lessons as are being taught you. If the wonderful trials of
Apostles, Saints and Martyrs have all meant a love in like
proportion wonderful, then, at this early period of your life,
your lot has something in common with theirs, and you will bear
upon you life-long marks of a great and peculiar dispensation
which may and should lift you very high. Certainly you two who are
still one were the persons whom in all the vast circuit of London
life those near you would have pointed to as exhibiting more than
any others the promise and the profit of BOTH worlds. The call
upon you for thanksgiving seemed greater than on any one--you will
not deem it lessened now. How eminently true it is of her that in
living a short she fulfilled a long time. If Life is measured by
intensity, hers was a very long life--and yet with that rich
development of mental gifts, purity and singleness made her one of
the little children of whom and of whose like is the Kingdom of
Heaven. Bold would it indeed be to say such a being died
prematurely. All through your life, however it be prolonged, what
a precious possession to you she will be. But in giving her to
your bodily eye and in taking her away the Almighty has specially
set His seal upon you. To Peace and to God's gracious mercy let us
heartily, yes, cheerfully, commend her. Will you let Sir Charles
and Lady Tennant and all her people know how we feel with and for
them?

Ever your affec.

W. E. GLADSTONE.

Matthew Arnold sent me this poem because Jowett told him I said it
might have been written for Laura: