_Paris, April 7th_.--... It is curious to watch France, and I am also curious as to the possible consequences of what is happening in England. France has never been so liberal and so anti-revolutionary at the same time. England is making a thoroughly liberal reform in Ireland, and at the same time a severe law of repression for the defence of order. I wish and hope for your success in both. I also hope that our attempt at quiet and liberal reform will not fall through. But both for you and for us there are rugged paths yet to traverse; the future is still darkly clouded. Even after the success of our respective undertakings, Ireland will not be pacified, and political liberty will not be established in France. There is no need to be discouraged, the best of human works are incomplete and insufficient; but there is need to beware of illusions, to be prepared for disappointments, to be always ready to begin again. I moralise on politics. Good sense is the law of politics, and what I have learnt from history, above all, is that good sense is essentially moral. You will, therefore, not be surprised that I mix morals and politics.... _From Lord Westbury_ _April 13th_.--How shall I thank you for your inspiriting letter, which was as the sound of the trumpet to the aged war-horse! I fear my contemporaries have taken a more accurate measurement of my power, and that I shall never fulfil any such glorious destiny as you hold before my eyes. It is true of many men that _possunt quia posse videntur_; and that they accomplish many things simply because they are not fastidious. I should never do anything, simply because I should tear up one day what I had written the preceding. It would be Penelope's web. Our education is too aesthetical. Unless a cultivated taste be overpowered by personal vanity, it is very difficult to complete any composition. I can most truly say that I have never done anything, speaking or writing, of which I could say, on the review, _mihi plaudo_. We have a great difference of opinion in the members of the Digest Commission. Many think that the work should be handed over to two or three very able men (not judges or Emeriti Chancellors), who should be well paid; and that to them, with a staff of subordinates, all the work should be committed. Others think that there should be added to this establishment some presiding power, consisting of one, two, or three distinguished judges, to whom all questions should be referred, and whose duty it should be to give an _imprimatur_ to the work. So we cannot agree on a recommendation to the Government; and when we shall do so, but little weight will attach to it. The Journal here notes:-- _May 6th_.--Mansfield came back from India.