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(Place of writing not indicated.)—Thanks her for her long letter. Discusses arrangements for going to a play, and refers to his negotiations about the house. Mrs Sitwell has invited them to tea. Points out that they only need to understand each other to agree on what is important, and refers to his loneliness since losing ‘the only mind that had really grown up with my own’ (Crotch). Discusses in detail his views on Christianity.

(This letter was written some time between Crotch’s death on 16 June 1874 and Clifford's marriage on 7 Apr. 1875. The Sunday lecture referred to may have been ‘Body and Mind’, read before the Sunday Lecture Society on 1 Nov. 1874.)

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Transcript

20 pages! you sweet child—and a little bit over—all along of my telling you about my Sunday talks. First, thank you, darling, for sending me the Gibbon; though Sir Fred would not have minded waiting till I have taken my house, and then there would have been less to carry across. Next, I have secured miladi and Moss—Walter being away at his sweetheart’s—to go to the play with us tomorrow; and we are to dine there at 6 if I telegraph to that effect tomorrow morning after seeing you: because, as I said, uomo propone, donna dispone. Also I have written to the agent that my medical adviser Dr Corfield will come with me to inspect the house on Thursday, and asked if in the event of my taking it for 3 or more years the proprietor will either decrease the rent or let my holding commence at Xtmas. We must arrange somehow that you go and see your aunt while we elect members from 5 to 6, and then we must meet again somewhere. Have we made any arrangement about Sunday afternoon? Mrs Sitwell wants us to go to tea with her after my lecture. {1} She says she has met you and apologizes for the irregularity of the invitation, but will make a formal call first if you wish it. She has been working like a slave at the working women’s college and other excellent works.

Your letter made me very happy, darling; it is quite clear we only want to understand each other to agree on everything that is important; as for mere speculative opinions it is far better to have something left to discuss. You can’t conceive how lonely I have felt since I lost the only mind that had really grown up with my own; we never agreed upon results, but we always used the same method with the same object, which is much better. {2} It is only lately that I have seen other faces near me through the fog; have recognized how vast is the army that is all going the same way, and how rapidly the enemy is disappearing, though he does not know it. Now you won’t have time to read this tomorrow morning, but still I shall talk over one or two points.

First, a very small one. Your theory about the unconfessed feeling that the divine origin of Xt may be true, is not so far as I know a fact. It is of course very hard to realize that other people do actually honestly disbelieve what we believe ourselves; but no man that I know who has rejected Xtianity on moral grounds (and I know few men who have not) ever shews the slightest sign of such a doubt as you speak of, though I have had most confidential talks with a great many. There is, as you say, a vagueness about the character of Xt, a want of some definite action which can be called good or bad, which makes the ideal of him as exceedingly good to be more persistent when one has got it. But cutting away the impossible stories, and supposing some basis of truth in the healing of nervous diseases by strong excitement, one can say of him a little less than of Buddha, a little more than of Chrishna; nothing at all approaching to the definite heroism of Socrates, or Spinoza, or Mazzini. Buddha was an actual prince who left his throne to study the woes of poor people and find remedies for them; Chrishna stole cows, instead of killing pigs, that belonged to other people. These two claimed, like Christ, a supernatural mission, and worked miracles according to the earliest accounts we have. Why should I, a Teuton, hanker after one of these foreigners rather than the other? the Hindus are nearer to me by blood than the Jew; one has as many, the other twice as many followers, as he.

This is for me, who have ceased to believe in the supernatural goodness of Jesus. I fought hard for it; perhaps now have not courage to bear another such wrench as the losing of it gave me. But for you, darling, who still have that belief, keep it; a person of whom we really know so little is perhaps the safest sort of figure to clothe with your ideal. Only make up your mind that an increasing number of thoughtful people do sincerely think that person unworthy of your ideal.

But now let us admit that the rule of life which you read into the Gospels (as my friend Syed Ahmed Khan {3} reads all manner of enlightened things into the Koran) is really there; and even that Jesus is still alive and can hear you and help you carry it out. Then you say “won’t it be a good thing if some good is done for his sake that would not be done for the sake of ordinary men, out of sympathy and comradeship? And is it not quite natural and likely that he should have set apart certain men to preach this same doctrine, and have given them some of the same wonderful power?”

Here are two sets of things. 1. An excellent rule of life, and devotional affection for a certain person. 2. The substitution of the theological for the social motive, and the honouring of a set of men supposed to possess magical powers. The latter seem to follow naturally from the former; are they not then right things to do?

If the experiment had never been made, one might well answer, let us try. But the experiment has been made, at the cost of centuries of blood and fire and misery. If you love your brother for the sake of somebody else who is very likely to damn your brother, it soon comes to burning him alive for his soul’s health. That doesn’t seem likely, but it’s an observed fact. No Christian ecclesiastical body has ever had the power to persecute without using it. (It was once objected to me that some Quakers in Pennsylvania had the chance of persecuting their Indian servants and didn’t. But the Quakers have no clergy.) Before the clergy were recognized by the state they had destroyed the national sentiment all over the empire, and had sapped the foundations of social life with monasticism and the “theological motive.” Afterwards they got the hospitals suppressed and the physicians banished; substituting places where a martyr’s toe was brought to cure you, in a silver box. They shut up the philosophical & scientific schools. They they quarelled†. Ten million men were killed in the religious wars of Justinian and by the plagues which the relics were unable to stop. They suppressed all freedom of thought and therefore all progress. They respected not even the name of truth; for those frauds were called “pious” whose object was the honour of the Church. They reduced all Europe to a black night of barbarism which Greece had not known for two thousand years. And then when the light came, when the Teutons rose against her crimes and the Arabs exposed her falsehoods, the Church fought desperately over every inch of ground against the new civilization that was growing up; not only in Catholic but in Protestant countries. Even now the clergy howl against every new truth that is discovered, because the law will let them do nothing worse. They hinder the education of children, except in their own formulæ, knowing well that a straight conscience and a free-grown intellect will neither believe in their doctrines nor approve their precepts. There is the result of a fairly long experiment on the theological motive and the sacerdotal principle. If you put your hand in the fire and burn it tomorrow, and somebody comes on Thursday and says “see how nice and warm the fire is when your hand is outside; don’t you think it will be nicer and warmer if you put it in?” would you follow that person’s advice? The priesthood has destroyed one civilization. It has just failed to strangle another in its birth; and it is the bounden duty of every honest man to see that it shall never have another chance.

Well now, suppose that Christ is responsible for this; that he did knowingly let loose the Xtian clergy upon Europe. Then I say that no amount of diligence in preaching the Rabbis’ good precepts, no cure of some hundred or so paralytics and madmen in Palestine, can outweigh the atrocity of that awful crime. But if he is really alive now, was innocent, as I believe, of making priests, and represents your ideal; do you think his indignation is less against the “generation of vipers” than it was at Jerusalem? The language is strong, perhaps; the men are good in many respects, well-meaning; they only profess a little magic. All the more should our blood boil against the Institution that puts good men to such vile uses.

So, when our souls look back to thee
They sicken, seeing against thy side,
Too foul to speak of or to see
The leprous likeness of a bride,
Whose kissing lips through his lips grown
Leave their God rotten to the bone. {4}

There’s a sermon for you! Poor little thing, there is one comfort, that you won’t read it. Farewell, my own child; I shall see you at 11 tomorrow.

Willi.

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{1} The lecture was perhaps ‘Body and Mind’, read before the Sunday Lecture Society on 1 November 1874.

{2} Frederick Pollock (Lectures and Essays, i. 16) identified these words as referring to G. R. Crotch, who died at Philadelphia on 16 June 1874.

{3} Clifford presumably met Ahmad Khan when he visited England in 1869 and 1870.

{4} This is the thirtieth stanza of Swinburne’s poem ‘Before a Crucifix’.

† Sic.

33 Woodsome Road, Highgate Road, N.W.—Communicates the London Dialectical Society's regret at the death of Professor Clifford.

(Letter-head of the Society. Signed as Honorary Secretary.)

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Transcript

33 Woodsome Rd
Highgate Rd
NW
March 24/79

Madam

It is my mournful duty to send you a copy of the following resolution which was unanimously passed at a meeting of the Society held on the 19th inst.

“That this Society desires to express its deep regret at the loss sustained by the Nation through the untimely death of Profr Clifford the honored president of this Society: and tenders its sincere condolence to Mrs Clifford in her sad bereavement.”

I am
Yours very respectfully
Robt G. Hember
Hon Sec

Mrs Clifford

Malaga.—Lucy has been seasick. Discusses the religious situation in France, and deplores the effect of the Church on the character of the Spanish people. They have no definite news about the war.

