nd
expression. Greatly prefers Schiller in all respects; turning to him
from Goethe is like going into the fresh air from a hothouse.

'Spoke of style: thinks Goldsmith unsurpassed; then Addison comes.
Greatly dislikes the style of Junius and of Gibbon; indeed, thinks
meanly of the latter in all respects, except for his research, which
alone of the work of that century stands the test of nineteenth-century
criticism. Did not agree with me that George Sand's is the high-water
mark of prose, but yet could not name anybody higher, and admitted that
her prose stirs you like music.

'Seemed disposed to think that the most feasible solution of the Irish
University question is a Catholic University, the restrictive and
obscurantist tendencies of which you may expect to have cheeked by the
active competition of life with men trained in more enlightened systems.
Spoke of Home Rule.

'Made remarks on the difference in the feeling of modern refusers of
Christianity as compared with that of men like his father, impassioned
deniers, who believed that if only you broke up the power of the priests
and checked superstition, all would go well--a dream from which they
were partially awakened by seeing that the French revolution, which
overthrew the Church, still did not bring the millennium. His radical
friends used to be very angry with him for loving Wordsworth.
"Wordsworth," I used to say, "is against you, no doubt, in the battle
which you are now waging, but after you have won, the world will need
more than ever those qualities which Wordsworth is keeping alive and
nourishing." In his youth mere negation of religion was a firm bond of
union, social and otherwise, between men who agreed in nothing else.

'Spoke of the modern tendency to pure theism, and met the objection that
it retards improvement by turning the minds of some of the best men from
social affairs, by the counter-proposition that it is useful to society,
apart from the question of its truth,--useful as a provisional belief,
because people will identify serviceable ministry to men with service of
God. Thinks we cannot with any sort of precision define the coming
modification of religion, but anticipates that it will undoubtedly rest
upon the solidarity of mankind, as Comte said, and as you and I believe.
Perceives two things, at any rate, which are likely to lead men to
invest this with the moral authority of a religion; first, they will
become more and more impresse