declared for it, wishing that it should be abolished for murder, and inflicted only on those who are guilty of wrongs to women. For murder is a trifle-life is not of so much value-and the tenderness for human life is not one of the noblest signs of our times, for it is not commensurable with a hatred of wrong; whereas in the other case society is worse than unchristian; that which is wrong in a woman is doubly so in a man, because she does with personal risk what he does with risk to another, in personal security and damnable selfishness.

XC.

I rejoice that you have taken up Ruskin; only let me ask you to read it very slowly, to resolve not to finish more than a few pages each day. One or two of the smaller chapters are quite enough—a long chapter is enough for two days, except where it is chiefly made up of illustration from pictures; those can only be read with minute attention when you have the print or picture to which he refers before you; and those which you can so see, in the National Gallery, Dulwich, &c., you should study, with the book, one or two at a time. The book is worth reading in this way: study it-think over each chapter and examine yourself mentally, with shut eyes, upon its principles, putting down briefly on paper the heads, and getting up each day the principles that you gained the day before. This is not the way to read many books, but it is the way to read much; and one read in this way, carefully, would do you more good, and remain longer fructifying, then twenty skimmed. Do not readit, however, with slavish acquiescence; with deference, for it deserves it, but not more. And when you have got its principles woven into the memory, hereafter, by comparison and consideration, you will be able to correct and modify for yourself. Together with this, I would read carefully some other book of a totally different character; some narrative of human action and character-if stirring and noble, so much the better. I have just finished the first volume of Major Edwardes' ' Punjaub,' a history of wonderful adventures, but too long. I could

not recommend it to you, but some day I will give you a very brief epitome of it.

I am endeavouring to do my work more regularly, simply, and humbly—trying as it is, and against the grain, and deeply as I feel the need of some physical enterprise.

Tell, with my kind regards, that Louis Blanc's theory requires something besides a warm heart and a quick perception to fairly judge. There are certain laws of society, as certain as the laws of matter, which cannot be reached intuitively, or by feeling, but require study-very hard study; and the misfortune of his theory is, that appealing to those whose feelings are quick, and sense of the wrongs of things as they are —acute, it is very fascinating; but whether it is true or not, demands a far calmer study of the laws of the universe than his superficial theory generally gets. Feeling says, 'Relieve the beggar, and you cannot be wrong;' Fact says, 'The relief of beggary can be proved the worst injury to the community.' Socialism and Fourierism will draw in many generous spirits, but it must bring about, at last, evils tenfold greater than those it would relieve. I never read anything more pitiably selfdestructive than the digest of Louis Blanc's doctrine, in a catechism by himself. Succeed it cannot, but it will probably be tried some day, perhaps on a large scale; and if so, the social disorganisation which must ensue, and the agonies and convulsions in which society will reel to and fro, and the reaction from it, will be, perhaps, the most terrible lesson which the world has ever learnt.

This is the invariable result of protection—the forcible compression and hindrance of the laws of nature until they burst. Louis Blanc thinks God has made very bad laws, and he would make better. So thought a wiser than Louis Blanc, or fifty Louis Blancs-Plato. He considered the partialities of maternal love very pernicious, and would have prevented a woman knowing her own child, making her the mother of all the children of the State. Of course maternal partialities are full of evil, but on the whole, that being God's system, will work better than the universalism and state education of Plato, however

sublime the conception may seem. The only difficulty is to create the feeling which is to be the motive, that is all. Mr. the other day was very learnedly descanting before some ladies upon the modern invention of throwing red-hot shot and red-hot shells. Red-hot shot I had heard of at Gibraltar. But I humbly ventured to ask respecting the red-hot shells-how they got the powder in? That is the difficulty in Louis Blanc's system. Nevertheless, it will be tried; and, like the red-hot shell system, the result will be-an explosion.

My dear

XCI.

To one entering London life.