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Malaga.—Saturday 15th July—1876

My dearest Fred—You can’t think how glad we were to get our letters the other night. I thought my poor child would have gone crazy when we were kept rolling about in mid mediterranean and missed the boat from Almeria here. She got so weak from want of food and sickness that she fancied all sorts of things, and dreamt she had to leave the baby at 3 minutes to 9 on the 7th of July. The only thing she would touch at last was a couple of boiled eggs, because it seemed improbable that the filthy Spaniards could have got at the insides. The Pall Mall budget {1} was a great boon, and now an Englishman who feeds at the hotel has got me into the Círculo Malagueño for 8 days; it is a decent club and has a good many papers. I was amused at Greenwood’s remarks about Clémenceau and the religious irreconcileables—they are the pink of propriety and circumspection. He is no doubt right so far as he goes in calling it an “exaggeration” to attribute all our misfortunes to the Catholic Church; one might as well say the whole of our mortality comes from small-pox. But he is wrong in thinking that French liberals in the country are still to be “frightened” by statements of that sort; they are made daily, with more force and circumstance, by at least one paper in every town which is large enough to have a paper at all, and the Church is associated even in the minds of women with intrigues and conspiracies not merely against abstractions like liberty and the rights of man but against very present and concrete freedoms and conveniences of life. The “ordre moral” made itself thoroughly hated in its 3 years. There is some law which I don’t understand requiring authorization by the mayor of dancing at private parties exceeding a certain number. This authorization was given in the villages to friends of the clergy but refused to Republicans—and similar inconceivably petty tyrannies were practised everywhere. Hence the importance of the new municipal law. I believe that of 12 million adult men in France, 8 at least would have felt personal pleasure in kicking M. Buffet. At Avignon, a centre of reaction, I was buying a paper and asked if it was republican. “Ça sent beaucoup le clergé” said the old woman with a wry face and a shrug. “On n’observe plus que les fêtes du peuple” said the waiter at Marseilles when I asked if the band would play on ascension-day. The same thing holds throughout Algeria, except at Oran which is more than half Spanish. As for this country, I think it requires to be colonized by the white man. The savages would gradually die out in his presence. One sees here how God makes man through the instrumentality of his Holy Church, when He gets him all to Himself for some centuries. And a sickening sight it is. The mark of a degraded race is clear upon their faces; only the children have a look of honesty and intelligence, a fact which is also observed in the case of the negro, and is a case of Von Bär’s law that the development of the individual is an epitome of that of the race. It is instructive also to contrast the politeness fossilized in their language with the brutal coarseness of their present manners—of which I may sometime tell you what I will not soil paper with. I think it possible that one Spaniard may have told me the truth: he had lost so many teeth that he left out all his consonants, and I could not understand a word he said. When we went on board the Rosario at 11 p.m. the boatmen stood in the way to keep us from the ladder, and threatened us for the sake of another peseta over the regular charge. The steward tried to cheat me over the passage-money, but I appealed to the authorities who came on board at Malaga and got the money back. (There are many strangers here). Then he made another grab in the matter of our breakfasts, in the face of a tariff hung up in the cabin. It is tiring to have to think that every man you meet is ready to be your enemy out of pure cussedness. I don’t understand why one is expected to be polite and reticent about the distinction between the mixture of Hebrew piety and Roman universalism attributed to Jesus and Paul, and the ecclesiastical system which is only powerful over men’s lives in Spain, the middle and south of Italy, and Greece—countries where the population consists chiefly of habitual thieves and liars who are willing opportunely to become assassins for a small sum. I suppose it frightens people to be told that historical Xtianity as a social system invariably makes men wicked where it has full swing. Then I think the sooner they are well frightened the better. {2} We have no definite news here about the war. How would it do to add Hungary and German Austria to Germany, and make Austria into a Slav state with capital at Constantinople? The Hungarian freethinkers would balance the Austrian ultramontanes, and Russia would be well out of it. There is an Arab proverb that “where the Turk has trod the grass never grows”—but a good deal of ploughing and irrigation might efface his footsteps. Best love to Georgie & the little kid. I am now convinced that we are really the same person. À la libertad.

Thy
Willi

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{1} The Pall Mall Budget was a weekly paper, founded on 3 October 1868, containing a selection of articles from the Pall Mall Gazette. Cf. CLIF A4/14.

{2} ‘As for this country . . . the better.’ This passage has been marked off in pencil, square brackets being placed around the two sentences ‘One sees here how God … sight it is.’

