hat
shrinks from being touched lest it should totter is certainly not
on the right foundation. I suppose we ought, on the contrary, to
examine thoroughly the reason of the faith that is in us. Declining
reading upon religious subjects may be prudent, but it may be
indolence, cowardice, or lack of due interest in the matter. I
think I must read that treatise of Milton's.

GREAT RUSSELL STREET, May 29th, 1831.
MY DEAREST H----,

I have but little time for letter-writing, getting daily "deeper
and deeper still" in the incessant occupations of one sort and
another that crowd upon and almost overwhelm me; and now my care is
not so much whether I shall have time to write you a long letter,
as how I shall get leisure to write to you at all. You complain
that, in spite of the present interest I profess in public affairs,
I have given you no details of my opinion about them--my hopes or
fears of the result of the Reform movement. I have other things
that I care more to write to you about than politics, and am chary
of my space, because, though I can cross my letter, I can only have
one sheet of paper. "The Bill," modified as it now is, has my best
prayers and wishes, for to say that the removal of certain abuses
will not give the people bread which they expect is nothing against
it; but, at the same time that I sincerely hope this measure will
be carried, I cannot conceive what Government will do _next_, for
though trade is at this moment prosperous, great poverty and
discontent exist among large classes of the people, and as soon as
these needy folk find out that Reform is really not immediate bread
_and_ cheese _and_ beer, they will seek something else which they
may imagine will be those desired items of existence, and that is
what it may be difficult to give them. In the mean time party
spirit here has reached a tremendous pitch; old friendships are
broken up and old intimacies cease; former cordial acquaintances
refuse to meet each other, houses are divided, and the dearest
relations disturbed, if not destroyed. Society is become a sort of
battle-field, for every man (and woman too) is nothing if not
political. In fact, there really appears to be no middle or
moderating party, which I think strange and to be deplored