to one human family, I shall not be misunderstood by you if I say that there is reason to fear breakers ahead. The Irish ivy is overgrowing our walls, it is becoming yearly of more weight in our national councils,—at all events, our foreign policy; and the end can only be a rupture between Jonathan and Paddy on the one side and John Bull on the other, unless the three can manage to hit off some sensible arrangement to the satisfaction of all. I have a notion of my own that the question is not one of simple politics; its Celtic element is indispensable to the solidarity of the British race, and if that be alienated, the backbone of national power will have been taken out. But I am tired of politics: there has been little else talked in my hearing since you and I parted.
‘A bad sign of the times is the extravagant taste displayed by the new fashions in ladies’ dresses, which burlesque the form divine more than ever. And yet the same people who submit to be made such guys of in sacrifice to their only real deity, La Mode, are, or pretend to be, shocked at beautiful studies in the nude, whether in painting or sculpture. Upon the whole, I am driven to doubt whether it would not be better for society that all women should be openly licentious, than be thus strait-laced, prudish, and hypocritical. However, the point will perhaps be settled without your or my intervention; we can but wait and see, perhaps not wait very long.
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