Trinity Lodge, Cambridge.—Explains why he has not yet subscribed for the relief of Clifford's widow, and asks Pollock to convey the enclosed sum to her anonymously.

(With an envelope.)

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Trinity Lodge, Cambridge
28 Mar 1881

Dear Frederick Pollock

When your father asked me some time ago to subscribe to a Memorial or rather—for it was in his life time—a public Testimonial to Prof. Clifford, I declined to do so, for reasons which I still think valid. I think it was after his death that I said I would subscribe for the relief of his widow, for whom I feel a sincere compassion. If I have failed to do so, it was not because I had changed my mind in the matter, but simply because the Memorial was still designed {1} in honour of her husband & contained words to which I could not affix my name. I wish now to redeem whatever pledge I may have given, & beg that if you think the poor lady will accept the sum enclosed you will kindly convey it to her—without mentioning my name.

You will judge how far this is possible without offending her delicacy. It seemed to me possible that she might not disdain to receive a little additional help from one who had as much admiration for her late husband’s talents as he had disapproval of his philosophical opinions.

Believe me
Yours very truly
W. H Thompson

[Direction on envelope:] F. Pollock Esq | 48 Gt Cumberland Place | London | W

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The envelope was postmarked at Cambridge and London, W., on 28 March 1881, and has been marked ‘Master of Trinity | for L.C.’

{1} Reading uncertain.

Washington Irving Hotel, Granada.—Modifies his previous remarks about the Spanish people. Describes a case of murder at Granada, and refers to the prevalence of violence in the province as a whole. It is expected that there will be a revolution soon. Gives a brief opinion of the Alhambra. Asks about Pollock’s work, and suggests he translate Spinoza.

(With an envelope.)

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Transcript

Washington Irving Hotel. Granada. Thursday Aug 3.

You are quite right, and one ought not to despair of the republic. These folk are kind and rather pleasant when one is en rapport with them and they have a deal of small talk. We found a jolly old couple one morning when we were coming back from a hot walk in the Vega of Almeria (vega = cultivated plain surrounding a town, which feeds it); we asked for some milk which they had not, but they gave us a rifresco of syrup and cold water, not at all bad, and the old woman showed Lucy all over her house while the man smoked a cigarette with me. Lucy’s passport is the baby’s portrait, with which she gains the hearts of all the women and most of the men. What made it more surprising was that they took us for Jews. Wilkinson, our consul at Malaga, who has been here with his wife and daughter (awfully nice people and cheered us up no end), says that the country people are better than those in the towns. But although we have been nearly a fortnight at Granada, only one murder has been even attempted, so far as I know, within 100 yards of the hotel. A had been making love to B’s wife, and so she was instructed to walk with him one evening under these lovely trees. She took occasion to borrow his swordstick and stuck him in the back with it while her husband fired at his head with a revolver. One ball grazed his temple, and another went in at his cheek and out of his mouth carrying away some teeth & lip. He came round to the spanish hotel opposite and was tied up on the doorstep; they dared not let him come in because the police are so troublesome about these affairs. The defence was that A was a republican and had been a Protestant; so you see B’s love of order was such that he did not think jealousy a sufficient justification. Wilkinson had just received a report of the last quarter of /75; in those three months there had been only a few more than 400 murder cases in the whole province of Granada. The hot weather seems to try them; a paragraph in the Malaga paper, headed Estadístics de Domingo 30, gives 15 cases of shooting and stabbing last Sunday in Malaga, but only 5 appear to have been fatal. This is not assassination, but is merely an accompaniment of their somewhat boisterous conviviality; they get drunk together and then draw their knives and go in for a hacking match. It is not even quarrelling in all cases; in Granada the other day three men shut themselves up and fought till they were all dead. They may, to be sure, have disliked each other mutually all round, but I am inclined to think it was a party of pleasure rather than of business. They do not attack strangers in this way (i.e. with knives and revolvers) unless, of course, there is a reason for it; but when anything offends their delicate sense of propriety one cannot expect them not to shew it a little. Thus they threw stones in Seville & Cordova at a lady who is now staying here, because she went into the street by herself, and they do not approve of that. I am afraid my Norfolk jacket hurts their feelings in some way, but they have been very forbearing, and have only stoned me once, and then did not hit me. Another time a shopkeeper set his dog at me, but although this was rather alarming with temp. 92° in the shade, it must have been meant as a joke, for Spanish dogs only bite cripples of their own species—except, indeed, the great mastiffs that are kept to bait bulls that won’t fight. Of course one is not so insular as to think there is only one way of giving a hearty welcome to the stranger; and the “’eave ’arf a brick at ’im” method is improved by variety. What generally happens is this; the grown people stop suddenly at the sight of you, and wheel round, staring with open mouths until you are out of sight; while the children, less weighted with the cares of this world, form a merry party and follow at your heels. When you go into a shop to buy anything, they crowd round the door so that it is rather difficult to get out. The beggars come inside and pull you by the arm while you are talking to the shopman. I have invented a mode of dealing with the crowd of children; it is to sit on a chair in the shop door and tickle their noses with the end of my cane. I fear that universal sense of personal dignity which is so characteristic of this country is in some way injured by my familiarity; the more so as it cannot be resented, for the other end of my cane is leaded, and I do not try it on in a macadamized street. Anyhow they go a little way off. In Malaga the people seemed more accustomed to the sight of strangers, and contented themselves with shouting abusive epithets. {1} It seems our dear Castelar will have another chance soon; everybody says that there will be a revolution before long, as the Queen will be at Santander before you get this, so that Alfonso may be shot before we are out of the country. If so, the Barcelona papers will be amusing. No doubt the whores of Seville are making ready to give a right royal welcome to the veteran head of their profession; the question is, will she get so far? If Castelar returns to power, I hope among other little reforms that he will prevent the post-office officials from stealing letters for the sake of the stamps on them; it is a great interruption to correspondence and must be a laborious way of earning money. One of them was caught in Malaga because a packet of letters which he had thrown into the sea was accidentally fished up; but he was shielded from punishment by the authorities.

