CORRESPONDENCE, 1867-70. 399 



you come to look closely at it. I cannot make out whether they 1869. 



have a super religion or not. I do not know how to fill up 



the word. Now I tolerate everything except passing off one 

 thing under the name of another. There are people who can 

 detect in the foundation of Christianity a third alternative, 



* Super- or Imposture.' I cannot. I am content they should, 



but I want them to be explicit. I am very much afraid they 

 want a common worship with the above question left open. No ! 

 there is no objection to leaving it open if people will, but they do 

 not want it openly open, but secretly open, under a cloak of 

 some indefinite pretension of divine origin. I hope you will 

 follow up. 



Yours sincerely, 



A. DE MORGAN. 



(The only letters to friends after this time that have 

 come into my possession are two to Sir John Herschel, in 

 my husband's own handwriting, the first bearing date 

 June 25, 1870. In this he says, ' I am creeping along, and 1870. 

 shall get right about as soon as the blessed St. Alcuin's snail 

 got to dinner. It is one of the pleasant problems in the 

 works of that holy man that the sparrow asked the snail 

 to dinner at a league distance. Now the snail moved half 

 an inch a day. How long, the Saint asked, will it take him 

 to get to dinner ? ' The second is in an extremely feeble 

 hand, merely describing his own state. Sir John himself 

 died within the year. In his letter to me on receipt of 

 mine telling him of my husband's death, he wrote, 'I 

 have been expecting as much. The last letter I received 

 showed me too clearly that the lamp was flickering in the 

 socket, and it is consoling to know that the end was so 

 peaceful and so painless, and so full of hope. Looking 

 back on onr long friendship, I do not find a single point on 

 which we failed to sympathise ; and I recall many occa- 

 sions on which his sound judgment and excellent feeling 

 have sustained and encouraged me. Many and very 

 distinct indications tell me that I shall not be long after 

 him ; and I can only hope that my own end may be such 



