612 TRAVEL IN EUROPE AND AMERICA. [1871, 



up here, and take up a vast deal of my time. But it 

 is enjoyable work, as they are the pick of a dozen out 

 of fifty or sixty of the preceding year. 



March 28, 1871. 



... I hope, with you, that the Domingo annexation 

 will break down. But Grant is working for Cuba 

 too, and that is worse than the other ; ignorant blacks 

 are better than Creole Spaniards to deal with, 



TO R. W. CHURCH. 



February 27, 1871. 



. . . There are so many things I wanted to write 

 about your church (for which it was shabby of me 

 not to remember and send you a contribution, in a 

 small way) and the reopening services of which you 

 sent us a newspaper account ; your " Anselm," which 

 we read aloud in our deliberate way, on successive 

 Sunday evenings, when not interrupted, and very 

 much enjoyed ; I think the later chapters most ; per- 

 haps because we got more interested as we went on, 

 perhaps, too, the narrative flows on with a more free 

 movement in the later than in the earlier chapters. 

 Then there is this wonderful German-French war, 

 which is only now closing, if it be the close, in such 

 bitter humiliation of the French as no Frenchman 

 could ever imagine possible, nor any but a German 

 contemplate without deep sorrow and pity : all their 

 hard measures of former generations meted out to 

 them again, to this one hapless generation, in a way 

 that till now it could never have dreamed of. For 

 long years France must play a secondary political 

 part, which of itself will be a bitter thing, we may 

 hope a wholesome thing ; and when with long care 



