Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 2d Jan. 1871.
We spent our Christmas in the Isle of Wight, and on Christmas Day I went to a Ritualist church and heard some fine intoning of the service by a clear, strong, tenor voice, sweet singing from boys' throats, and all sorts of Catholic ceremonial in a miniature way.
It is good to see what our neighbors are doing. To live in seclusion with one's own thoughts is apt to give one very false notions as to the possibilities of the present time in the matter of conversion either to superstition or anti-superstition.
In this cruel time, I no sooner hear of an affliction than I see it multiplied in some one of the endless forms of suffering created by this hellish war. In the beginning I could feel entirely with the Germans, and could say of that calamity called "victory," I am glad. But now I can be glad of nothing. No people can carry on a long, fierce war without being brutalized by it, more or less, and it pains me that the educated voices have not a higher moral tone about national and international duties and prospects. But, like every one else, I feel that the war is too much with me, and am rather anxious to avoid unwise speech about it than to utter what may seem to me to be wisdom. The pain is that one can do so little.
I have not read "Sir Harry Hotspur," but as to your general question, I reply that there certainly are some women who love in that way, but "their sex as well as I may chide them for it." Men are very fond of glorifying that sort of dog-like attachment. It is one thing to love because you falsely imagine goodness—that belongs to the finest natures—and another to go on loving when you have found out your mistake. But married constancy is a different affair. I have seen a grandly heroic woman who, out of her view as to the responsibilities of the married relation, condoned everything, took her drunken husband to her home again, and at last nursed and watched him into penitence and decency. But there may be two opinions even about this sort of endurance—i.e., about its ultimate tendency, not about the beauty of nature which prompts it. This is quite distinct from mere animal constancy. It is duty and human pity.
Letter to Colonel Hamley (now General Sir Edward Hamley), 24th Jan. 1871.
I write to say God bless you for your letter to the Times, of this morning. It contains the best expression of right principle—I was almost ready to say, the only good, sensible words—that I have yet seen on the actual state of things between the Germans and the French.
You will not pause, I trust, but go on doing what can be done only by one who is at once a soldier, a writer, and a clear-headed man of principle.
Journal, 1871.
March 19 (Sunday).—It is grievous to me how little, from one cause or other, chiefly languor and occasionally positive ailments, I manage to get done. I have written about two hundred and thirty-six pages (print) of my novel, which I want to get off my hands by next November. My present fear is that I have too much matter—too many momenti.