My dearest Hal,

LADY HOLLAND. Just before I came down here, Rogers paid me a long visit, and talked a great deal about Lady Holland; and I felt interested in what he said about the woman who had been the centre of so remarkable a society and his intimate friend for so many years. Having all her life appeared to suffer the most unusual terror, not of death only, but of any accident that could possibly, or impossibly, befall her, he said that she had died with perfect composure, and, though consciously within the very shadow of death for three whole days before she crossed the dark threshold, she expressed neither fear nor anxiety, and exhibited a tranquillity of mind by no means general at that time, and which surprised many of the persons of her acquaintance. If, however, it be true, as some persons intimate with her have told me, that her terrors were not genuine, but a mere expression of her morbid love of power, insisting at all costs and by all means upon occupying everybody about her with herself, then it is not so strange that she should at last have ceased to demand the homage and attention of others as she so closely approached the time when even their most careless recollection would cease to be at her command.

Rogers said that she spoke of her life with considerable satisfaction, asserting that she had done as much good and as little harm as she could during her existence. The only person about whom she expressed any tenderness was her daughter, Lady ——, with whom, however, she had not been always upon the best terms; and who, being ultra-serious (as it is comically called), had not unnaturally an occasional want of sympathy with her very unserious mother. Lady Holland, however, desired much to see her, and she crossed the Channel, having travelled in great haste, and arrived just in time to fulfil her mother's wish and receive her blessing.

Her will creates great astonishment—created, I should say; for she is twice buried already, under the Corn Law question. She left her son only £2000, and to Lord John Russell £1500 a year, which at his death reverts to Lady L——'s children. To Rogers, strange to say, nothing; but he professed to think it an honor to be left out. To my brother, strange to say, something (Lord Holland's copy of the "British Essayists," in thirty odd volumes); and to Lady Palmerston her collection of fans, which, though it was a very valuable and curious one, seems to me a little like making fun of that superfine fine lady.

I have just come back from church, dear Hal, where the Psalms for the day made me sick. Is it not horrible that we should make Christian prayers of Jewish imprecations? How can one utter, without shuddering, such sentences as "Let them be confounded, and put to shame, that seek after my soul. Let them be as the dust before the wind: and the angel of the Lord scattering them. Let their way be dark and slippery: and let the angel of the Lord persecute them"? Is it not dreadful to think that one must say, as I did, "God forbid!" while my eyes rested on the terrible words contained in the appointed worship of the day; or utter, in God's holy house, that to which one attaches no signification; or, worst of all, connect in any way such sentiments with one's own feelings, and repeat, with lips that confess Christ, curses for which His blessed command has substituted blessings?

We were speaking on this very subject at Milman's the other evening, and when I asked Mrs. Milman if she joined in the repetition of such passages, she answered with much simplicity, like a good woman and a faithful clergywoman, "Oh yes! but then, you know, one never means what one says,"—which, in spite of our company consisting chiefly of "witty Churchmen," elicited from it a universal burst of laughter. I have not space or time to enlarge more upon this, and you may be thankful for it....

I will just give you two short extracts from conversations I have had here, and leave you to judge how I was affected by them....

I am sometimes thankful that I do not live in my own country, for I am afraid I should very hardly escape the Pharisee's condemnation for thinking myself better than my neighbors; and yet, God knows, not only that I am, but that I do, not. But how come people's nations so inside out and so upside down?

Good-bye, my dear. I am enjoying the country every hour of the day. Give my love to dear Dorothy.

Ever yours,