be
of service to you.'

These words give the key-note of the correspondence, and may help to
explain the rapid growth and singular strength of the friendship between
two men whose personal intercourse had been limited to less than a
month. Fitzjames threatened, and the 'threat' was fully executed, to
become a voluminous correspondent. I cannot say, indeed, which
correspondent wrote most frankly and abundantly. The letter from which I
have quoted the last passage is in answer to one from Lord Lytton,
filling thirty sheets, written, as he says, 'in a hurry,' but, as
Fitzjames declares, with 'only two slips of the pen, without an
"erasure," in a handwriting which fills me with helpless admiration,'
and in a style which cannot be equalled by any journalist in England.
'And this you do by way of amusing yourself while you are governing an
empire in war-time,' and yet compliment me for writing at leisure
moments during my vacations! Fitzjames, however, does his best to keep
pace with his correspondent. Some of his letters run to fourteen and
fifteen sheets; and he snatches intervals from worrying labours on his
codes, or on the bench or on commissions, or sitting up at nights, to
pour out discourses which, though he wrote very fast, must often have
taken a couple of hours to set down. The correspondence was often very
confidential. Some of Lytton's letters had to be kept under lock and key
or put in the fire for safer guardianship. Lytton had a private press at
which some of his correspondent's letters were printed, and Fitzjames
warns him against the wiles of editors of newspapers in a land where
subordinates are not inaccessible to corruption. It would, however, not
be in my power, even if I had the will, to reveal any secrets of state.
Fitzjames's letters indeed (I have not seen Lord Lytton's), so far as
they are devoted to politics, deal mainly with general considerations.

It would be idle to go far into these matters now. It is indeed sad to
turn over letters, glowing with strong convictions as well as warm
affection and showing the keenest interest in the affairs of the time,
and to feel how completely they belong to the past. Some of the
questions discussed might no doubt become interesting again at any
moment; but for the present they belong to the empire of Dryasdust.
Historians will have to form judgments of the merits of Lord Lytton's
policy in regard to Afghanistan; but I cannot assume that my readers
will be h