It has been truly said that no metaphysician ever felt the deficiency of language more than the grateful. I have met with much kindness from many persons, but never before was it so graciously accompanied with all that could increase its value to one of my, perhaps, peculiar temperament; and hence the warmth of my feelings. I hope and believe that I shall ever entertain as lively a sense of my obligations to you as I do at this moment. Wishing you health and every happiness, I remain, my dear Mr. Duffy, your obliged and faithful servant,
"Richd. Moore Stack."
Mr. Stack brought me a young kinsman of his, the Reverend David Moriarty, then professor in the Missionary College of which he speedily became the head, and finally an Irish bishop. Through trying and troubled times this gifted ecclesiastic never withdrew his friendship from me till we were separated by death.
Among the new recruits of the Nation at this time were several gifted women known to its readers as Speranza, Eva, Mary, and Thomasine. A selection from their correspondence would make a charming chapter, but this book threatens to be too big, and I can only make space for one note from the most gifted of them, which needs a liberal allowance from the reader for the perfervour commonly incident to a woman of genius:—
"34, Leeson Street, Monday.My dear Sir,—I return, with many thanks, the volume of Cromwell, which has been travelling about with me for the last four months, and shall feel much obliged for the two others when you are quite at leisure, though not even Carlyle can make this soulless iconoclast interesting. It is the only work of Carlyle's I have met with in which my heart does not go along with his words.
"I cannot forbear telling you, now the pen is in my hand, how deeply impressed I felt by your opening lecture to your club. It was the sublimest teaching, and the style so simple from its very sublimity—it seemed as if Truth passed directly from your heart to ours, without the aid of any medium—at
