Well, I wonder what you will say to the debate or rather the explanations in Parliament. Are not John"s and Sir Robert"s speeches a curious contrast? and is not John a generous man? and is not Sir Robert a puzzling one? and was there ever such a strange state of parties? What an unhappy being a real Tory must be, at least in England, battling so vainly against time and tide, and doomed to see the idols of his worship crumbled to dust one after another. In _your_ benighted country [Italy] their end is further off; but still it must come. I am reading a book on Russia that makes my blood boil at every page. It is called "Eastern Europe and the Emperor Nicholas," and I am positively ashamed of the reception we gave that wholesale murderer in our free country.
_Lord John to Lady John Russell_
CHESHAM PLACE, _February_ 1, 1846
The Ministry will carry their Corn Measure, but will hardly last a month after it. What next? I think the next Government will be Whig, as the Protection party have no corps of officers in the House of Commons. So that their only way of avenging themselves upon Peel is to bring in a Liberal Ministry.
_Lady John to Lord John Russell_
MINTO, _February_ 7, 1846
I am glad you have a satisfactory letter from the doctor. A volunteered letter from him, as this was, must be a good sign.... I shall all my life regret not having been with you at this most interesting period in our political history; for the longest letters can but barely make up for the loss of the hourly chats upon each event with all its variations which are only known in London. Then, I think how sad it is for you to have n.o.body to care, as I should care, whether you had spoken well or ill. But all this and much more we must bear as cheerfully as we can; and I am glad to think that though _one wife_ is far from you, your other wife, the House of Commons, leaves you little time to spend in pining for her. I think you quite right in your intention of voting for Sir Robert"s measure as it is, in preference to any amendment which would not be carried, and might delay the settlement of the question. Not, as you well know, because I am not heart and soul a Free Trader, but because I think it a more patriotic, as well as a more consistent, course for you to take. Then if you come into office, as seems probable, you may make what improvements you like, and especially put an end to the miserable trifling about slave-grown sugar; a question in which I take a sentimental interest, as your first gift to me was your great sugar speech in 1841.
_Lord John to Lady John Russell_
HOUSE OF COMMONS, _February_ 9, 1846
Here I am in the House of Commons, on the important night of Corn, having just introduced Morpeth as a new Member. It all makes me very nervous--I mean to speak to-night, and I must take care not to join in the bitterness of the Tories, and at the same time to avoid the praise of the Ministry, which I see is the fashion. ... I am glad you all take such interest in the present struggle--it would be difficult not to do so. Our majority will, I hope, be eighty. As matters stand at present no one feels sure of the Lords.
_Lord John to Lady John Russell_
CHESHAM PLACE, _February_ 16, 1846
The events of the last few days have been remarkable. There has been no move, no agitation in the counties; but wherever a contest is announced the Protection party carry it hollow.... In London the Protectionists have created in a fortnight a very strong and compact party, from 220 to 240, in the Commons, and no one knows how many in the Lords--thus we are threatened with a revival of the real old Tory party. Of course they are very civil to us, and they all say that we ought to have settled this question and not Sir Robert. But how things may turn out no one can say.
_Lord John to Lady John Russell_
CHESHAM PLACE, _February_ 21, 1846
I trust the feelings you have, and the enjoyment you seem to take in the flowers and buds of the garden, show that you have before you the opening Paradise of good health.
Baby"s letter is very merry indeed. I long to see his little face and curly locks again.
I am going to have a meeting at twelve and of twelve on the affairs of Ireland. It is a th.o.r.n.y point, and vexes me more than the Corn Laws. Lord Bessborough and Lansdowne are too much inclined to coercion, and I fear we shall not agree. But on the other hand, if we show ourselves for strong measures without lenitives, I fear we shall entirely lose the confidence of Ireland.
_February_ 22, 1846
We are much occupied with the affairs of Ireland--I am engaged in persuading Lansdowne to speak out upon the affairs of that unhappy country, where a Bill called an Insurrection Act seems the ordinary medicine.
_Lady John to Lord John Russell_
Minto, _February_ 23, 1846
You were quite right to send the children out in spite of the remains of their coughs, but how hard it is for you to have all those domestic responsibilities added to your numerous public ones.
It is more than your share, while I linger away my hours on the sofa, without so much as a dinner to order for anybody. Your Coercive measures for Ireland frighten me. I do not trust any Englishman on the subject except yourself, and you cannot keep to your own opinion in favour of leniency and act upon it. I often think how unfortunate it is that there should be that little channel of sea between England and Ireland. It prevents each country from considering itself a part of the other, and a bridge across it would make it much more difficult for Orange or Repeal bitterness to be kept up. I send you Lord William"s [26] letter.
But first I must tell you that in a former letter from him he compared you to Antony throwing away the world for Cleopatra.... I read one of Lord Campbell"s Lives aloud yesterday evening--Sir Christopher Hatton--a short and entertaining one; but from which it would appear that a man can make a respectable Lord Chancellor without having seriously studied anything except dancing....
[26] Lord John Russell"s brother.
