It is correct that I am among those who are at the present time working for a combination to improve the relations between France and England. You, who follow with such keen attention the development of public opinion, are in a position to appreciate the dangerous tendency in those relations which has recently developed, especially in a portion of the press. These influences are difficult to resist, and the work required will demand much time and energy. The combination[19] of which you have heard is as yet only sketched in very indefinite outlines; but on the reassembling of Parliament on the twentieth of January we hope to make some progress, and I will send you accurate details. As regards the Venezuelan affair, the treaty in settlement of it has been definitely concluded between England and the United States; and we are just in receipt of the news that it has been accepted by the government of Venezuela. So this question is in a fair way to be settled by arbitration; and as regards that far greater question, namely, the conclusion of a general and permanent treaty between the two powers, President Cleveland in his message to Congress of December 7 announces that the negotiations touching it are on the point of coming to a favorable and definite conclusion. So as soon as I reach London for the opening of Parliament, I hope to be in a position to send you a fuller résumé of this question,—which we may expect will then be definitely decided,—together with all the details that you may desire. Accept, etc. Philip Stanhope The contents of these letters have a historical interest, as they show how leading men in influential positions were all the time working to bring the postulates of the peace movement to validity. On the other hand, these varied and occasional fragments from my extensive store of letters have also a biographical interest, for they mirror the course of development of that cause which ever more and more was becoming my vocation, my very life, my “one important thing”! And I was enabled to find therein such profound contentment for the reason that I knew I was in harmony with so many and such a rapidly increasing number of noble contemporaries, and especially in complete unanimity of soul with an endlessly beloved and loving life companion. Every inward experience and every outward event aroused in us both the same feelings. And therewithal was that full consciousness of peace, that absolute sense of security against all that might happen, which we feel when we know that there is a heart in whose fidelity we may have absolute confidence, a breast in which we may find a refuge from all the bitterness of fate—in a word, the boundless happiness of unconditional unity of love.