Lady John Russell Part 34

I see the Bishop of Manchester has been speaking in favour of "a very moderate form of dogmatism" to be imposed on Dissenters who wish their children to have religious teaching. I am quite against this moderate form, which consists in making a Baptist child own that he is to believe what his G.o.dfathers and G.o.dmothers promised for him--he having neither G.o.dfathers nor G.o.dmothers. Every form of persecution is in my eyes detestable, so that I shall have to fight a new fight for freedom of education.

_Lord Russell to Lady Minto_

CANNES, _January_ 6, 1872

MY DEAREST NINA,--Your New Year's Day letter shows that you write as well as a volunteer as on compulsion.... I am sorry to have annoyed Maggie by my allusion to the Hertfords.h.i.+re inc.u.mbent. Here is my case. Sixty-three years ago my father, with others founded a Society to teach the Bible to young boys and girls, which they called "Schools for all." One should have thought there was no harm in the project, and that they might have been left alone. Not so.

The clergy were furious. Sixty years ago they founded the National Society, and ever since they have libelled our schools.... Last year or the year before the H.I. [Hertfords.h.i.+re Inc.u.mbent] attacked my proposals. I left him alone, but I carried the day, and excluded formularies from schools provided by rates. Still the bishops and clergy fulminate against us, shut out Baptists from the schools where they have influence, and declaim against us. Now I happen to have a great respect for the Bible, and while I have life will not cease to defend our Bible schools. You will say, if I do not, that in time the world will come round to Christianity, which is at a low ebb at present. Men will understand at last that they ought to love G.o.d and to love their neighbour as themselves, not to steal, or commit murder, or cheat their neighbours. The Athanasian Creed is making a pretty hubbub. It was invented as a subst.i.tute for Christianity, and taken from Aristotle....

Ever yours affectionately,

RUSSELL

_Lady Russell to Lady Dunfermline_

CANNES, _November_ 29, 1871

What is to be the result of the Republican ferment in our country?

It may not be widespread, and it certainly hardly exists above the working cla.s.ses, yet I feel that the germ is there--and who can say how far it is doomed to flourish, or whether it will die away....

Ours has been so free and independent and prosperous a nation, that the notion of any fundamental change in the Const.i.tution is awful.

Yet when we boast of our freedom and prosperity we should not forget the enormous ma.s.s of misery, vice, filth, and all evil which disgraces all our large towns--nor the brutish ignorance and apathy which pervades much of our rural population. And it is well worth the most earnest thought and study, on the part of all Englishmen and women, to find out whether our form of government has or has not any share of the blame and to act accordingly. I have great confidence in the British people. They have never liked hasty, ill-considered changes; they hate revolution; and I hope I am not too trustful in believing that we shall go on in the wise and the right path, whatever that may be, and in spite of the freaks and follies of many a man whose aims are more selfish than patriotic.

While at Cannes Lord and Lady Russell saw a great deal of Princess Christian, who was living near them, and was in great anxiety and sorrow about the illness of her brother, the Prince of Wales, who nearly died in December, 1871. His illness was the occasion of a display of loyalty and sympathy from thousands of British subjects. Lady Russell received the following reply to a letter she wrote from Cannes to the Queen:

_Queen Victoria to Lady Russell_

OSBORNE, _January_ 22, 1872

DEAR LADY RUSSELL,--I meant ere this to have thanked you for your very kind letter of the 1st, but my dear son's illness brought with it much writing besides much to do, in addition to which, there is the correspondence with _four_ absent married daughters, which is no light task. I thank you now _both_ most warmly for the great kindness of your expressions about my own long and severe illness, when you so kindly wrote to Lady Ely to inquire, and relative to this last dreadful illness of my dear son's, coming, as it did, when I was far from strong myself. Thank G.o.d! I was able to be near him and with my _beloved_ daughter, the Princess of Wales (who behaved so beautifully and admirably), during that terrible time, when for nearly a week his life hung on a thread.

Indeed, for a whole month _at least,_ if not for five weeks, his state was one of the greatest anxiety and indeed of danger.

Since the 4th we may look on his progress as steady and good, and I hear that he was able to drive out yesterday for a little while.

But great quiet will be necessary for a long while to come. You are very kind in your accounts of Helena, who no doubt must have suffered much from being so far off.... I hear that she is really better and stronger. She speaks often of the pleasure it is to her to see you and Lord Russell, of whom I am delighted to hear so good an account. Though not very strong and not free from rheumatic pains at times, I am much better and able to walk again out of doors, much as usual.

With kind remembrances to Lord Russell and Agatha,

Ever yours affectionately, V.R.

In the spring they all came back to England. Lord John had benefited in health by wintering abroad; he was still vigorous enough to resist in the House of Lords the claim of the United States for the _Alabama_ indemnity, and to give a presidential address to the Historical Society; but the years were beginning to tell on him.

PEMBROKE LODGE, _April_ 18, 1872

John did not venture out--still looks tired and not as he did when we arrived, but no cold. Sad, most sad to me, that when I take a brisk turn in the garden, it is no longer with him--that his enjoyments, his active powers, yearly dwindle away--that it is scarcely possible he should not at times feel the hours too long from the difficulty of finding variety of occupation. Writing, walking, even reading very long or talking much with friends and visitors all tire him. He never complains, and I thank G.o.d for his patience, and oh! so heartily that he has no pain, no chronic ailment. But alas for the days of his vigour when he was out and in twenty times a day, when life had a zest which nothing can restore!