_Lord William Russell to Lady John Russell_
Genoa, _February_ 12, 1846
My dear Sister--I thank you much for your letter of the 4th from Minto, but regret to find my letters make you not only angry, but very angry. If I was within reach I should have my ears well cuffed, but at this distance I am bold.... You will not have to get into a towering pa.s.sion in defending your husband from my accusation of loving you too much and dashing the world aside and bid it pa.s.s, that he might enjoy a quiet life with his f.a.n.n.y. I begin by obeying you and asking pardon and saying you did quite right not to think me in earnest, and to "know that I often write what I do not mean," a fault unknown to myself, and one to be corrected, for it is a great fault, if not worse. The letter just received pleases me much, for I find in it a high tone of moral rect.i.tude, a n.o.ble feeling of devotion to your husband"s calling, an unselfish determination to fulfil your destiny, an abnegation of domestic comfort, a latent feeling of ambition tempered with resignation, such as becomes a woman, that do you the highest honour.... I think the crisis we are going through in England very alarming ... a frightful system of political immorality is stalking through the land--the Democracy is triumphant, the Aristocracy is making a n.o.ble and last effort to hold its own, unfortunately in so bad, so unjust, so selfish, so stupid a cause, that it must fall covered with shame.... The hero of the day, Cobden, is a great man in his way, the type of an honest manufacturer, but for the moment all-powerful. I am domiciled with your brother and sister, [27] under the same roof, dine daily at their hospitable table, sit over the fire and cose and prose with them, sometimes alone with your sister, who thinks and talks very like you, that is, not only well but very well.
I am very affectionately yours,
W.R.
P.S.--You say it would be unworthy of John to _pine_ for office. I think the difficulties of a Prime Minister so great and the toil so irksome that the country ought to be full of grat.i.tude to any man that will undertake it. I am full of grat.i.tude to Sir Robert Peel for having sacrificed his ease and enjoyment for the good of his country, and to enable us to sit in the shade under our own fig-trees. Glory and grat.i.tude to Peel.
[27] Lady Mary Abercromby.
_Lord John to Lady John Russell_
CHESHAM PLACE, _February_ 15, 1846
I have been to St. Paul"s to-day. Mr. Bennett enforced still further obedience to the Church, and what was strange, he said Papists and Dissenters were prevented by the prejudices of education from seeing the truth--as if the same thing were not just as true of his own Church. I do not see how it is possible to be out of the Roman Catholic pale and not use one"s own faculties on the interpretation of the Bible. That tells us that our Saviour said, he who knew that to love G.o.d with all our soul and to love our neighbour as ourself were the two great commandments, was not far from the kingdom of G.o.d. This surely can be known and even followed without a priest at all.
_Lady John to Lord John Russell_
MINTO, _February_ 27, 1846
You seem to have had a very pleasant dinner at the Berrys, and I wish I had been at it. I wonder sometimes whether the social enjoyments of life are for ever at an end for me: and in my hopeful moods I plan all sorts of pleasant little _teas_ at Chesham Place--at home from nine to eleven on certain days, in an easy way, without smart dressing and preparation of any sort beyond a few candles and plenty of tea. I feel and always have felt ambitious to establish some more popular and rational kind of society than is usual in London. But the difficulty in our position would be to limit the numbers: however, limiting the hours would help to do this; and I do not think one need be very brilliant or agreeable oneself to make such a thing succeed well. But what a foolish presumptuous being I am, lying here on my sofa, not even able to share in the quiet amus.e.m.e.nts of Minto, making schemes for the entertainment of all the London world! However, these dreams and others of a more serious nature as to my future life, if G.o.d should restore me to health, help to while away my hours of separation from you, and make me forget for awhile how long I have been debarred from fulfilling my natural duties, either to you, the children, or the world. This, believe me, is the hardest of the many hard trials that belong to illness, or at least, such an illness as mine, in which I have mercifully but little physical suffering.
_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_
MINTO, _March_ 1, 1846
What pleasant times we live in, when the triumph of right principles brings about one great and peaceful change after another in our country; each one (this from Free Trade in a great degree) promising an increase of happiness and diminution of war and bloodshed to the whole world. No doubt, however, its good effects will be but slowly perceived, and I fear there is much disappointment in store for the millions of poor labourers, who expect to have abundance of food and clothing the moment the Bill becomes a law. Poor creatures, their state is most deplorable and haunts me day and night. The very best of Poor Laws must be quite insufficient. Indeed, wherever there is a necessity for a Poor Law at all there must be something wrong, I think; for if each proprietor, farmer and clergyman did his duty there would be no misery, and if they do _not_, no Poor Law can prevent it. You cannot think how I long for a few acres of _our own_, in order to know and do what little I could for the poor round us. It would not lessen one"s deep pity for the many in all other parts of the country, but one"s own conscience would be relieved from what, rightly or wrongly, I now feel as a weight upon it; and without a permanent residence one does not become really acquainted with poor people in their prosperity as well as adversity; one only does a desultory unsatisfactory sort of good. I have not seen d.i.c.kens"s letter about the ragged schools of which you speak. What you say of the devotion of the Roman Catholic priests to the charities of religion reflects shame on ours of a purer faith, but is what I have always supposed. The Puseyites are most like them in that as well as in their mischievous doctrines; but then a new sect is always zealous for good as well as for evil.
_Lord John to Lady John Russell_
CHESHAM PLACE, _March_ 3, 1846
I am so happy to find you have had a good night and are stronger in feeling. If you had not told me how weak and ill you have been I should have been beyond measure anxious; but, as it is, and with your letters, I have been very unhappy and exceedingly disappointed. For my hopes are often extravagant, and I love to look forward to days of health and happiness and grat.i.tude to G.o.d for His blessings.... Need I say after all I have suffered on your account that while I am conducting my campaign in Italy [28] my thoughts are always with you? ... I cannot bear your absence. The interest of a great crisis, and the best company of London cannot make me tolerably patient under the misfortune of your being away; and it is you, and you alone who could inspire me with such deep love.