Nor
do I well know how to deal with those who take out of my hands the
direction of my own conduct on such a question as the question
whether I ought to have undertaken a mission to Sheffield to meet
Roebuck on his own ground. I am afraid I can offer them little
satisfaction. I have been for near thirty-six years at public
business, and I must myself be the judge how best to husband what
little energy of brain, and time for using it, may remain to me.
If I am told I should go to Sheffield instead of writing on _Ecce
Homo_, I answer that it was my Sunday's work, and change of work
is the chief refreshment to my mind. It is true that literature is
very attractive and indeed seductive to me, but I do not
_knowingly_ allow it to cause neglect of public business.
Undoubtedly it may be said that the vacation should be given to
reading up and preparing materials for the session. And of my nine
last vacations _this one only_ has in part been given to any
literary work, if I except the preparation of an address for
Edinburgh in 1865. But I am sincerely, though it may be
erroneously, impressed with the belief that the quantity of my
public work cannot be increased without its quality being yet
further deteriorated. Perhaps my critics have not been troubled as
I have with this plague of quantity, and are not as deeply
impressed as I am with the belief that grinding down the mental
powers by an infinity of detail, is what now principally dwarfs
our public men, to the immense detriment of the country. This
conviction I cannot yield; nor can I say more than that, with
regard to the personal matters which you name, I will do the best
I can. But what I have always supposed and understood is that my
business in endeavouring to follow other and better men, is to be
thoroughly open to all members of parliament who seek me, while my
seeking them must of necessity be limited.... We have before us so
much business that I fear a _jumble_. Reform, Education, and
Ireland each in many branches will compete; any of these alone
would be enough. The last is in my mind the imperious and
overpowering subject.... The aspect of this letter is, I think,
rather combative. It would have been much less so but that I trust
entirely to your indulgence.

In a second letter, after mentioning again some of these comp