,
Lytton became ambassador at Paris. Fitzjames's old friend, Grant Duff,
was Governor of Madras from 1881 to 1886, and during that period
especially, Fitzjames wrote very fully to Lady Grant Duff, who was also
a correspondent both before and afterwards. If I had thought it
desirable to publish any number of these or the earlier letters, I might
have easily swelled this book to twice or three times its size. That is
one good reason for abstaining. Other reasons are suggested by the
nature of the letters themselves. They are written with the utmost
frankness, generally poured out at full speed in intervals of business
or some spare moments of his so-called vacation. They made no
pretensions to literary form, and approach much more to discursive
conversations than to anything that suggests deliberate composition.
Much of them, of course, is concerned with private matters which it
would be improper to publish. A large part, again, discusses in an
unguarded fashion the same questions of which he had spoken more
deliberately in his books. There is no difference in the substance, and
I have thought it only fair to him to take his own published version of
his opinions, using his letters here and there where they incidentally
make his views clearer or qualify sharp phrases used in controversy. I
have, however, derived certain impressions from the letters of this
period and from the miscellaneous articles of the same time; which I
shall endeavour to describe before saying what remains to be said of his
own personal history.

One general remark is suggested by a perusal of the letters. Fitzjames
says frequently and emphatically that he had had one of the happiest of
lives. In the last letter of his which I have seen, written, indeed,
when writing had become difficult for him, he says that he is 'as happy
as any man can be,' and had nothing to complain of--except, indeed, his
illegible handwriting. This is only a repetition of previous statements
at every period of his life. When he speaks of the twenty-five years of
long struggle, which had enabled him to rise from the bar to the bench,
he adds that they were most happy years, and that he only wishes that
they could come over again. It is difficult, of course, to compare our
lot with that of our neighbours. We can imagine ourselves surrounded by
their circumstances, but we cannot so easily adopt their feelings.
Fitzjames very possibly made an erroneous estimate of the pains and
p