But it is mainly on my own account that I venture to address you. I desire to consult you with regard to certain matters--political complications--which have recently occupied the attention of Her Majesty's Ministers. By the help of your new science, can you aid us in our deliberations? Of course, I am writing to you in _strict confidence_, and beg that you will keep this communication profoundly secret. I fear that would be a hard task for many of your sex, who do not possess your knowledge and powers of mind; but I have great confidence in your discretion. These are the problems which are presented to us for solution: 1. Some members of the Cabinet are secretly in favour of Protection, and the country is rather stirred by the question. Can you, from your knowledge of the contact of curves and nations, help us to determine what course we ought to take with regard to Spain, for example? Are the principles of Adam Smith mathematically correct? 2. I observe that England is represented mathematically by an ellipse. Are we right in assuming that Ireland is a portion of that ellipse? Or, on the other hand, in our chart of nations, must we describe that troublesome country as a rotating parabola, or complex figure, altogether outside our more favoured State? 3. Do you consider, from your minute observation of our social system, that the form of our elliptical government is gradually undergoing a change, and that a revolutionary parabolic tendency is observable in the action of individual particles? 4. Is it not possible that the differences in the policy of the various nations of Europe; the difficulties which beset the carrying out of international law; the jealousies, quarrels, and rivalries of States might disappear, if the same form of government (_i.e._, elliptical) were adopted in each? If you will kindly favour Her Majesty's Ministers with your opinion on these questions, they will owe you a debt of gratitude, which they, as representatives of the nation, will do their utmost to repay. With every good wish for your further success in the regions of polemical science, I beg to remain, My dear Lady Professor, Your faithful servant, +----------------------+ | | | [4] | | | +----------------------+