summer or winter. It is the chronic, not the acute ills of London
life which are real ills to me. I meant to have talked to you
again before I left home about New Zealand, but I could not find
a good opportunity. I do not think you will be surprised to hear
that I cannot give up my intention--though you may think me
wrong, you will believe that no cold-heartedness towards home has
assisted me in framing my resolution. Where or how we shall meet
on this side the grave will be arranged for us by a wiser will than
our own. To me, however strange and paradoxical it may sound,
this going to New Zealand is become a work of faith, and I cannot
but go through with it.

And later on when his plans are settled, he writes in exultation to his
eldest sister:

The weather is gusty and rainy, but no cheerlessness without can
repress a sort of exuberant buoyancy of spirit which is supplied
to me from within. There is such an indescribable blessedness in
looking forward to a manner of life which the heart and conscience
approve, and which at the same time satisfies the instinct for the
heroic and beautiful. Yet there seems little enough in a homely life
in a New Zealand forest; and indeed there is nothing in the thing
itself, except in so far as it flows from a principle, a faith.

And he goes on to speak in vague exalted words of the "equality" and
"brotherhood" to which he looks forward in the new land; winding up with
an account of his life in London, its daily work at the Colonial Office,
his walks, the occasional evenings at the opera where he worships Jenny
Lind, his readings and practisings in his lodgings. My poor father! He
little knew what he was giving up, or the real conditions of the life to