… Of all odd things, Dean Stanley and Lady Augusta have been, by way of a trip, to Paris, from last Monday to Saturday. How can they! One would think nothing could take one there but some strong call of duty. The least that one must read and hear is enough to make one's heart ache, and to spoil one's sleep, and to disfigure life till one does not wish to look at it any more. I do long to have done with it. I believe it is the first occasion in my life of my having felt hopeless of any destiny, individual or national.... How badly our public affairs are going! Gladstone & Co, are turning out exactly as many of us foresaw. The thing nearest my heart (repeal of the acts above alluded to), and more important than all other public questions, will do well. It is, I believe, secure, in virtue of an amount of effort and devotedness never surpassed. You know what I mean. I rest upon that achievement—a vital aim with me and others for many years—with satisfaction and entire hopefulness, but in all other directions the prospect is simply dreary. In that one case, we, who shall have achieved the object, have saved Ministers from themselves, and from evil councillors. Wherever they have, this year, trusted their own wisdom and resources, they have failed, or see that they must fail. They would have been out since early in April, but for want of a leader on the Conservative side; and they still make their party dwindle till there will be no heart or energy left in the Liberal ranks—lately so strong and ardent! They may be individually clever; but they cannot govern the country. This is eminently the case with Gladstone; and it may serve as the description of the group. I shall not dare to ask the Arnolds about such matters—so thoroughly did they assume, when they went away, that all must be right with "William" and Co. in the Cabinet.
Nov. 5, '71.
… Mrs. Grote seems to like to open her feelings to me, as a very old friend of hers and her husband's. Did I tell you that she sent me—to put me in possession of her state—her private diary, from the first day of her alarm about her husband's health to the day she sent it? It was more interesting than I can say; but it brought after it something more striking still. Some half-century ago, Jeremy Bentham threw upon paper some thoughts on the operation of natural religion on human welfare, or ill-fare. His MSS. were left to Mrs. Grote (or portions of them), and those papers were issued by the Grotes under the title, "Analysis of the Influence of Natural Religion, etc. etc., by Philip Beauchamp." It is a tract of 142 pp. It is the boldest conceivable effort at fair play; and in this particular effect, it is most striking. At the outset, all attempts to divide the "abuses" of religion from other modes of operation are repudiated at once; and the claim is so evidently sound that the effect of the exposure is singular. Well! of course the tendency of the exposition is to show that the absolute darkness of the Unseen Life supposed must produce a demoralizing effect, and destroy ease of mind. There is something almost appalling in the unflinching representation of the mischief of the spirit of fear, of its torment, and of its damaging effects in creating a habit of adulation, in perverting the direction of our desires, in corrupting our estimate of good and evil, in leaving us, in short, no chance of living a healthy and natural life, but rather, making cowards, liars, and selfish rascals of us all. I can't go on, being tired; and you will be thinking, as you read, that this is only the old story—of the mischiefs and miseries of superstition. But there is something impressive in the cheerful simplicity with which Bentham tells us his opinion of the sort of person recommended to us for a master under the name of God, and with which he warns us all of the impossibility of our being good or happy under such a Supreme Being. In looking at the table of contents, and seeing the catalogue he gives of evil effects of belief in the barest scheme of Natural Religion, one becomes aware, as if for the first time, of the atmosphere of falsehood against which we ought to have recoiled all our lives since becoming capable of thought.
Dec. 30, '71.
… I go off rapidly as a correspondent; there is no use blinking the fact. I am so slow and write so badly! and leave off too tired. Oddly enough, this very week one of the Daily News authorities has been uttering a groaning longing for my pen in the service of that paper, as of old. The occasion is a short letter of mine in last Thursday's paper, which you may have seen.[ [25] If so, you will see that I had no choice. W. E. Forster was at Fox How; and I got Jenny to carry the volume of Brougham (vol. iii. p. 302) to consult Forster and Arnolds about what I should do, W. E. Forster being in the same line of business with my father, and a public man—man of the world. He was clear: it was impossible to leave my father under a false imputation of having failed. And when my letter appeared, he was delighted with it; so are those of my family that I have heard from; and, above all, Daily News editors. They hope and believe it will excite due distrust of Brougham's representations, and encourage others to expose his falsehoods. His suppressions are as wonderful as his disclosures; e.g. the very important crisis in his career, known by the name of the "Grey Banquet" at Edinburgh, he cuts completely out of the history of the time—perverting Lord Durham's story as well as his own. I can see how the false story of me and mine got made; but enough of that—especially if you have not seen the letter in the Daily News. Forster is kindly and quiet, but he is altered. He is now—the Courtier!—and odd sort of one, with much Quaker innocence and prudence in it; but of a sort which leaves me no hope of his handling of his Education measure. There will be such a fight! and the Nonconformists are right, and know that they are. You will probably see that achieved—a real National Education established, secular and compulsory.
The Ambleside surgeon, who had undertaken, in acccordance with Harriet Martineau's will, to prepare and transmit her skull and brain to Mr. Atkinson, died in the year 1872. The following letter shows that the progress of time had in no way diminished her willingness to leave her head for scientific investigation:
Ambleside, April 23, '72.
(Shakespere's birthday and Wordsworth's death-day.)
Dear Friend,
I am not writing about poets to-day, nor about any "play" topic, nor anything gay, or pretty, or amusing. I write on business only.