We are very happy here, with a Swiss cook and an Italian land-lord; there are some English, Germans, and Italians staying over the way, and in a few minutes we can be among the memorials of a better time. I am too tired now to talk about the Alhambra, but it seems to me to want that touch of barbarism which hangs about all Gothic buildings. One thinks in a Cathedral that since somebody has chosen to make it, it is no doubt a very fine thing in its way; but that being a sane man one would not build anything like it for any reasonable purpose. But the Alhambra gives one the feeling that one would wish to build something very like it, mutatis mutandis, and the more like it the more reasonable the purpose was. Moreover I think it must be beautiful, if anything ever was; but then I have no taste.

Will Marcus Aurelius be out in September? {2} I wish you had been going to lecture for Domville on Spinoza. Why not make a new CCenary {3} English translation, and let me put in a short dissertation on modes and on modern ontology? I think MacM. would like it much, and philosophy is popular just now. Best love & kisses to Georgie & Alice. I am very glad you are going to Devonshire; my small sisters have become thorough connoisseuses of babies.

Thy
Willi

[Direction on envelope:] F. Pollock Esqr | 12 Bryanston Street | W. | London. | [In the top left-hand corner:] [Inglate]rra {4}
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The envelope was postmarked at Alhambra, Hotel Washington Irving, Granada; at Granada on 3 Aug. 1876; at Estafeta de Cambio, Madrid, on 7 Aug.; and at London, W., on 9 Aug.

{1} ‘But although we have been … epithets.’ This passage has been marked off in pencil.

{2} An article by Pollock entitled ‘Marcus Aurelius and the Stoic Philosophy’ was published in Mind in January 1879, but the connection between that article and the work mentioned here is unclear.

{3} i.e. bicentenary. Spinoza died in 1677.

{4} Parts of the envelope have been torn off, including part of this word and the stamp.

Oakley House, Caversham Hill, near Reading.—Thanks her for her kind letter, and asks whether she might pay her a visit on Saturday.

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Oakley House, Caversham Hill, nr Reading

My dear Mrs Clifford,

So many thanks for your dear, kind letter. May I come in and see you very early next Saturday? Will ten be too early. There are so many calls to be made that it is difficult to fix on a more convenient time. But if my coming, for an hour at that time would put you out at all please send me a card by return, and kindly say what hour that morning is the earliest that will suit you.

Pray do not trouble to write if I may come at ten.

With much love,
Ever yours affectionately,
Ellen M. Watson

Hotel Washington Irving, Granada.—On the 15th they leave for Cordova, Alicante, and Barcelona. They are ‘quite mad about everything Moorish’. Refers to the Pollocks’ forthcoming visit to Exeter, and discusses their children.

