[572]
good as the release of any considerable portion of present war expenditure, or expenditure on armaments, so that they can be applied to purposes of civilization.
It is absurd to call this Utopian.
Nothing more practical.
Here is an open and incessant waste.
Why not stop it?
Here is something which keeps human thoughts on bloodshed, and rears men to slay each other.
Why not turn their thoughts to things which contribute to human happiness?
Mr. Richard has done a great work, and so has the house of Commons.
The cause cannot be arrested.
But why did not Mr. Gladstone adopt it at once, and place England on heights of civilization which no nation has yet reached?
I like him, and am sorry that he allowed himself to be on the wrong side.
Such a presentation of the case must have an effect on the continent as well as in England, teaching reason.
I shall not live to see the great cause triumph.
I often wish I had been born a few years later, and one reason is because I long to witness the harmony of nations, which I am sure is near.
When an evil so great is recognized and discussed, the remedy must be at hand.
Pray excuse this enthusiasm which I feel in my inmost soul.
I have not been well this winter and spring.
Care and overwork revived old injuries; but I am now better, and this news is better than medicine.
I am at a loss to understand how that wretch Arthur Orton finds a witness or a shilling.
His place is the penitentiary, quick step.
Is not the case clear as day?
But what a reprobate!
To
Mrs. George Grote, November 2, on the occasion of the publication of her ‘Personal Life’ of her husband:—
Your most interesting volume, which arrived at the end of the summer, besides its grateful souvenir of your kindness, has made me live again in pleasant scenes of the past.
Nothing has so recalled old memories.
Valued friends now dead reappear as in a magic mirror.
Besides the great author, are others,—Tocqueville and wife at his old castle, Senior in Paris and London, Cornewall Lewis, Molesworth, the Dean of St. Paul's, Hallam, Parkes, John Austin and wife, all of whom I see again!
Nor are all dead.
I was glad to read of Charles Austin,1 whose “talk” I always placed, as you do, foremost.
Why does he not appear in Parliament?
But these companions, as introduced by you, show the historian, whose serene and glorious life was passed in such an atmosphere of character and talent.
Undoubtedly he was one of the most remarkable scholars ever produced by England, and he grew as none other.
He was no university plant or graft; he was a rich seedling with an original flavor.
In his history he became the philosopher and vindicator of liberal ideas.
Posterity will hear and listen.
I have a sincere gratitude for the truth he has taught so well.
I regret that he saw so indistinctly the terrible trials of our government, struggling for national life with a rebellion whose single animating impulse was slavery.2
Why not complete your work by a volume of his miscellanies, political and literary?3 His speeches were masterpieces of scholarly politics.
I admired
