generous honor for what he thought good and honest work, however faulty,
his praise kindled--and his blame no less. He appreciated so fully
_your_ way of doing it; and his suggestion, alongside, of what would
have been _his_ way of doing it, was so stimulating--touched one with so
light a Socratean sting, and set a hundred thoughts on the alert. Of
this delightful critical art of his his letters to myself over many
years are one long illustration.

And now--"There is none like him--none!" The honeyed lips are silent and
the helping hand at rest.

With May appeared Mr. Gladstone's review--"the refined criticism of
_Robert Elsmere_"--"typical of his strong points," as Lord Bryce
describes it--certainly one of the best things he ever wrote. I had no
sooner read it than, after admiring it, I felt it must be answered. But
it was desirable to take time to think how best to do it. At the moment
my one desire was for rest and escape. At the beginning of June we took
our eldest two children, aged eleven and thirteen, to Switzerland for
the first time. Oh! the delight of Glion! with its hay-fields thick with
miraculous spring flowers, the "peak of Jaman delicately tall," and that
gorgeous pile of the Dent du Midi, bearing up the June heaven, to the
east!--the joy of seeing the children's pleasure, and the relief of the
mere physical rebound in the Swiss air, after the long months of strain
and sorrow! My son, a slip of a person in knickerbockers, walked over
the Simplon as though Alps were only made to be climbed by boys of
eleven; and the Defile of Gondo, Domo d'Ossola, and beautiful
Maggiore--they were all new and heavenly to each member of the party.
Every year now there was growing on me the spell of Italy, the historic,
the Saturnian land; and short as this wandering was, I remember, after
it was over, and we turned homeward across the St. Gothard, leaving