had the “trash” of which you complain inundating our country and thinking itself a substitute 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

Louisa [85] writes in such warm admiration of Minto indoors and out, it did me good to read it, and such joy in meeting you.  Shall I ever be there again, I wonder?—­a foolish wonder, and foolisher still when let out!  Dear old oak-room—­to me too Granny Brydone is always present there.  I cannot think of it without her image rising before me.  How perfect she was!  How far above the common world she and Mama, and yet both spending their lives in the discharge of common, and what many would call, petty duties!  How little it signifies what are the special duties to which we are called, how much the spirit in which we do them!  I don’t think I ever longed so much for long talks day after day with you.  Don’t say such hopes are visionary, though, alas! they have over and over again vanished before our eyes.

[85] Lady Louisa Howard, formerly Lady Louisa Fitzmaurice (daughter of Lord Lansdowne), one of Lady Russell’s earliest friends.

    Lady Russell to Lord Amberley

    PEMBROKE LODGE, October 28, 1873

DEAREST JOHNNY,—...  Rollo bought Mill’s autobiography, and I have read the greater part of it.  Deeply interesting it is, and his lovableness comes out in it as much as his intellect—­but deeply sad too, in more ways than one.  I live in dread of the possible effect on you and Kate of the account of his education by his father—­the principles right, the application so wofully wrong.  Mill was a learned scholar, a great thinker, a good man, partly in consequence, partly in spite of it....  Happily you have more Popes than one, as good for you as it was for the world in days of old.  Happily, too, there’s such a thing as love, innate, intuitive, instinctive (oh, horrible!), which is wise in proportion to its depth, and will be your best and safest guide.  How strange Mill’s utter silence about his mother I How beautiful and touching the pages about his wife!  How melancholy to know that such high natures as his and hers generally fail to meet in close intimacy here below, and therefore live and die more than half unknown, waiting for the hereafter.  God bless you, my very dear children.

    Your loving MOTHER