I am glad you like my tirade. I suspect my Whig friends do not; for the more one asserts Whig principles, the bitterer is the reflection on those who desert and betray them. I do not believe that the majority of the country or of the Liberal Party is Radical; but the danger is that a violent minority always overpowers an inert majority. I care nothing at all for any political persons, and but little for parties. It seems to me that the right and the wrong of government lies in the principles that regulate it, some of which are as certain as the truths of mathematics.
The 'Greville Memoirs' have rather slumbered of late, but I am gradually screwing up my courage to begin printing, slowly.
We are very well, and spent our Christmas pleasantly in Hampshire, the weather being delightful. London is dark and _un_delightful.
Then the Journal:—
February 24th.—Visit to the Markbys at Oxford. Vespers at New College. Dined at All Souls.
28th.—The Club. I was in the Chair. Mr. Gladstone attended; Lord Derby, Maine, Hewett, Tyndall, Coleridge. Matthew Arnold elected.
March 23rd.—Electrical Exhibition at Crystal Palace, with Dr. Mann.
April 1st.—To Foxholes. Very fine weather. No rain for three months.
To Mr. T. Norton Longman
Foxholes, April 4th.—I like the concluding pages by Froude in the Carlyle book, but I am disappointed in Mrs. Carlyle's letters. They are pleasant and cheery, but there are thousands of women who write as well. As for Carlyle himself, he is odious—arrogance, vanity, self-conceit, ingratitude to old friends—I never thought I should dislike him so much. He seems to have looked at everything the wrong side outwards.