"MY DEAR HELPS,--Alice has read to me your memorandum as to the proposed Life of the Prince Consort, and I have given the subject very anxious consideration. The work I conceive to be one which, while full of the greatest interest, is surrounded with the gravest responsibility. You do not very clearly indicate what precise shape the Life is intended to take. It is natural and proper that a Life of the Prince should be prepared, and given to the world, probably at no distant date, in which the real greatness of his character, public and private, and the breadth of his views should be developed, and developed by letting himself speak through the memoranda and other documents under his own hand, which, I presume, exist in abundance, wherever these can with propriety be used. But it is, of course, obvious that the matters to be dealt with involve so much that is delicate in their bearing both upon individual and public affairs, that to decide what should and what should not be given will involve most anxious consideration at every step; while it is scarcely less certain that much must either be altogether withheld, or set apart for a volume of _pieces justificatives_, to be compiled for possible publication at some more remote period. "The selection and classification of these materials will occupy much time and thought before a line of the Biography can be written. At least such is my present opinion, for I do not think that the life of any man of mark, much more a man so pre-eminent as the Prince, can be written until the whole scope and purpose of his life, as seen in his actions and habits of thought down to its close, have been, as far as may be, ascertained--until, in Shakespeare's words, the 'idea of his mind and life' has crept into the biographer's 'study of imagination.' Then, and then only, can he hope to paint his portrait with the freedom and warmth of pencil which can alone be derived from a full mastery of his materials and thorough sympathy with his theme. Add to this, that much will have to be read and considered of what has already been said and done in public matters during the Prince's life.