I am glad you like my tirade. I suspect my Whig friends do not; for the more one asserts Whig principles, the bitterer is the reflection on those who desert and betray them. I do not believe that the majority of the country or of the Liberal Party is Radical; but the danger is that a violent minority always overpowers an inert majority. I care nothing at all for any political persons, and but little for parties. It seems to me that the right and the wrong of government lies in the principles that regulate it, some of which are as certain as the truths of mathematics. The 'Greville Memoirs' have rather slumbered of late, but I am gradually screwing up my courage to begin printing, slowly. We are very well, and spent our Christmas pleasantly in Hampshire, the weather being delightful. London is dark and _un_delightful. Then the Journal:-- _February 24th_.--Visit to the Markbys at Oxford. Vespers at New College. Dined at All Souls. _28th_.--The Club. I was in the Chair. Mr. Gladstone attended; Lord Derby, Maine, Hewett, Tyndall, Coleridge. Matthew Arnold elected. _March 23rd_.--Electrical Exhibition at Crystal Palace, with Dr. Mann. _April 1st_.--To Foxholes. Very fine weather. No rain for three months. _To Mr. T. Norton Longman_ _Foxholes, April 4th_.--I like the concluding pages by Froude in the Carlyle book, but I am disappointed in Mrs. Carlyle's letters. They are pleasant and cheery, but there are thousands of women who write as well. As for Carlyle himself, he is _odious_--arrogance, vanity, self-conceit, ingratitude to old friends--I never thought I should dislike him so much. He seems to have looked at everything the wrong side outwards. The Journal notes:-- _April 11th_.--Lunched with the Mintos. They drove me to Christchurch. Lady Minto died on the 21st. _29th_.--A great salt hurricane that singed the trees all over the country, and also in France. _May 5th_.--Saw Lord Frederick Cavendish before he started for Dublin. On the 6th he was murdered. _From the Duke of Argyll_