, and tended to draw them together in resentment.

_Lady Russell to Lady Dunfermline_

SALTBURN, _August_ 24, 1870

Don't you sometimes feel that a few weeks' delay in beginning this
horrible war might have given time to Europe to discover some
better means than war for settling the dispute? We are full of
schemes for the prevention of future wars. The only compensation I
see for all these horrors is the conviction they bring of the
amount of heroism in the world and of the progress made in humanity
towards enemies--especially sick and wounded.

_Lady Russell to Lady Dunfermline_

SALTBURN, _August_ 30, 1870

Poor Paris! You may well say we must be sorry for it, having so
lately seen it in all its gay spring beauty--and though no doubt
the surface, which is all we saw of its inhabitants, is better than
the groundwork, how much of good and great it contains! How the
best Frenchmen everywhere, and the best Parisians in particular,
must grieve over the deep corruption which has done much to bring
their country to its present dreary prospects. I did not mean that
any mediation or interference of other Powers would have prevented
this war, but that there ought by this time to be a substitute
found for all war.

_Lady Russell to Lady Dunfermline_

SALTBURN, _September_ 7, 1870

Don't you find it bewildering to be hurried at express speed
through such mighty pages of history? And if bewildering and
overpowering to us, who from the beginning of the war could see a
probability of French disaster, what must it be to Paris, to all
France, fed with falsehood as they have been till from one success
to another they find their Emperor and an army of 80,000 men
prisoners of war! But what a people! Who would have supposed by
reading the accounts of Paris on Sunday, the excess of joy, the
_air de fete_, the wild exultation, that an immense calamity,
a bitter mortification had just befallen the country! that a
gigantic German army was on its way to their gates! I should like
to know whether many of those who shouted "Vive l'Empereur" when he
left Paris, who applauded the war and hooted down anybody who
doubted its justice or attacked Imperialism, are now among the
shouters of "Vive la Republique" and the new Democratic Ministry.
Let us hope not. Let us hope a great many