concerned to hear of your suffering. You
are not easily arrested in your movements, and I fear the time has
been sharp. But (while above all I trust you will not stir without
free and full permission) I do not abandon the hope of seeing you
... I have been seeing Lady Theresa Lewis. It was heartrending
woe; such as makes one ashamed of having so little to offer. She
dwells much upon employing herself.... I greatly mistrust
compulsion in the management of children, and under the
circumstances you describe, I should lean as you do. ... Many
thanks for the carnations you sent by my wife; they still live and
breathe perfume.... You spoke of our difference about slavery. I
hope it is not very wide. I stop short of war as a means of
correction. I have not heard you say that you do otherwise.
_11 Carlton House Terrace_ (_no date_).--I am glad my wife saw you
yesterday, for I hope a little that she may have been bold enough
to lecture you about not taking enough care of yourself. If this
sounds rather intrusive, pray put it down to my intense confidence
in her as a doctor. She has a kind of divining power springing
partly from a habitual gift and partly from experience, and she
hardly ever goes wrong. She is not easy about your going to Vichy
alone. The House of Commons, rude and unmannerly in its
arrangements at all times, is singularly so in its last kicks and
plunges towards the death of the session; but after to-morrow we
are free and I look forward to seeing you on Wednesday according
to the hope you give.... Soon after this reaches you I hope to be
at Hawarden. On Wednesday I am to have luncheon at Argyll Lodge to
meet Tennyson. Since I gave him my translation of the first book
of the _Iliad_, I have often remembered those words of Kingsley's
to his friend Mr.----, "My dear friend, your verses are not good but
bad." The Duc d'Aumale breakfasted with us on Thursday and I had
some conversation about America. He is, I think, pleased with the
good opinions which the young princes have won so largely, and
seems to have come very reluctantly to the conclusion that the war
is hopeless. Our children are gone and the vacant footfall echoes
on the stair. My wife is waiting here only to see Lady Herbert.
_Hawarden, Aug. 21._--We have had Dr. Stanley here with his sister.
He was charming,
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