t is made
still more plain by your printed letter, the tone and spirit
of which I greatly admire, without being able to recognize in
it any important fact or argument which had not passed through
my mind before I joined the Jamaica Committee.

Thus there is nothing for it but for us to agree to differ,
each supporting his own side to the best of his ability and
respecting his friend's freedom as he would his own, and doing
his best to remove all petty bitterness from that which is
at bottom one of the most important constitutional battles in
which Englishmen have for many years been engaged.

If you and I are strong enough and wise enough, we shall be
able to do this, and yet preserve that love for one another
which I value as one of the good things of my life.

That public controversy could be conducted without loss of friendship
he showed also in debate with Herbert Spencer. Their private
encounters in argument were often very lively, for Spencer was a most
tenacious disputant, to whom argument was as the breath of life.

It was probably after a meeting of the _x_ Club, in the freedom of
which debate was likely to be of the liveliest, that Spencer wrote
accusing himself of losing his temper, and received the following
reply:--

Your conscience has been treating you with the most extreme
and unjust severity.

I recollect you _looked_ rather savage at one point in our
discussion, but I do assure you that you committed no overt
act of ferocity; and if you had, I think I should have fully
deserved it for joining in the ferocious onslaught we all made
upon you.

What your sins may be in this line to other folk I don't know,
but, so far as I am concerned, I assure you I have often said
that I know no one who takes aggravated opposition better than
yourself, and that I have not a few times been ashamed of the
extent to which I have tried your patience.

So you see that you have what the Buddhists call a stock of
accumulated merit, _envers moi_; and if you should ever feel
inclined to "d---- my eyes," you can do so and have a balance
left.

Seriously, my old friend, you must not think it necessary to
apologize to me about any such matters, but believe me (d--ned
or und--d),--Ever yours faithfully....

If he was comrade and brother among the friends of his own generation,
he was a livin