been opening to see and to deplore these things, and to give their lives to the study of their causes, and the discovery and practice of means to put an end to them.  The wonderful intellectual strides, which my long life enables me not only to be aware of, but to remember as they have one by one been made, are in close connection with this moral and religious development; and all these together will, I believe, raise the education of the people (already so far above the standard of fifty, much more of a hundred years ago) to something of the kind to which you look forward—­“more high, more wide, more various, more poetic, more inspiring, more full of principles and less full of facts “—­a consummation devoutly to be wished.

    PEMBROKE LODGE, June 22, 1892

Day of much weakness.  The sense of failing increases rapidly.  May the short time that remains to me make me less unfit to meet my God.  Oh, that I could begin life again!  How different it would be from what has been.  I have had everything to help me upward; joys and sorrows, encouragement and disappointment, the love and example of my dearest husband and children in our daily companionship and communion, the never-failing and precious affection and help of brothers, sisters, and friends—­and yet my life seems all a failure when I think what it might have been.

    Lady Russell to Lady Charlotte Portal

    THE GRANGE, HINDHEAD, HASLEMERE, July 20, 1892

Yes, elections are hard tests of character, and there are too, too many excellent people on both sides who are led on to say hard, unjust, untrue things of their opponents....  But there is another side to elections—­a grand and noble one—­which makes me feel to my inmost soul the greatness and the blessed freedom of this dear old country, and always brings to my mind what John used to say with something of a boy’s enthusiasm, “I love a contested election.”

    THE GRANGE, HINDHEAD, October 6, 1892

    Tennyson died about one o’clock a.m.  A great and good light
    extinguished.

    October 7th

Agatha and I early to Aldworth.  Went in by Hallam’s wish to the room where he lay.  I dread and shrink from the sight of death, and wish to keep the recollection of the life I have known and loved undisturbed by its soulless image.  But in this case I rejoice to have seen on that noble face the perfect peace which of late years was wanting—­it was really “the rapture of repose.”  A volume of Shakespeare which he had asked for, and the leaves of which he had turned over yesterday, I believe to find “Cymbeline,” at which place it was open, lay on the bed.  His hands were crossed on his breast, beautiful autumn leaves lay strewn around him on the coverlet, and white flowers at the foot of the bed.

    Lady Russell to Lady Charlotte Portal