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Hotel Washington Irving
Granada. Spain.—
4th August 76

My dear Georgie

The old man has written all the news this time. We leave here on the 15th for Cordova, stay there a day or two & then depart for Alicante & Barcelona but shall not stay long at either place so I hardly know our next address. I should so like to know what the babies say to each other. Do make them rub noses & kiss each other. Of course they will be delighted to see you at Exeter & Alice will receive much attention.—We are very happy here & quite mad about everything Moorish. I often think what terrible people we shall be to ask to dine when we return for if we only get a chance we talk about the Moors by the yard & here we argue & talk together & read up about them to such an extent that there will be no contradicting us on any point soon. The old man won’t get rid of his cough. he has seen two Drs but they neither seem to think him worse.

Ethel’s nose was a source of great anxiety to me for a long time. But I am assured that a baby’s nose is always doubtful—Mamma says mine was flat. It is quite the reverse now, so I should make myself easy about Alice.—I do hope you’ll have a nice time at Clovelly. You must want a change. Do tell me how Ethel looks, they will tell you where to write at Exeter if we have not told you ourselves. I have no time for more. Much love to you both and to the sweet thing.

Your affectionate
Lucy

24 Bryanston Street, W.—Discusses the Cliffords’ health and movements. The doctors do not think that Willi should return to England yet. She and Fred think of coming to join them, perhaps with the children. Gives news of their present activities and engagements.

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24 Bryanston Street W
June 13./78

Dearest Lucy

A great many thanks for 2 letters from Malta & Genoa w[hic]h I got the day before yesterday, & for the others from Malta w[hic]h I could not acknowledge as we had no address. We were thankful that Malta seemed to suit Willi & that you fell in with pleasant friends. It was a great pity that you had an accident & were laid up; how did it happen? I do hope you are quite right again. I hope you took your journey to Lugano very very quietly and that you will soon establish yourselves comfortably at Monte Generoso. Fred wrote to you yesterday to tell you of his interview with Dr Clark. He said that nothing he sh[oul]d like better than to order you home in August or so, it would be so good for Willi morally, but that unless he really improves in the next month it would be most imprudent. Both he & Dr Beatty agree that in his present state nothing wd be worse for Willi than an English climate. You know Fred & I have set our hearts upon joining you wherever you are when the time comes for our holiday, at the Rieder Alp or in Yorkshire or Scotland & I sometimes think that we might easily manage to bring out both our kids so as to enjoy them altogether—I mean Ethel & Alice & perhaps C. Alice too. We shd not bring Alice if we cd not bring Ethel too. Don’t you think it would make Willi happier to stay abroad if he were to see his little girl & have her for about 4 weeks? Everybody goes abroad in August & if you were to come home you would find all your friends scattered. We have been staying with Mrs Ritchie near Windsor for Whitsuntide, & they & the Douglas Freshfields are all thinking of going to the Rieder Alp with great enthusiasm. The Tyndalls would be close by at the Bel Alp. So that on the whole I cannot help thinking you would enjoy yourselves more in Switzerland in August than in Great Britain, & that I suspect would be the only month Willi would be allowed home.

The W. Colliers are in London for a week & ask after you. Also we have some Dutch people over here to entertain. We did so enjoy our holiday in the country & London feels most dreadfully stuffy & stale on coming back. It is a joy to breathe in the country. Fred will have told you about Walter’s lecture at the R.I. They went to St Julians for their holiday & the parents are in Paris. I am a great deal better, in fact quite well. We are to take our Dutchman & woman to the R.I. tomorrow to hear Prof. Dewar on the Liquefaction of Gases. An interesting article in Mind next month will be “An infant’s Progress in Language”—i.e. Alice’s, done by her dada. I do hope you will be happy at Monte Generoso & meet friends. Best love to yr old man & you. Ever dear Lucy yr affectionate

GHP.

Monte Generoso (Mendrisio, Switzerland).—It is very cold. Gives an account of their travels since they left Malta. Refers to a review by Tait. Hopes that the news from Belgium ‘has given all the cardinals the stomach-ache’.

