Item 23 - Letter from [Harriet] Grote to Henry Sidgwick

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Declares that she has read the paper on the Sophists. Relates that she discussed the matter with Mr Jowett when he came to visit the previous Monday. Jowett admitted 'that G.G[rote] was right but will have it that "Sophist" carried, at that period, no dyslogistic meaning'. Reports that, since Sidgwick and Mrs Sidgwick's visit to her at Ridgeway, she has found another letter of M. Comte's from 1845, and offers to give him a copy of it. Mentions that she also neglected to show him 'a fine Autogr[aph] of A[ugustus] C[omte] - large hand - in flyleaf of L'ensemble du Positivisme 1848.' The last two pages of the latter work 'contain an urgent appeal to his followers to "keep him going", as the chief teacher of the Religion of Humanity.' Expresses her hope of seeing Sidgwick and Mrs Sidgwick again before she dies. Sends her thanks to Mrs Sidgwick 'for her little note'. Reports that she had a visit from George Darwin on the previous Sunday, who gave her Sidgwick's present address. Darwin informed her that he had been on a visit [with [F] Leveson Gower] to A[rthur] Balfour 'in the far north', in August. She expects Professor Alexander Bain and Benjamin Jowett to visit for a few days early in October.