"F. W. Newman."
The same year he states in a letter to Dr. Nicholson that the Vegetarian Society is that in which he feels most active interest, "though I am a Good Templar and am earnest in nearly all the Women's Questions." And in another, written in August, "I here, as usual" (at Ventnor), "get the luxury of fine fruit at this season (and the unusual luxury of mushrooms), but I do protest that their demand of 4s. a pound for grapes is enough to frighten Cato the elder. [Footnote: Marcus Portius Cato, born at Tusculum 234 B.C., passed his childhood on his father's farm. In later years he wrote several works on husbandry, its rules, etc. When he was elected Censor in 184 he made great efforts to check national luxury and to urge a return to the simpler life of his Roman ancestors. He was very strict and despotic as regards contract prices paid by the State, and constantly altered those for food, carriages, slaves, dress, etc.] The price of lodgings at Shanklin and here is much higher than two years back. It seems to me that everything is going up, here, in America, on the Continent, and in India; yet I do not see how to impute it to the increased supply of gold. I think that the working classes are everywhere demanding and getting a larger share of the total which is produced….
"Believe me your true friend,
"F. W. Newman."
Four years elapse between this letter and the next from which I shall quote. During this interval Newman's wife died (16th July, 1876), and was mourned long and sincerely. He was now seventy-one years of age, and had, as his letters show, begun already to feel lack of power and health. It was evident to himself towards the end of the eighteen months which followed her death that he should not be able to live alone, and yet there was no relation he could ask to come and be with him.
In December, 1879, the following letters were written by Newman to Dr. Nicholson concerning his second marriage to Miss Williams, who had for many years lived with his first wife, and been very devoted in her care and attention to her.
"29th Dec., 1879.
"My dear Nicholson,
"I felt very warmly the kindness of your letter which congratulated me on my remarriage, and I have often desired to write to you that you might feel how unchanged is my regard for you, though circumstances do not at all carry me so far north as your dwelling. I may briefly add, that a year's experience quite justifies my expectation. The marriage was not in my estimate an experiment, which might succeed or fail…. That my wife's health is not robust, I certainly grieve, but she is nineteen years my junior. Our love and trust has only increased month by month…. This black edge" (of the note paper) "is for my only surviving sister, whose death is just announced to me. She was my fondest object of boyish love, and it is impossible not to grieve. On the other hand, I had long expected it, and did not at all think she would survive last winter…. I believe she was loved and respected by everyone who knew her, as truly she deserved to be. I feel good consolation in this…. For three years our public doings have been to me so mournful and dreadful—with no power anywhere to stay the madness of the Court and Ministry,—that I have been made unwilling to write about them. Retribution for such deeds seemed to me certain, inevitable: it seems to be coming more speedily than I had expected. Stormy controversies must in any case be here encountered. But ever since 1856 (I might date from the day when Lord Dalhousie went to India—1848?) we seem to have been storing up wrath and vengeance against ourselves,—worse and worse at home as well as abroad, since the death of Peel. I never admired Peel: he had to trim to the Tories: but I now see how moderate Peel kept them, and in comparison how wise Peel was.
"So many are the eminently good men and women in England that I am certain we must have a nobler future: but that may be separated from the present time by a terrible struggle….