PEMBROKE LODGE, June 22, 1892
Day of much weakness. The sense of failing increases rapidly. May the short time that remains to me make me less unfit to meet my God. Oh, that I could begin life again! How different it would be from what has been. I have had everything to help me upward; joys and sorrows, encouragement and disappointment, the love and example of my dearest husband and children in our daily companionship and communion, the never-failing and precious affection and help of brothers, sisters, and friends--and yet my life seems all a failure when I think what it might have been.
Lady Russell to Lady Charlotte Portal
THE GRANGE, HINDHEAD, HASLEMERE, July 20, 1892
Yes, elections are hard tests of character, and there are too, too many excellent people on both sides who are led on to say hard, unjust, untrue things of their opponents.... But there is another side to elections--a grand and noble one--which makes me feel to my inmost soul the greatness and the blessed freedom of this dear old country, and always brings to my mind what John used to say with something of a boy's enthusiasm, "I love a contested election."
THE GRANGE, HINDHEAD, October 6, 1892
Tennyson died about one o'clock a.m. A great and good light extinguished.
October 7th
Agatha and I early to Aldworth. Went in by Hallam's wish to the room where he lay. I dread and shrink from the sight of death, and wish to keep the recollection of the life I have known and loved undisturbed by its soulless image. But in this case I rejoice to have seen on that noble face the perfect peace which of late years was wanting--it was really "the rapture of repose." A volume of Shakespeare which he had asked for, and the leaves of which he had turned over yesterday, I believe to find "Cymbeline," at which place it was open, lay on the bed. His hands were crossed on his breast, beautiful autumn leaves lay strewn around him on the coverlet, and white flowers at the foot of the bed.
Lady Russell to Lady Charlotte Portal
PEMBROKE LODGE, November 2, 1892
Oh, Lotty, how is it that, standing as I am on the very brink of the known, with the unknown about to sweep me into its depths, how is it that there is still such intense interest in the course of this wondrous world, in all the problems now floating about unsolved, in all the social, moral, political work going on around us. It is true that these things are of eternal moment, and therefore links between earth and heaven. Yet it often seems to me foolish to care about them very much when the solution of all enigmas is so near at hand.
Lady Russell to Mrs. Rollo Russell
PEMBROKE LODGE, March 17, 1893
... The chief Pembroke Lodge event since I wrote is that I went on Monday to Windsor Castle to luncheon; after which morning meal with the household, almost all strangers to me, I saw the Queen alone and had a good long and most easy and pleasant conversation with her. She was as cordial as possible, and I am very glad to have seen her again; although there was much sadness mingled with the gladness in a meeting after a period of many, many years, which had brought their full number of changes to me--and some to her.
Lady Russell to Mr. Rollo Russell
PEMBROKE LODGE, RICHMOND, SURREY, July 7, 1893
I feel intensely all you say about laying aside, if it were possible, one's own personality and seeing the silent growth of all truth and goodness, without the disturbance of names and parties; but the world being as it is for the present, we can only keep our minds fixed on the good and the true, with whomsoever and with whatsoever party we may find it, and follow it with honest conviction. If I could, I would put an end to Party Government to-morrow, and my great wish for M.P.'s is that each one should, upon each subject, vote exactly according to his opinion, and no Ministry be turned out except upon a vote of want of confidence. I honour and love Mr. Gladstone, and while ardently sympathetic with him on Home Rule and all other Liberal measures, I am no less antipathetic on Church matters. Happily, however, they have become with him matters chiefly of personal attachment to Anglicanism, and no longer (I believe) likely to affect his legislation. "Gladstonian" is a word he does not admit, nor do those of whom it is used.
July 9, 1893.--Well, to go on with our politics: "a new policy" Home Rule undoubtedly is, a new departure from the "tradition" of any English party; but not a departure from Liberal principles, only a new application of old ones, and I think it is a pity to speak of it as being against Liberal principles, for is there anybody of average intelligence who would not have predicted that if it should ever be adopted by any party it would be by the Liberals? Exactly the same thing was said about Turkey: the Whig tradition was to support her, Liberals were forsaking their principles by taking part with Bulgaria against her. It is the proud distinction of Liberals to grow perpetually, and to march on with eyes open, and to discover, as they are pretty sure to do, that they have not always in the past been true to their principles. There is no case exactly parallel with that of Ireland; but there are some in great measure analogous, and it is the Liberals who have listened to the voice of other countries, some of them our own dependencies, in their national aspirations or their desire for Parliaments of their own, expressed by Constitutional majorities. I admire the Unionists for standing by their own convictions with regard to Home Rule, and always have done so; but I cannot call it "devotion to the Union and to Liberal principles," and I am not aware of there being a single Home Ruler not a Liberal. The Unionists, especially those in Parliament, have been, and are, in a very dangerous position, and have yielded too readily to the temptation of a sudden transference of party loyalty upon almost every question from Liberal to Tory leaders. But for those, whether in or out of Parliament, who have remained Liberals--and I know several such--I don't see why, after Home Rule is carried, they should not be once more merged in the great body of Liberals, and have their chances, like others, of being chosen to serve their country in Parliament and in office....
