er are those of sorrow,
leavened perhaps with pride. But I am for the moment a stunned
man; the more so because without a moment of repose I had to
plunge into the whirlpools of South Lancashire, and swim there for
my life, which as you will see, has been given me.

I do not think I can admit the justice of the caution against
extremes. The greatest or second greatest of what people call my
extremes, is one which I believe you approve. I profess myself a
disciple of Butler: the greatest of all enemies to extremes. This
indeed speaks for my intention only. But in a cold or lukewarm
period, and such is this in public affairs, everything which moves
and lives is called extreme, and that by the very people (I do not
mean or think that you are one of them) who in a period of
excitement would far outstrip, under pressure, those whom they now
rebuke. Your caution about self-control, however, I do accept--it
is very valuable--I am sadly lacking in that great quality.

At both Liverpool and Manchester, he writes to Dr. Jacobson, I had
to speak of Oxford, and I have endeavoured to make it
unequivocally clear that I am here as the same man, and not
another, and that throwing off the academic cap and gown makes no
difference in the figure.

"Vixi, et quem dederat cursum fortuna peregi."(101)

And when I think of dear old Oxford, whose services to me I can
never repay, there comes back to me that line of Wordsworth in his
incomparable Ode, and I fervently address her with it--

"Forbode not any severing of our loves."

_To Sir Stafford Northcote, July 21._--I cannot withhold myself
from writing a line to assure you it is not my fault, but my
misfortune, that you are not my successor at Oxford. My desire or
impulse has for a good while, not unnaturally, been to escape from
the Oxford seat; not because I grudged the anxieties of it, but
because I found the load, added to other loads, too great. Could I
have seen my way to this proceeding, had the advice or had the
conduct of my friends warranted it, you would have had such notice
of it, as effectually to preclude your being anticipated. I mean
no disrespect to Mr. Hardy; but it has been a great pain to me to
see in all the circulars a name different from the name that
should have stood there, and that would have stood there, but for