and heroism for which I think we have formerly been famous.  We are the same Saxons still.  There has never been fiercer fighting than in some of the battles that have lately taken place in India.  When I look back on the old history books, and see that all history consists of little else than the bloody feuds of nation with nation, I almost wonder that God has not extinguished the cruel, selfish animals that we dignify with the name of men.  No—­I cry forgiveness:  let the women live, if they can, without the men.  I used the word ‘men’ only.”

Here is a pleasant paragraph about “Aurora Leigh":—­

“The most successful book of the season has been Mrs. Browning’s ‘Aurora Leigh.’  I could wish some things altered, I confess; but as it is, it is by far (a hundred times over) the finest poem ever written by a woman.  We know little or nothing of Sappho,—­nothing to induce comparison,—­and all other wearers of petticoats must courtesy to the ground.”

In several of his last letters to me there are frequent allusions to our civil war.  Here is an extract from an epistle written in 1861:—­

“We read with painful attention the accounts of your great quarrel in America.  We know nothing beyond what we are told by the New York papers, and these are the stories of one of the combatants.  I am afraid that, however you may mend the schism, you will never be so strong again.  I hope, however, that something may arise to terminate the bloodshed; for, after all, fighting is an unsatisfactory way of coming at the truth.  If you were to stand up at once (and finally) against the slave-trade, your band of soldiers would have a more decided principle to fight for.  But—­

    “—­But I really know little or nothing.  I hope that at Boston you
    are comparatively peaceful, and I know that you are more
    abolitionist than in the more southern countries.

“There is nothing new doing here in the way of books.  The last book I have seen is called ‘Tannhauser,’ published by Chapman and Hall,—­a poem under feigned names, but really written by Robert Lytton and Julian Fane.  It is not good enough for the first, but (as I conjecture) too good for the last.  The songs which decide the contest of the bards are the worst portions of the book.

“I read some time ago a novel which has not made much noise, but which is prodigiously clever,—­’City and Suburb.’  The story hangs in parts, but it is full of weighty sentences.  We have no poet since Tennyson except Robert Lytton, who, you know, calls himself Owen Meredith.  Poetry in England is assuming a new character, and not a better character.  It has a sort of pre-Raphaelite tendency which does not suit my aged feelings.  I am for Love, or the World well lost.  But I forget that, if I live beyond the 21st of next November, I shall be seventy-four years of age.  I have been