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Transcript

Monte Generoso June 16/78

My dearest Fred—Here we are at length, you see; if my writing is illegible, it is not that I tremble, but that I am cold. We certainly did not expect to be sent on an arctic expedition without any lime-juice. It isn’t the temperature that matters so much as the damp, and the house being built without fireplaces. I will however recount all the misfortunes that have happened to us since we left Malta. I supposed that a French boat would be better than an Italian, and so took passage in a Fraysinet; being also tempted by the prospect of going straight to Genoa instead of calling at a lot of hot and malarious Italian towns. The boat was small, crowded and uncomfortable, but would not have been very bad but for the odour of an unfortunate cripple in the next cabin. (If I get confused, remember that it is sunday† morning, and some excellent folks are clacking away to A.G. {1} just outside). We got to Genoa in time for an early fast train which would have taken us to Milan in comfortable time for lunch; but the sanitary authority chose to come at 8 instead of 6 to set us free, for which the Superior Being said he ought to have 4 dozen on the spot. The Superior Being was Major Dudley North, aide-de-camp to the late Gov[erno]r of Malta. After we had given him that name (which he thoroughly deserves) I overheard a little frenchman saying “ce grand anglais n’est pas fait comme les autres parce que les autres sont plus petits”. The S.B. was exceedingly kind to us. He said no people were so obstinate as women and invalids, and it was necessary that some one should give orders and be responsible. He and Mr Magistrate-and-Collector Sharpe, (an old maid on his way home from India, just like Jack when he first comes in in “a terrible villain”) travelled with us as far as Alessandria, and took care of us. Then the government contrived that we should arrive at Milan at half past nine instead of half past seven, and the Lord provided an Italian nobleman for the last two hours who insisted on keeping all the windows open at his end of the carriage. Of course I caught cold being thoroughly worn out by getting up at 6 for the sanitary who didn’t come, and an 8 hours journey. We were at Milan during those damned Xtian festivals so that everything was shut up and Brioschi was away at Rome. Our arrival in Switzerland was the signal for a rainy season which has been bottled up for months. We had to wait a day for the rain at Mendrisio, where we were told that the mule ride up here was very fatiguing[,] especially for those unaccustomed to the animal. So I was persuaded to be carried up in a chair like this. [Alongside is a sketch of a seated man being carried in a litter by two others.] After a little while one learns a peculiar trick of holding on, and then it is not quite so bad. Lucy was on a mule with a stumpy tail, and had the umbrellas and wraps strapped on behind her, so that she looked like Dian stalking to the chase. [Alongside is a sketch of a rear view of a person seated on a mule, with ‘umbrellas and wraps’ strapped behind.] The road is sheltered until the last few steps, when one comes on the open space where the hotel is. That gave me a violent toothache at once. They say Addington Symonds has just been here for a month, and derived enormous benefit; but I suppose God sharpened the wind to the shorn lamb, as usual. The people here can’t remember it so cold as it became yesterday. I went to bed with a jorum of arrowroot gruel, strongly flavoured with brandy, and Georgie’s hot-water-bottle which was an infinite comfort.

Just got your letter and delighted at the prospect it holds out. I saw a proof of Tait’s review which Macmillans sent me—I would rather Clerk Maxwell had done it, because he has more than one idea; Tait divides all mathematical books into those which are friendly or not friendly to the study of quaternions. We have always been on the best of terms; my review of the unseen universe {2} was entirely complimentary to him and Balfour Stewart, and only used the book as a peg on which to hang shots at other things—(good metaphor—wants working up). I am very much better for the news from Belgium, and hope it has given all the cardinals the stomach-ache. The torpedo is protected from sardines: he carries an oil-box in which he packs them when captured, and in this way he pays his way. Love to Georgie & Alice, with many kisses, from

Thy
Willi {3}

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{1} i.e. Almighty God. Cf. the second postscript to CLIF A4/13b.

{2} The Unseen Universe, by Balfour Stewart and P. G. Tait (1875). Clifford’s response to this book was published in the Fortnightly Review (new series, vol. xvii, pp. 776-93) and reprinted in Lectures and Essays (vol. i, pp. 228-53).

{3} Reading uncertain. Probably ‘Willi’ altered from ‘Willy’.

(Monte Generoso, Mendrisio, Switzerland.)—It is very cold. Discusses Willi’s health. Yesterday he was introduced to a group of people as a celebrated atheist.

(Undated.)

