it is called, is not only necessary, but perfectly safe. It consoles me for growing old that I shall not live to see the confusion in which this well-ordered State is likely to be involved, the period of peril and suffering it will have to go through, and the reaction, which will restore order and tranquillity at the expense of that temperate and rational freedom, which we alone of all the nations of the earth are in possession of. I see no reason why, if we choose recklessly, and without any cause, to cast away the good we enjoy, we should be exempted from paying the penalty which our folly and wickedness would so richly deserve. The above question in all its ramifications is infinitely more important than the Russian and Turkish quarrel, but there is no saying how the former may be indirectly and consequentially affected through the latter by means of the political differences which may arise out of it. Everything now looks black in the political horizon, and the war which has begun between the principals can hardly fail to extend itself sooner or later to the collateral parties. _November 15th._--Yesterday morning having met Clarendon on the railway, he from Windsor, I from Hillingdon, I got into the carriage and went home with him. He told me all he had to tell, of what he had to go through with the conflicting proposals of Palmerston and Aberdeen in the Cabinet: the latter as averse as ever to any strong measures, and always full of consideration for the Emperor; the former anxious for war, and with the same confidence and rashness which were so conspicuous in him during the Syrian question, insisting that nothing will be so easy as to defeat Russia, and he now goes the length of urging that none of the old treaties between her and the Porte should be renewed. All this _jactance_, however, does not go much beyond words, for he evinces no disposition to separate from his colleagues or to insist on any course which the majority of the Cabinet object to. The Emperor of Russia has taken the unusual step of writing an autograph letter to the Queen. Brunnow, who was rather puzzled, took the letter to Aberdeen, and asked what he was to do with it. Aberdeen told him to take it to Clarendon, who sent it to the Queen. She sent it to him to read, and he suggested certain heads of an answer, but did not communicate the letter, nor the fact of its having been received, to any one but Aberdeen. The Queen wrote an answer in French, and he says a very good one.