Our tea-dinner was announced:  it was served in the hall.  Mrs. Kingsley spoke laughingly of their being obliged to make this their dining-room.  The talk at the table fell on American affairs.  Sumner’s name was mentioned.  I said he was in London, and that I had had a long conversation with him a few days before.  Would I give them his address? they asked:  they must have a visit from him.  I said he would be glad to visit them, I was sure, for when I told him I was coming here he said he envied me.  He was at present engaged in a round of dinners—­expected to go to France in August to stay with De Tocqueville, but would be again in England in the autumn.  Kingsley spoke of Brooks’s death—­of the suddenness of it seeming almost a judgment.  I said Brooks, as I happened to know, was thought a good fellow before the assault—­that he really had good qualities, and was liked even by Northern men.  “So we have heard from others,” said Kingsley, “and one can well believe it.  The man who suffers for a bad system is often the best man—­one with attractive qualities.”  Charles I. and Louis XVI. were instances he gave to illustrate this.  A recent article in the Edinburgh Review on slavery was spoken of.  I said it had attracted a good deal of attention with us, because we saw immediately it could only have been written by an American.  Of slavery Mr. Kingsley spoke in calm and moderate words.  I told him his introductory chapter to Two Years Ago showed that he appreciated the difficulties with which the question was encumbered.  He said it would be strange if he did not see these difficulties, considering that he was of West Indian descent (his grandfather had married a West Indian heiress).  He admitted that the result of emancipation in the West Indies was not encouraging as it regarded the material condition of the islands, especially of Jamaica, and he was quite able to understand how powerfully this fact would weigh on our Southern planters, and how it tended to close their ears to all anti-slavery argument.  They could hardly be expected to look beyond this test of sugar-production to the moral progress of the black race which freedom alone could ensure.

Our pleasant meal being over, we strolled out on the lawn and sat down under one of the fine old trees, where we continued our talk about slavery.  Mr. Kingsley said he could quite believe any story he might hear of cruelty practiced upon slaves.  He knew too well his own nature, and felt that under the influence of sudden anger he would be capable of deeds as violent as any of which we read.  This, of course, was putting out of view the restraints which religion would impose; but it was safe for no man to have the absolute control of others.

He left us to go into the house, and Mrs. Kingsley then spoke of his parochial labors.  She wished I could spend a Sunday with them—­“I should so like you to see the congregation he has.  The common farm-laborers come morning and afternoon:  the reason is, he preaches so that they can understand him.  I wish you could have been with us last Sunday, we had such an interesting person here—­Max Mueller, the great linguist and Orientalist.  But we can’t have pleasant meets here:  we have only one spare room.”