the Tories. He had, indeed, by his own concluding action made
Toryism impossible; for, in 1867, he had thrown the ramparts of Toryism
into a heap, and had himself mounted the structure and fired the funeral
pile." Disraeli succeeded him as Prime Minister.

[69] "The History of Twenty-five Years," vol. ii, p. 287.

_Lady Russell to Mr. Rollo Russell_

CHESHAM PLACE, _February_ 18, 1868

...Lord Derby is supposed to be dying, I am sorry to say. It is
horrible to hear the street criers bawling out in their catchpenny
voices, "Serious illness of Lord Derby." I feel for his wife and
all belonging to him without any of the flutter and anxiety about
your father which a probable change of Ministry would have caused a
few years ago. He will never accept office again. This is right, I
know, and I am thankful that on the conviction of its being so he
has calmly made up his mind--yet there is deep sadness in it. The
newspapers are not favourable to his pamphlets on Ireland [three
pamphlets published together afterwards under the title, "A letter
to the Right Hon. Chichester Fortescue"]. He does not care much
about this, provided men in Parliament adopt his views or something
like them.

We find London very sociable and pleasant ... people all looking
glad to meet, and fresh and pleasant from their country life, quite
different from what they will be in July....

Lady Russell, as well as her husband, was always anxious to encourage
perfect freedom and independence of thought in her children. The following
passages are from a letter to her daughter on her fifteenth birthday:

37 CHESHAM PLACE, _March_ 28, 1868

... Every day will now bring you more independence of mind, more
capacity to understand, not merely to adopt the thoughts of others,
to reason and to form opinions of your own. I am the more sure of
this, that yours is a thoughtful and reflective mind. The voice of
God may sometimes sound differently to you from what it sounds even
to your father or to me; if so, never be afraid to say so--never
close your mind against any but bad thoughts; for although we are
all one in as far as we all partake of God's spirit, which is the
breath of life, still the communion of each soul with Him is, and
must be, for that soul alone.... Nothing great is easy, and the
greatest and most difficult of all things is t