Part 32 (2/2)

You asked me once whether I desired to h there are worse occupations); nor do I desire toabout plans of life does lead me to think of ould be best and happiest for you

I do not object to the hunting and going to Florence and Roher end to which these are the steps?

I think that you reat portion of your life with literature (I aht become eminent) and a small portion orks of benevolence, just to keep us in love and charity with our poor neighbours; and the rest I do not grudge to society and hunting

Do you think that I am a hard taskmaster? Not very, I think More especially as you will not be led away by ood advice You see that I cannot bear to think of you hunting and ballet-dancing when you are ”fair, fat and forty-five” Do prepare yourself for that awful age

I went to see Mrs H Ward the other day: she insists on doing battle with the reviewer in the Quarterly, and is thinking of another novel, of which the subject will be the free-thinking of honest working-men in Paris and elsewhere People say that in ”Robert Elsmere” Rose is intended for you, Catherine for your sister Laura, the Squire for Mark Pattison, the Provost for me, etc, and Mr Grey for Professor Green All the portraits are about equally unlike the originals

Good-bye, you have been sitting with me for nearly an hour, and now, like Laodamia or Protesilaus, you disappear I have been the better for your company One serious word: May God bless you and help you in this and every other great hurt of life

Ever yours,

B JOWETT

I will publish all his letters to htful letters h an autobiography

March 11th, 1889

MY DEAR MARGARET,

As you say, friendshi+ps grow dull if two persons do not care to write to one another I was beginning to think that you resented my censorious criticisms on your youthful life and happiness

Can youth be serious without ceasing to be youth? I think it may

The desire to promote the happiness of others rather than your ownin” As my poor sister (of whom I will talk to you some day) would say: ”When others are happy, then I aion of Sydney S a kindness to so about this; or you would not be so popular and beloved

You ask me what persons I have seen lately: I doubt whether they would interest you Mr Welldon, the Head life before him, and if he is not too honest and open, not unlikely to be an Archbishop of Canterbury Mr J M Wilson, Headenial and able ood judgment, but very devoted--a first-rate ood deal of Lord Rosebery-- very able, shy, sensitive, ambitious, the last two qualities rather at ith each other--very likely a future Prih- principled, not at all inclined to give up her Judaism to please the rest of the world They are rather overloaded ealth and fine houses: they are both very kind I also like Lady Leconfield [Footnote: Lady Leconfield was a sister of Lord Rosebery's and one of my dearest friends], whom I saw at Mentone Then I paid a visit to Tennyson, who has had a lingering illness of six e It was pleasing to see how he takes it, very patient and without fear of death, unlike his forh he is so sensitive, he seereatto coood as he ever wrote Was there ever an octogenarian poet before?

Doctor Johnson used to say that he never in his life had eaten as much fruit as he desired I think I never talked to you as much as I desired You once told an two, but they were not at all clever and have long since disappeared] Is it a reality or a myth? I should be interested to see it if you like to sendof yours

”Robert Elsland and 400,000 in America! It has considerablewhat everybody is thinking I ay--she is a real scholar and takes up things of the right sort I do not believe that Mrs Ward ever said ”she had pulverised Christianity” These things are invented about people by the orthodox, i e, the infidel world, in the hope that they will do thehed to death”? It would be like being tickled to death

Good-bye,

Ever yours truly,

B JOWETT

BALLIOL COLLEGE, May 22nd, 1891

MY DEAR MARGARET,

It was very good of you to write me such a nice note I hope you are better I rather believe in people being able to cure themselves of reat spirit

I liked your two friends who visited me last Sunday, and shall hope to make them friends of mine Asquith is a capital fellow, and has abilities which s in the law and politics He is also very pleasant socially I like your lady friend She has both ”Sense and Sensibility,” and is free froht up by an Evangelical grandin to think bed is a very nice place, and I see a great deal of it, not altogether from laziness, but because it is the only way in which I am able to work

I have just read the life of Newe character