Tennyson she loved, and latterly also Browning, with protests against his obscurity and his occasionally most unmusical English. The inspiration of his brave and optimistic philosophy she felt strongly. She was extremely fond of reading Dante, and she was better acquainted with German and Italian poetry than most cultivated women. But though she read much and often in the works of famous writers, this did not prevent her keeping abreast with the literature of the day. She was strongly attracted by speculative books, not too technical, and by the works of theologians whose views were broad and tolerant of doubt. In 1847 she mentions reading some of Dr. Channing's writings "with the greatest delight"; and some years afterwards she wrote: "Began 'Life of Channing'; interesting in the highest degree--an echo of all those high and noble thoughts of which this earth is not yet worthy, but which I firmly believe will one day reign on it supreme." In later years she was deeply impressed by the writings of Dr. Martineau, and read many of his books. But she was not interested in philosophical inquiry for its own sake; it was the importance of the moral and religious issues at stake in such discussions that attracted her. History and biography it was natural she should read eagerly, and it was characteristic of her to praise and condemn actions long past with an intensity such as is usually excited by contemporary events. Until a few years before her death she rose early to secure a space of time for reading and meditation before the duties of the day began. Unless ill-health could be pleaded, fiction and light reading were banished from the morning hours. She believed in strict adherence to such self-imposed sumptuary regulations, whether they applied to the body or to the pleasures of the mind.
In the course of her long life she became personally acquainted with nearly all the principal writers of the Victorian era, and some of them she knew well.
Among the earliest friends of Lord and Lady John Russell were Sydney Smith, Thomas Moore, and Macaulay. There is a note in verse written by Lady John to Samuel Rogers, which will serve at least to suggest how readily her fancy and good spirits might run into rhyme on the occasion of some family rejoicing or for a children's play.
To Mr. Rogers, who was expected to breakfast and forgot to come
CHESHAM PLACE, 1843
When a poet a lady offends
Is it prose her forgiveness obtains?
And from Rogers can less make amends
Than the humblest and sweetest of strains?
In glad expectation our board
With roses and lilies we graced;
But alas! the bard kept not his word,
He came not for whom they were placed.
Sad and silent our toast we bespread,
At the empty chair looked we and sighed;
All insipid tea, butter, and bread,
For the salt of his wit was denied.
Now in wrath we acknowledge how well
He the "Pleasures of Memory" who drew,
For mankind from his magical shell
Gives the "Pains of Forgetfulness" too.
Rogers wrote in answer:--
CARA, CARISSIMA, CRUDELISSIMA,--If such is to be the reward for my transgressions, what crimes shall I not commit before I die? I shall shoot Victoria to-day, and Louis Philippe to-morrow.
But to be serious, I am at a loss how to thank you as I ought. How I lament that I have hung my harp upon the willow!
Yours ever,
S. R.
In later years Thackeray and Charles Dickens were welcome guests, and the cordial friendship between Lord and Lady John and Dickens lasted till his death in 1870. Dickens said in a speech at Liverpool in 1869 that "there was no man in England whom he respected more in his public capacity, loved more in his private capacity, or from whom he had received more remarkable proofs of his honour and love of literature than Lord John Russell."
Among poets, Tennyson and Browning were true friends; Longfellow also visited Pembroke Lodge, and impressed Lady Russell by his gentle and spiritual nature; and Lowell was one of her most agreeable guests. With Sir Henry Taylor, whose "Philip van Artevelde" she admired, the intercourse was, from her youth to old age, intimate and affectionate.