still in my heart think the case for the exclusion better than the case against it, but all the talk is the other way. The _Pall Mall_ is helping you very powerfully, for it _is_ a tremendous power, and even Mr. G., I fancy, is really with you about it, and not with Morley. It seems to me that they must accept your own terms. 'The meeting was a most wonderful success. 'Yours ever, 'Chs. W. D. 'Since I nearly finished this, your other has come, and I have now read it. I have only to repeat that I should not negotiate through Labouchere, but through a member of the Cabinet of high character who agrees in your view. L. is very able and very pleasant, but still a little too fond of fun, which often, in delicate matters, means mischief. 'I have kept no copy of this letter. When one has a "difference with a friend," I believe "prudence dictates" that one should keep a record of what one writes. I have not done so. I can't really believe that you would, however worried and badgered and misrepresented, grow hard or unkind under torture, any more than I have; but you are stronger than I am, and perhaps my weakness helps me in this way. I don't believe in the difference, and I have merely scribbled all I think in the old way.' Chamberlain wrote: '_May 6th_, 1886. 'My Dear Dilke, 'The strain of the political situation is very great and the best and strongest of us may well find it difficult to keep an even mind. 'I thank you for writing so fully and freely. It is evident that, without meaning it, I must have said more than I supposed, and perhaps in the worry of my own mind I did not allow enough for the tension of yours. 'We never have been rivals. Such an idea has not at any time entered my mind, and consequently, whether your position is as desperate as you suppose or as completely retrievable as I hope and believe, it is not from this point of view that I regard any differences, but entirely as questions affecting our long friendship and absolute mutual confidence. If we differ now at this supreme moment, it is just as painful to me to lose your entire sympathy as if you could bring to me an influence as great as Gladstone's himself.