the religion of mirth.'—Lord Dufferin.

June.

Finished reading John Morley's 'Life of Gladstone.'

A great biography, and how great a man!

'. . . . Nature hath assigned
Two sovereign remedies for human grief:
Religion, surest, firmest, first and best,
Strength to the weak and to the wounded balm;
And strenuous action next.'

$November\ 26th.$

^* Now one of the Civil Service Commissioners, author of A History of Modern England, Life of J. A. Froude, Stray Leaves, &c.

⁺ End of the Roer War

1904.

THE soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed, Lets in new light through chinks that Time has made.

'O! never Star Was lost here but It rose afar.'

BUT beauty in Nature is not ultimate; it is a herald of inward and eternal beauty: it must stand as a part and not as yet the last or highest expression of the final course of Nature.—EMERSON.

'Great talents are the finest peacemakers.'—GOETHE.

July 12th.

'Wanted, or forgot,
The last and greatest art,
The art to blot.'—Pope on Dryden.

Ox preaching:—

As never sure of preaching again, And as a dying man to dying men.

BAXTER.

'LEARN to write slow, and other graces will follow in their proper places.' October.

1905.

Nor Heaven itself upon the past has power;
That which has been, has been, and I have had my hour.'

DRYDEN.

Reading Lord Granville's 'Life,' and Lucas's 'Life of Charles Lamb.'

November.

· Dessiner, c'est parler aux yeux, et parler c'est peindre à l'oreille.'—Joubert

'HE who studies the Law without spreading it,' says the Talmud, 'is like unto the myrtle in the desert.'

NEARLY nineteen centuries ago Josephus wrote: 'Our principal care of all is this, to educate our children well.'

• 'By the breath from the mouth of school-children the world is sustained.'—RABBI ELEAZER BEN SHAMNA.
• 'The quest of knowledge in old age is like drawing on sand; in youth, like engraving on stone.'
  • 'Je comprends le rire, j'ai horreur de la grimace.

Reading with great pleasure the interesting 'Life and Letters of Canon Ainger.'

'A LIFE of mere laughter is like music without a bass, or a picture conceived of vague unmitigated light, whereas the occasional melancholy, like those grand rich colourings of old Rembrandt, produce an incomparable effect and a very great relief.'

Reading now 'Essays and Lectures.' By Canon Ainger.

'To Him my spirit I consign,
Asleep, awake, I will not fear;
My body, too, I will resign,
And dread no evil—God is near.'
Apox Olam.—An old Hebrew Humn.

1907

"The true wealth of a nation is finally and ultimately the number of happy human beings which compose it."—OLIVER LODGE.

January.

A DREAM.*

1884.

I had been reading old letters from old friends; some of those whose words were written in half-obliterated characters on time-soiled paper, were still alive; others, alas! had passed away. One letter, full of kindness masked in funny jokes, made my heart more heavy than the others, for that laughter-loving friend had gone but a few short years ago to the distant unseen shore, and had left the world a darker, sadder, duller place to me. And though I knew the contents of that letter so well I read it over and over again till my eyes ached, perhaps from poring over the crabbed writing, perhaps from other causes; however, I put the letters carefully back into the box in which I kept them, a sort of holy of holies to me, and looked out upon the quiet landscape, at that moment tenderly lighted by the last rays of the setting sun. Before me stretched cornfields and pasture-lands, whilst here and there a group of trees told darkly against the pale rose and orange tints of the summer sky.

At a little distance, from the midst of a cluster of red-roof cottages, rose the grey square tower of the

^* This beautiful little Phantasy was written by my mother to commemorate the opening of a village Hall built by her in Aston Clinton to the memory of my dear father, Sir Anthony de Rothschild, who died, January 1876, and called The Anthony Hall.

Jack Forster; 'that would answer the description, too, for it might do us a world of good, or take us out of the world altogether.'

'And I think it is a library,' said our intellectual shoemaker, 'which it will depend upon ourselves to use or to neglect.'

'I should not be surprised if it were a clock for the tower yonder,' cried John Evans, our silversmith and watchmaker.

'I trust it may be a drinking-fountain,' exclaimed a staunch tectotaler; 'of course we might even spoil that gift, as the gentleman says, if we mixed the pure water with spirits.