_Lady Russell to Lady Dunfermline_

PEMBROKE LODGE, _August_ 8, 1872

Filled with wonder, shame, remorse, I begin on a Thursday to write to you. What possessed me to let Wednesday pa.s.s without doing so I can't tell, but I think it happens about once a year, and I dare say it's a statistical mystery--the averages must be kept right, and my mind is not to blame--no free will in the matter. This brings me to an essay in one of the magazines for August--I forget which--on the statistics of prayer. Not a nice name (perhaps it's not correct, but nearly so), and not a nice article, it seemed to me--but I only glanced at it; produced, like many other faulty things of the kind, by illogical superst.i.tion on the part of Christian clergy, most of whom preach a half-belief, some a whole belief, on the efficacy of prayer for temporal good. Then comes the hard unbeliever, delighted to prove, as any child can do, that such prayer cannot be proved to avail anything. He is incapable of understanding the deeper and truer kind of prayer, but he convinces many that all communion with G.o.d is fruitless, or perhaps that there is no G.o.d with whom to hold it. This may not be the drift of the article, for, as I said, I have not read it, but it _is_ the drift of much that is talked and written nowadays by men and women of the author's school. I wish there were no schools in that sense. They always have done and always will do harm, and prevent the independence of thought which they are by way of encouraging.

_Lady Russell to Lady Dunfermline_

PEMBROKE LODGE, _Christmas Day,_ 1872

I do indeed feel with you how wonderful the goodness and the contented spirit of many thousands of poor, pent-up, toiling human beings, who live in G.o.d's glorious world and leave it without ever knowing its glories, whose lives are one struggle to maintain life; and I think with you how easy it ought to be for us who have leisure for the beauty of life, in nature and in books, in conversation and in art. And yet, it was to the rich that Christ gave His most frequent warnings. Is it then, after all, easiest for the poor to do His will and love Him and trust Him in all things?

The summer and autumn and winter had been spent almost entirely at Pembroke Lodge, but when Parliament met early in 1873 they moved to London, where they had taken a house till Easter.

_Lady Russell to Lady Dunfermline_

LONDON, _February_ 19, 1873

Scene--a drawing-room; hour 11.30 a.m. A young lady playing the pianoforte by candle-light. An old lady writing, also by candle-light. An old gentleman five minutes ago sitting reading also by candle-light, but now doing the same in a room below. Three large windows through which is seen a vast expanse of a semi-substantial material of the hue of a smoked primrose; against it is dimly visible an irregular and picturesque outline, probably of a range of mountains, some rocky and pyramidal, others horizontally banked. Altogether, a mystery replete with grandeur in the effect--none of your Southern transparency leaving nothing for the imagination. _Seriously,_ it's laughable that human beings should congregate so as to produce these effects, and that we among others should by preference be among the congregators. Your day at Napoule is like something in a different world altogether.

You are rather hard, John says, and he is not disposed to be otherwise, on Parliamentary sayings and doings. I can say nothing from myself, as I have not read one single speech, except that I cannot bear the humiliating exclusion of _any_ kind of useful knowledge from a University out of false consideration for religious or irreligious scruples. [84] Surely young men had better be taught boldly to face the fact that men differ than be dealt with in this ridiculously tender and most futile manner.

[84] The Irish University Bill was being discussed in the Commons, one clause of which proposed to exclude theology, philosophy, and history from the curriculum of the New University.

In August, 1873, after the publication of Lord Russell's book, "Essays on the History of the Christian Religion," they spent some six weeks at Dieppe, where Lord Russell's health again considerably improved.

_Mr. Disraeli to Lord Russell_

GEORGE STREET, HANOVER SQUARE, _May_ 8, 1873

MY DEAR LORD,--I have just finished reading your book, which I was much gratified by receiving from the author.... I cannot refrain from expressing to you the great pleasure its perusal gave me. The subject is of perpetual interest, and it is treated, in many instances, with originality founded on truth, and with wonderful freshness. The remarks suggested by your own eminent career give to the general conduct of the theme additional interest, like the personal pa.s.sages in Montaigne. I wish there had been more of them, or that you would favour the world with some observations on men and things, which one who is alike a statesman, a philosopher, and a scholar could alone supply. In your retirement you have the inestimable happiness of constant and accomplished sympathy, without which life is little worth. Mine is lone and dark, but still, I hope I may send my kindest remembrances to Lady Russell.

Yours with sincere respect and regard,

B. DISRAELI

_Lady Russell to Lady Dunfermline_

PEMBROKE LODGE, _July_ 3, 1873

You will not be disappointed, I do believe, with John's book, high as your expectations are. The spirit of it at all events is that of your letter: that of love and reverence for what you truly call the wonder of wonders--the Bible--as well as that of perfect freedom of thought. Had that perfect freedom always been allowed to mankind by kings, rulers, and priests, in all their disguises, we should never have had the "trash" of which you complain inundating our country and thinking itself a subst.i.tute for the simple lessons and glorious promises of Christ. Whereas in proportion as it is less "trashy," it approaches more nearly, though unconsciously, to what He taught, borrowing what is best in it from Him, only giving an earthly tone to what He made divine. I have, perhaps, more indulgence than you for some of the anti-Christian thinkers and writers of the day--those who love truth with all their souls, who would give their lives to believe that--

"Dust thou art, to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul,"

but who seek a kind of proof of this which never can be found. They are very unhappy in this world, but I believe they are nearer heaven than many comfortable so-called believers, and will find their happiness beyond that death upon which they look as annihilation.

_Lady Russell to Lady Dunfermline_

PEMBROKE LODGE, _October_ 22, 1873