PEMBROKE LODGE, November 9, 1873

Visit from Mr. Herbert Spencer, who stayed to dinner.  Long, deep, interesting conversation; all amounting to “we know nothing,” he assuring me that the prospect of annihilation has no terrors for him; I feeling that without immortality life is “all a cheat,” and without a Father in heaven, right and wrong, love, conscience, joy, sorrow, are words without a meaning and the Universe, if governed at all, is governed by a malignant spirit who gives us hopes, and aspirations never to be fulfilled, affections to be wasted, a thirst for knowledge never to be quenched.

“1874 opened brightly and peacefully on our dear home,” she writes; but it was to prove one of the saddest years in their lives.  Only some of the heavy trials and sorrows that they were called upon to bear from this time onward will be touched upon here.  They were borne by Lord and Lady Russell with heroic courage and unfaltering faith.

    Lady Russell to Lady Dunfermline

    PEMBROKE LODGE, February 25, 1874

I am now just finishing the “Heart of Midlothian,” and with more intense admiration for it than ever—­the beauty and naturalness of every word spoken by Jeanie and Effie before the last volume, of a great deal of Davie Deans, of many of the scenes scattered through the book are, I think, not to be surpassed.  More tenderness and depth and heart-breakingness I should say than in any of Sir Walter’s....  I turned to Sir Walter from “The Parisians.”  I doubt whether I shall finish it, a false, glittering, disagreeable atmosphere.

    Lady Russell to Lord and Lady Amberley

    PEMBROKE LODGE, March 2, 1874

MY DEAR CHILDREN,—...  We had a charming visit from Sir Henry Taylor a few days ago, a long quiet real “crack” about many books and many authors, with a little touch of the events of the day-change of Ministry, causes of our utter defeat, which he thinks obscure, so do I—­not creditable to the country, so do I—­in so far as Disraeli can hardly be reckoned more trustworthy or consistent than Gladstone, and Gladstone’s untrustworthiness and inconsistency are supposed to have caused his overthrow.  The Queen made Sir John Cowell write me a note to find out whether John would be disposed to go to the great banquet next Tuesday and sleep at Windsor.  Kindly done of her—­of course he declines.  I read Herbert Spencer on “The Bias of Patriotism,” yesterday—­much of it truly excellent.  To-day I am at “Progress” in the Essays ... of which I have read several here and there.  Whenever I have the feeling that I, not Herbert Spencer, have written what I am reading, I have the delightful sensation of complete agreement and unqualified admiration of his (or my) wisdom.  When I have not that feeling, I stop to consider, but even then have sometimes the candour to come to his conclusions;