1879 LETTERS g 



The following, to Mrs. Clifford, was called forth by a 

 hitch in respect to the grant to her of a Civil List pension 

 after the death of her husband : — 



4 Marlborough Place, July 19, 1879. 



My dear Lucy — I am just off to Gloucester to fetch M 



back, and I shall have a long talk with that sage little woman 

 over your letter. 



In the meanwhile keep quiet and do nothing. I feel the force 

 of what you say very strongly — so strongly, in fact, that I must 

 morally ice myself and get my judgment clear and cool before I 

 advise you what is to be done. 



I am very sorry to hear you have been so ill. For the 

 present dismiss the matter from your thoughts and give your 

 mind to getting better. Leave it all to be turned over in the 

 mind of that cold-blooded, worldly, cynical old fellow, who signs 

 himself — Your affectionate Pater. 



The last is to Mr. Edward Clodd, on receiving his book 

 Jesus of Nazareth. 



4 Marlborough Place, Abbey Road, N.W., 

 Dec. 21, 1879. 



My dear Mr. Clodd — I have been spending all this Sunday 

 afternoon over the book you have been kind enough to send me, 

 and being a swift reader, I have travelled honestly from cover 

 to cover. 



It is the book I have been longing to see; in spirit, matter 

 and form it appears to me to be exactly what people like myself 

 have been wanting. For though for the last quarter of a century 

 I have done all that lay in my power to oppose and destroy the 

 idolatrous accretions of Judaism and Christianity, I have never 

 had the slightest sympathy with those who, as the Germans say, 

 would " throw the child away along with the bath " — and when 

 I was a member of the London School Board I fought for the 

 retention of the Bible, to the great scandal of some of my 

 Liberal friends — who can't make out to this day whether I was 

 a hypocrite, or simply a fool on that occasion. 



But my meaning was that the mass of the people should not 

 be deprived of the one great literature which is open to them 

 — not shut out from the perception of their relations with the 

 whole past history of civilised mankind — not excluded from such 

 a view of Judaism and Jesus of Nazareth as that which at last 

 you have given us. 