-,-Gavazzi's Exeter Hall orations and this electro-biology are of the exciting class of stimuli which I reckon dangerous and useless. The first leaves nothing behind, morally or intellectually; the second belongs as yet to the witchcraft and mesmerism class, which may hereafter be reduced to calm rules and become scientific; but at present, except to scientific and classifying minds, I think useful for nothing but to kill the disease of ennui by exciting the Athenian desire of loving' some new thing.'

Do let me earnestly entreat you to use force to overcome this craving after stimuli of this class; it is time and money lost. One-tenth part of the time and attention given regularly to the acquisition of some of the branches of information for which London affords so many opportunities would relieve you from ennui, and will leave something behind. Suppose you try the mental discipline of giving all the hours which you would fritter on such things to one pursuit-say an interesting attendance on some course of not abstruse lectures. I pray you to grasp my principles, not my rules; for to say this, that, and that are exciting, and leave nothing behind, is to give dead rules. Remember the spirit and philosophy of that which I say.

XCII.

To the Same.

Last night I wrote so rapidly to save the post that possibly my meaning may have been obscure. What I intended to say was this the life you are now about to enter will be one of an exciting character; diminish it as you will, yet balls, theatres, late hours, varied society, must necessarily make the atmosphere you breathe highly stimulating. What you want in your other life is a corrective and emollient.

It matters little that you avoid the theatre and music, if in their stead you substitute Gavazzi, with his theatrical pose and voice, and his exciting orations. I do not say that under no circumstances it would be desirable to hear him. Were you for months in a dull country town, I should say it might be well to vary its monotony by such an excitement, and its exaggeration might be even wholesome as the counteractive of an extreme; but under present circumstances, if you are really in earnest in your desire to discipline your spirit and get the peace which can alone come from watchfulness, I should say it is one of those indulgences which must be pernicious, though one which, of course, the worn, jaded London ladies must find most delightful, varying their excitement with a fresh stimulus, and giving them horse-radish when they are tired of mustard, cayenne when wearied of horse-radish. This, I believe, Mr. , too, has done for them, and probably this is what sermons generally accomplish. One spoonful of cayenne to six of mustard, and Soyer himself could not then give such piquancy to their week - would to God I were not a mere pepper-cruet to give a relish to the palates of the Brightonians.

Well, to proceed: I think natural facts most valuable for your mind to repose upon; but the class which you select are precisely those which, instead of giving the repose of philosophic certainty, leave the mind in a whirl of wonder and perplexity : the disputed facts, which are not recognised as facts, which produce controversy and excitement mesmerism, electro

biology, odology. Half the time--nay, one-tenth of the time— wasted upon the charlatans who invent these, or mystify the real facts contained in them, would put many in possession of truths quite as marvellous, infinitely more beautiful, because their connection with life and usefulness is known, and far more capable of disciplining the mind towards peace, and rest, and God. I can see no effect produced by the others except bewilderment, dogmatism, or scepticism. Let philosophers examine them, separate the error from the facts, and then we can look at them; but at present, entirely untrained in such studies, we are as little able to distinguish the laws of the universe from jugglery as a ploughman is to separate vaccination from the charm system; and the appeal to judgment in these matters seems to me always a great presumptive proof of something false.

Besides which, the popular mind, always craving belief, takes up implicitly these crude phenomena with a reverence which is so much abstracted from rightful objects; and then the vacillation and perpetual uncertainty in which the mind is left produces a glow of excitement which betrays what is in fact the real attractiveness in these pursuits-the power they have to give excitement with no mental trouble. Excitement is the natural reward of toil; but that is a healthy excitement. Felt by the philosopher it is delicious, calm, and productive of valuable exertions; but felt without mental or physical effort, ending in itself, and existing only for the sake of itself, it is, by a just law, self-destructive; just as spirits may be safely taken during hard exercise, but at the peril of him who takes them in a sedentary life.

Oh that I could make every one feel this principle as I feel it--and as a principle! I give many rules, but the letter killeth, the spirit of the law giveth life.' If men could but get a living insight into the principle, which is to me as clear as noonday, the application of it would be easy; and, as in religious matters, the irksome irritating restriction, 'Touch not, taste not, handle not'—this, that, and the other-would be dispensed with.