'I hope it is a sugar-loaf!' piped out a little treble voice, 'which would make us sick, you know, if we eat too much of it.'

'Why not go at once to the Fir-grove Dell, instead of staying here making stupid guesses?' said the matter-of-fact grocer, who had made no guesses at all; and then I saw them all move on, and I followed to the dell. Ah, me! it was his favourite haunt, and I foolishly wondered in my foolish dream what I should find there. Well, among the branches of the tall firtrees appeared a bit of red here and a dark beam there, and when we got into the grove, instead of the empty grass sward, we found a rustic building with a high-pitched roof and gabled windows. The door, sheltered by a porch, stood open, and slowly and silently we entered a large, bright, airy room, with a platform at one end and some plain but not uncomfortable-looking benches, otherwise nothing.

Carefully we peered around, and then turned with faces blank as the walls to each other.

'What are we to do here?' 'What is this for?' was exclaimed with a sigh of disappointment by the lover of music, the projector of the swimming-bath, the teetotaler, the bookworm, and the fond anticipator of gigantic sweets.

'I don't see what use this empty room will be to us unless we turn it into a barn,' said Farmer Jones. 'Or a storehouse for goods,' said the grocer: 'it seems well built and would keen the tea and sugar dry.'

Murmurs of discontent followed those observations, and even in my dream I thought of the kind heart of the donor of the building and felt hurt and distressed.

But suddenly my attention was diverted from the complaints of my companions to the change which had taken place on the pale grey walls. These were no longer of one monotonous tint, but adorned with large life-sized pictures: one picture represented long tables covered with fruit, flowers, and vegetables, evidently a village show of the good and beautiful things which care and industry may help to produce. In another, groups of children were playing at games, while through the windows one saw the snowflakes falling on the wintry ground. Another picture was composed of a crowd of people listening to some musical performers playing on various instruments, whilst in an adjoining painting men and women were singing themselves, and I was strangely thrilled by the harmonious voices, now loud and stirring, now gentle and pathetic, that rang through the hall.

In one of the painted scenes a man was earnestly discoursing to eager groups of listeners, and in another a party of women were busily plying their needles, whilst a lady, sitting at the head of their table, seemed to be presiding over their work, and raising happy smiles on many a careworn face.

There were other pictures in this strange gallery, but I turned from them attracted by a scroll which was now slowly unfolding itself under one of the large windows, and from it I read aloud the following words:—

'Dear friends I have built this hall for you, but you must complete the work I have only begun. The stones and bricks have been skilfully placed together, but you must give it the vivifying breath of life. Into these walls you must bring kind, loving hearts, bright intellects, active and attentive brains. Then only, and thanks to you, will this hall be able to fulfil its aim, that of giving recreation to the weary toiler, instruction and amusement to the young, of offering music, poetry, and good words to all, to inspire you with good thoughts, and help you to lead good and useful lives.

'The followers of all creeds and parties will be equally free to enter here, but their bitterness and intolerance must be left at the door. Here the Non-conformist will occasionally lecture to the Churchman, who, in his turn, will be listened to with respectful attention by the Dissenter. The teetotaler will be allowed—nay, requested—to preach temperance here, but those who differ from him will not be refused a hearing, and friendly discussions will be invited. Freedom of speech, tempered by sympathy for the feelings of others

and a spirit of devout reverence, must find their home and preside over all your gatherings in the hall of the Fir-grove Dell.'

As I finished reading these words on the scroll, I turned to see what effect they had produced on my companious, but one and all had vanished. The pictures grew indistinct, the walls became transparent, showing the dark fir-trees behind them; in another instant their branches encircled again the empty space where the strange building had stood, and I awoke.

My dream had only lasted a few minutes, but it left a vivid impression on my mind. 'Yes, dear, departed spirit,' I murmured to myself, as I gazed wistfully towards the now dimly-lighted Fir-grove Dell, 'the love and kindness that had such deep root in your warm heart and made you find your own pleasure in brightening the lives of young and old shall, if God will, go on bearing fruit in this village you loved so well.' And I resolved on that very evening that my dream should one day become a reality, thus reversing the usual order of things, for how often do realities become dreams?

L. DE R.