Life of Frances Power Cobbe, as told by herself / with additions by the author, and introduction by Blanche Atkinson

by Frances Power Cobbe

“The articles in the Daily News I did not see. Were they Miss Cobbe’s? I read her paper in Fraser in which the story of the Carnival was extremely well told.”...

“March 15th, 1863.

“I write to thank you for Miss Cobbe’s pamphlet, which I have read with great pleasure. I think her writing is always good and able. I have never seen Theodore Parker’s works: he was, I imagine, a sort of hero and prophet; but I think I would rather have the Church of England large enough for us all with old memories and feelings, notwithstanding many difficulties and some iniquities, than new systems of Theism.”...

“March 10th, 1864.

“Miss Cobbe has also kindly sent me a little book called Broken Lights, which appears to me to be extremely good. (I think the title is rather a mistake.) I dare say that you have read the book. The style is excellent, and the moderation and calmness with which the different parties are treated is beyond praise. The only adverse criticism that I should venture to make is that the latter part is too much narrowed to Theodore Parker’s point of view, who was a great man, but too confident, I think, that the world could be held together by spiritual instincts.”

And here are three charming letters from Mr. Jowett to me, one of them in reply to a letter from me from Rome, the others of a later date.

“Dear Miss Cobbe,

“I write to thank you for the Fraser which I received this morning and have read with great amusement and interest. I think that I should really feel happier living to see the end of the Pope, at least in his present mode of existence.

“I did indeed receive a most capital letter from you with a kind note from Miss Elliot. And ‘I do remember me of my faults this day.’ The truth is that being very busy with Plato (do you know the intolerable burden of writing a fat book in two vols.?) I put off answering the letters until I was not quite certain whether the kind writers of them were still at Rome. I thought the Plato would have been out by this time, but this was only one of the numerous delusions in which authors indulge. The notes, however, are really finished, and the Essays will be done in a few months. I suspect you can read Greek, and shall therefore hope to send you a copy.

“I was always inclined to think well of the Romans from their defence of Rome in 1848, and their greatness and strength really does seem to show that they mean to be the centre of a great nation.