the enthusiasm continues to increase, and all the returns have thrown us into a wild state of ecstasy and thankfulness.  It is, indeed, a blessing passing all expectations, and I look back to all the time of anxiety beginning with the Bulgarian horrors, all my husband’s anxious hard work of the past three or four years—­how he was ridiculed and insulted—­and now, thank God, we are seeing the extraordinary result of the elections, and listening to the goodness and greatness of the policy so shamefully slandered; righteous indignation has burst forth....  I loved to hear him saying aloud some of the beautiful psalms of thanksgiving as his mind became overwhelmed with gratitude and relieved with the great and good news.  Thank you again and again for your letter.

    Yours affectionately,

    CATHERINE GLADSTONE

    Sir Mount Stuart Grant Duff [101] to Lady Russell

    June 8, 1883

As to the public questions at home—­alas!  I can say nothing but echo what you and some other wise people tell me.  One is far too much out of the whole thing.  I do not fear the Radical, I greatly fear the Radical, or crotchet-monger....  Your phrase about the division on the Affirmation Bill [102] rises to the dignity of a mot, and will be treasured by me as such.  “The triumph of all that is worst in the name of all that is best.”

[101] At that time Governor of Madras.

[102] In the April of 1881 Gladstone gave notice of an Affirmation Bill, to enable men like Mr. Bradlaugh to become members of Parliament without taking an oath which implied a belief in a Supreme Being.  But it was not till 1883 that the Bill was taken up.  On April 26th Gladstone made one of his most lofty and fervid speeches in support of the Bill, which, however, was lost by a majority of three.

    Lady Russell to Lady Agatha Russell

    PEMBROKE LODGE, June, 1883

...  I have been regaling myself on Sydney Smith’s Life and Letters—­the wisdom and the wit, the large-hearted and wide-minded piety, the love of God and man set forth in word and deed, and the unlikeness to anybody else, make it delightful companionship....  I long to talk of things deep and high with you, but if I once began I should go on and on, and “of writing of letters there would be no end.”  That is a grand passage of Hinton’s [on music].  I always feel that music means much more than just music, born of earth—­joy and sorrow, agony and rapture, are so mysteriously blended in its glorious magic.

    Lady Russell’s Recollections