answers were possible. On one point only there was an absolute
agreement among those who knew, and this was that the Church in
London had been incalculably enriched by the presence of a genius
and a saint.

In one respect, perhaps, Holland's saintliness interfered with
the free action of his genius. His insight, unerring in a moral or
intellectual problem, seemed to fail him when he came to estimate
a human character. His own life had always been lived on the highest
plane, and he was in an extraordinary degree "unspotted from the
world." His tendency was to think--or at any rate to speak and
act--as if everyone were as simply good as himself, as transparent,
as conscientious, as free from all taint of self-seeking. This
habit, it has been truly said, "disqualifies a man in some degree
for the business of life, which requires for its conduct a certain
degree of prejudice"; but it is pre-eminently characteristic of
those elect and lovely souls

"Who, through the world's long day of strife,
Still chant their morning song."

III

_LORD HALIFAX_

There can scarcely be two more typically English names than Wood
and Grey. In Yorkshire and Northumberland respectively, they have
for centuries been held in honour, and it was a happy conjunction
which united them in 1829. In that year, Charles Wood, elder son of
Sir Francis Lindley Wood, married Lady Mary Grey, youngest daughter
of Charles, second Earl Grey, the hero of the first Reform Bill.
Mr. Wood succeeded his father in the baronetcy, in 1846, sat in
Parliament as a Liberal for forty years, filled some of the highest
offices of State in the Administrations of Lord Palmerston and
Mr. Gladstone, and was raised to the peerage as Viscount Halifax
in 1866.

Lord and Lady Halifax had seven children, of whom the eldest was
Charles Lindley Wood--the subject of the present sketch--born in
1839; and the second, Emily Charlotte, wife of Hugo Meynell-Ingram,
of Hoar Cross and Temple Newsam. I mention these two names together
because Mrs. Meynell-Ingram (whose qualities of intellect and character
made a deep impression on all those who were brought in contact with
her) was one of the formative influences of her brother's life.
The present Lord Halifax (who succeeded to his father's peerage
in 1885) writes thus about his early days:

"My sister was everything to me. I never can remember the time
when it was not so between us. I hardly ever missed writing to
her