even now the minds of many English readers on this whole subject.  Lady Russell was in no sense a partisan on any political question—­I mean she never gave her approval to everything said or done by the leaders of any political party merely because the one main object of that party had her full sympathy and approval.  Reading over many of her letters to me on various passages of the Home Rule agitation inside and outside Parliament, I have been once again filled with admiration and with wonder at the keen sagacity, the prophetic instinct, which she displayed with regard to this or that political movement or political man.

All through these letters it becomes more and more manifest that Lady Russell’s devotedness was in every instance to principle rather than to party, to measures rather than to men.  By these words I do not mean to convey the idea that her nature led her habitually into any cold and over-calculating criticism of political leaders whom she admired, and in whom she had been led to feel confidence.

Her generous nature was enthusiastic in its admiration of the men whose leadership in some great political movement had won her sympathy from the first; but even with these her admiration was overruled and kept in order by her devotion to the principles which they were undertaking to carry into effect, and by the fidelity with which they adhered to these principles.  Even among intelligent and enlightened men and women we often find in our observation of public affairs that there are instances in which the followers of a trusted leader are carried away by their personal devotion into the championship of absolute errors which the leader is committing—­errors that might prove perilous or even, for the time, fatal to the cause of which he is the recognised advocate.

Lady Russell always set the cause above the man, regarding him mainly as the instrument of the cause; and if the alternative were pressed upon her, would have withdrawn from his leadership rather than tacitly allow the cause to be misled.  This, however, would have been done only as a last resort and after the most full, patient, and generous consideration of the personal as well as the public question.

We men do not expect to find in an enthusiastic, tender, and what may be called exquisitely feminine woman the quality of clear and guiding discrimination between the policy of the leader and the principles of the cause which he undertakes to lead.  We are inclined to assume that the woman in such a case, if she has already made a hero of the man, will be apt to think that everything he proposes to do must be the right thing to do, and that any question raised as to the wisdom and justice of any course adopted by him is a treason against his leadership.

Lady Russell never seemed to me to yield for a moment to any such sentiment of mere hero-worship.  She set, as I have said, the cause above the man, and she measured the man according to her interpretation of his policy towards the cause.