'It will do you harm on the whole, but that cannot be helped, if you
have made up your mind that it is right. But you must be prepared
for unkind things said by those who know how closely we have been
united hitherto. The present crisis is, of course, life and death to
me. I shall win if I can, and if I cannot I will cultivate my
garden. I do not care for the leadership of a party which should
prove itself so fickle and so careless of national interests as to
sacrifice the unity of the Empire to the precipitate impatience of
an old man--careless of the future in which he can have no part--and
to an uninstructed instinct which will not take the trouble to
exercise judgment and criticism.

'I hope you have got well through your meeting to-night. I send this
by early post to-morrow before I can see the papers.

'Yours very truly,

'J. Chamberlain.'

'The meeting to which Chamberlain in his letter referred was that at
Preece's Riding School, in which I announced that I had succeeded in
inducing the Queen's Proctor to intervene.... The meeting was a very
fine one, and the next day Chamberlain wrote to congratulate me on
it and on my speech, and added: "Labouchere writes me that the
Government are at last alive to the fact that they cannot carry the
second reading without me, and that Mr. G. is going to give way. I
hope it is true, but I shall not believe it till he has made a
public declaration."'