I am reading a book by Grant Allen, "Science in Arcady." ... He brings wit and originality into these essays on plants, lakes, spiders, etc.
Lady Russell to Lady Agatha Russell
PEMBROKE LODGE, September 22, 1893
... With regard to the modern attraction of ugly subjects (not when the wish to remedy gross evils makes it a duty to study and live among them; but as common talk between young men and young women), I feel very strongly that the contemplation of God, and all that is God-like in the souls that He has created, is our best safeguard against evil, and that the contemplation of the spirit of evil, and all the hideous variety of its works, gradually taints us and weakens our powers of resistance.
Lady Russell to Lady Agatha Russell
PEMBROKE LODGE, October 21, 1893
... I entirely agree with you, that poetry and music "teach us of the things that are unseen" as nothing else can do. Music especially, which is an unseen thing, not the product of man at all, but found from man as a gift from God's own hand. I don't know what at some periods of my life I should have done without these blessed sympathizers and outlets and uplifting friends.
Lady Russell to Mrs. Drummond
PEMBROKE LODGE, December 16, 1893
Your long interesting letter is most welcome. You are very good and brave to do so much for the good of others, while suffering yourself. How much harder it is to bear patiently, and keep up sympathy and fellow-feeling within us in spite of illness, than to do any amount of active work while in health. I always find my highest examples in those who know how to "suffer and be strong," because it is my own greatest difficulty.
Oh, my dear child, what opinions can poor I give on the almost insoluble problems you put before me? I wish I knew of any book or any man or woman who could tell me whether a Poor Law, even the very best, is on the whole a blessing or a curse, and how the "unemployed" can be chosen out for work of any useful or productive kind without injury to others equally deserving, and what are the just limits of State interference with personal liberty. The House of Lords puzzles me less. I would simply declare it, by Act of the House of Commons, injurious to the best interests of the nation and for ever dissolved. Then it may either show its attachment to the Constitution by giving its assent to its own annihilation, or oblige us to break through the worn-out Constitution and declare their assent unnecessary. It is beyond all bearing that one great measure after another should be delayed, or mutilated, year after year, by such a body, and I chafe and fret inwardly to a painful degree. Oh for a long talk with you! I will not despair of going to you, "gin I be spared" till the days are reasonably long.
Lady Russell to Lady Agatha Russell
PEMBROKE LODGE, October 10, 1894
... Alas! for our dear Oliver Wendell Holmes! He has left the world much the poorer by his death, but much the richer by his life and works.... Lord Grey gone too, and with him what recollections of my young days, before and after marriage, when he and Lady Grey and we were very much together. We loved them both. He was a very trying political colleague to your father and others, but a very faithful friend. The longer I live the more firmly I am convinced that in most cases to know people well is to like them--to forget their faults in their merits. But no doubt it is delightful to have no faults to forget.
PEMBROKE LODGE, March 3, 1894
Touching accounts of meeting of the Cabinet--the last with dear noble old Gladstone as Minister. Tears in the eyes of his colleagues. He made his last speech as Minister in the House of Commons, a grand and stirring one.
PEMBROKE LODGE, January 23, 1895
Finished "Erasmus" a few days ago--a great intellect, much wit, clear insight into the religion "falsely so-called" of monks and clergy, but a soul not great enough to utter his convictions aloud in the face of danger, or to perceive that conciliation beginning by hypocrisy must end in worse strife and bitterness. He saw the evil of the new dogmas and creeds introduced by Luther, of any new creed the rejection of which was penal, but he did not or would not see the similar evil of the legally enforced old creeds and dogmas.
PEMBROKE LODGE, May 15, 1895
Armenian refugees here to tea--a husband and wife whose baby she had seen murdered by Turkish soldiers, and a friend who is uncertain whether his wife is alive or murdered--these three in native dress; hers very picturesque, and she herself beautiful. The three refugees, all of whom had been eye-witnesses of massacres of relations, looked intensely sad. She gave an account of some of the hardships they had suffered, but neither they nor we could have borne details of the atrocities. What they chiefly wished to express, and did express, was deep gratitude for the sympathy of our country, veneration for the memory of John as a friend of the Christian subjects of the Sultan, and thanks to ourselves.... They kissed our hands repeatedly, and the expression of their countenances as they looked at us, though without words, was very touching.
PEMBROKE LODGE, February 24, 1896
Visit from Mr. Voysey, earnest, interesting, and pathetic in accounts of Whitechapel experiences. His Theism fills him with the joy of unbounded faith in a perfect God; but his keen sense of the evil done by the worship of Jesus as another and equal God leads him to a painful blindness to that divine character and teaching.