may or may not have, it will just be in a given degree worth less to them, because of my want of this knowl. edge.

So again-for having begun to speak of myself I will do so yet more frankly-I suppose that when people sce my name down for a hundred pounds to the Cruikshank Memorial, and for another hundred to the Eyre Defence Fund, they think only that I have more money than I know what to do with. Well, the giving of those subscriptions simply decides the question whether or no I shall be able to afford a journey to Switzerland this year, in the negative; and I wanted to go, not only for health's sake, but to examine the junctions of the molasse sandstones and nagelfluh with the Alpine limestone, in order to complete some notes I meant to publish next spring on the geology of the great northern Swiss valley; notes which must now lie by me at least for another year; and I believe this delay (though I say it) will be really something of a loss to the travelling public, for the little essay was intended to explain to them, in a familiar way, the real wonderfulness of their favourite mountain, the Righi; and to give them some amusement in trying to find out where the many-coloured pebbles of it had come from. But it is more important that I should, with some stoutness, assert my respect for the genius and earnest

patriotism of Cruikshank, and my mich more than dis respect for the Jamaica Committee, than that I should see the Alps this year, or get my essay finished next spring; but I tell you the fact, because I want you to feel how, in thus leaving their men of worth to be assisted or defended only by those who deeply care for them, the public more or less cripple, to their own ultimate disadvantage, just the people who could serve them in other ways; while the speculators and money-seekers, who are only making their profit out of the said public, of course take no part in the help of anybody. And even if the willing bearers could sustain the burden anywise adequately, none of us would complain; but I am certain there is no man, whatever his fortune, who is now engaged in any earnest offices of kindness to these sufferers, especially of the middle class, among his acquaintance, who will not bear me witness that for one we can relieve, we must leave three to perish. I have left three, myself, in the first three months of this year. One was the artist Paul Gray, for whom an appeal was made to me for funds to assist him in going abroad out of the bitter English winter. I had not the means by me, and he died a week afterwards. Another case was that of a widow whose husband had committed suicide, for whom application was made to me at the same time; and the third was a per

sonal friend, to whom I refused a sum which he said would have saved him from bankruptcy. I believe six times as much would not have saved him; however, I • refused, and he is ruined.

And observe, also, it is not the mere crippling of my means that I regret. It is the crippling of my temper, and waste of my time. The knowledge of all this distress, even when I can assist it,-much more when I cannot,—and the various thoughts of what I can and cannot, or ought and ought not, to do, are a far greater burden to me than the mere loss of the money. It is peremptorily not my business-it is not my gift, bodily or mentally, to look after other people's sorrow. I have enough of my own; and even if I had not, the sight of pain is not good for me. I don't want to be a bishop. In a most literal and sincere sense, "nolo episcopari." I don't want to be an almoner, nor a counsellor, nor a Member of Parliament, nor a voter for Members of Parliament. (What would Mr. Holyoake say to me if he knew that I have never voted for anybody in my life, and never mean to do so!) I am essentially a painter and leaf dissector; and my powers of thought are all purely mathe matical, seizing ultimate principles only-never accidents; a line is always, to me, length without breadth; it is not a cable or a crowbar; and though I can almost infal

libly reason out the final law of anything, if within reach of my industry, I neither care for, nor can trace, the minor exigencies of its daily appliance. So, in every way, I like a quiet life; and I don't like seeing people cry, or die; and should rejoice, more than I can tell you, in giving up the full half of my fortune for the poor, provided I knew that the public would make Lord Overstone also give the half of his, and other people who were independent give the half of theirs; and then set men who were really fit for such office to administer the fund, and answer to us for nobody's perishing innocently; and so leave us all to do what we chose with the rest, and with our days, in peace.

Thus far of the public's fault in the matter. Next, I have a word or two to say of the sufferers' own fault-for much as I pity them, I conceive that none of them do perish altogether innocently. But this must be for next letter.

Letter 20.

Of Improvidence in Marriage in the Middle Classes; and of the advisable Restrictions of it

April 12, 1867.

Ir is quite as well, whatever irregularity it may introduce in the arrangement of the general subject, that yonder sad letter warped me away from the broad inquiry, to this speciality, respecting the present distress of the middle classes. For the immediate cause of that distress, in their own imprudence, of which I have to speak to you to-day, is only to be finally vanquished by strict laws, which, though they have been many a year in my mind, I was glad to have a quiet hour of sunshine for the thinking over again, this morning. Sunshine which happily rose cloudless; and allowed me to meditate my tyrannies before breakfast, under the just-opened blossoms of my orchard, and assisted by much melodious advice from the birds; who (my gardener having positive orders never to trouble any of them in anything, or object to their eating even my best pease if they like their fla vour) rather now get into my way, than out of it, when