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Transcript

Oh my beloved Fred & Georgie why are we to be frozen to death? This is the coldest most shivery chatter-your-teeth sort of place you can possibly imagine & yet we hear it is the great thing & best new dodge for consumption. J. Addington Symonds who is very far gone indeed has been here some weeks getting cured & has now gone to a still higher & colder place. Willi is not any worse than he was at Como, & his appetite is pretty fair & that’s the best report I can give. I must tell you that though he was very tired & ill getting from Como to Mendrisio, the moment he got into Switzerland he looked brighter blinked his dear blue eyes, spotted a pretty girl, & said he felt better for being on Republican soil.—Yesterday at Mendrisio a nice looking man was very civil to me & made up to me for some time. {1} I thought it was all on my own account, for I looked very nice, till he took me on the side & with a little apology all in a stage whisper asked me if my husband was the Prof Clifford who had dropped on to Elam. {2}—When I had told him yes he left me to my fate, {3} collected his party together & presented them to Willi with great pomp & ceremony. We think he may have been Cook’s agent & may charge his folk a little more for having introduced them to a first class Atheist. The food here is very good, {3} the place is very lovely, but for the cold we sh[oul]d be in good quarters. Willi was so thankful for the hot water bottle (Georgie gave him) last night. He had 4 men to bring him up (he has only drawn two) in the dandy chair he looked like a Guy Fawkes, altogether we made up a brave & beautiful sight.

Your letter has just come, & the post goes out at the same time so I can’t say more. The old man is a shade better if anything I think. Goodbye dears we long to see you & shall pimp {4} when we do—post going

always
Your affectionate
Lucy

So glad about Walter’s lecture.

Can’t write well because of the praying and singing folk 20 yards off. {5}

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{1} Full stop supplied.

{2} This is the apparent reading, but the meaning is unclear.

{3} Comma supplied.

{4} Reading uncertain.

{5} This sentence was added at the head of the letter.

24 Bryanston Street (London).—Thanks them for Alice’s birthday gift. Hopes Monte Generoso will suit Willi. Discusses their correspondence, and repeats her suggestion of coming to see them with the children. Sends news of friends.

(With an envelope.)

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24 Bryanston Street
June 17./78

My dearest Lucy & Willi I have not been able to write before to thank you very naughty people for sending Alice that most lovely necklace. It arrived on her birthday, on Saturday, in its exciting registered box & I knew at once that nobody but you would have thought of her so far away. It looks like Maltese work—is it? It is most exquisite & fairy like, but she will not need the silver forget-me-nots to remind her of her uncle & auntie. It was very wrong of you to get it for her you know & you both deserve a thorough good scolding. This morning I have got your card from Lugano. I do hope & think that you will find Monte Generoso a real good place for Willi & that he will enjoy the rest & beautiful air there. Fred wrote to you on Wed. to Lugano w[hic]h ought to have reached on Friday; we also sent a paper—& I wrote on Friday. I suppose you will be going down to Lugano now & then for letters till you are sure everybody has y[ou]r address. (I see you say you have ordered letters to be sent on.) {1} F. is going to send you the Pall Mall Budget. We thought you w[oul]d have seen all the papers of the world in y[ou]r hotels. I am very anxious for y[ou]r answer to my letter & suggestion of last Friday: I think it would be so much the best plan, & now there are so many comforts in travelling, coupé-lits &c, that the children & I should do it most easily. I think we had better come bag and baggage: Bessie, Jessie & 3 chicks. Fred & I sh[oul]d feel very venerable at being the parents of all that.

We saw Mr Roberts of the Mint at the R.I. on Friday. He looked radiant when he talked of your children & said they were so good & nothing but a joy in the house. What a dear little man he is. Fred called at the Huxleys yes[terda]y & heard a capital report: Mrs H. & Madge had gone to the seaside & all the rest were quite well.

Alice had a good many presents on her 2nd birthday. The baby’s opera from her dada & a box of bricks, 2 pinafores, 2 pelisses, a doll, a box of furniture, another picture-book & another box full of painted bricks to be made up into puzzles. She bore the excitement well on the whole & was not cross. She had no tea-party w[hic]h was just as well. She was very hazy about what it all meant & answered when asked how old she was, sometimes “Alice”, and sometimes “buffday”.

We shall be longing to hear how you prosper on the generous mountain. Ever dear Lucy & Willi your very affectionate

Georgina H Pollock

[Envelope addresed to:] Mrs W. K. Clifford | hôtel de Generoso | Mendrisio | [In the top left-hand corner:] Switzerland

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The envelope was postmarked at London, W., on 17 June 1878, and at Mendrisio on 20 June 1878. Letters omitted from words abbreviated by superscript letters have been supplied in square brackets.

{1} ‘I see … sent on.’ interlined; brackets supplied.

Exeter.—Lucy is unwell (in London), and will not be able to get up for two or three weeks. Describes Minnie’s amusing recital of the creed. Congratulates Sir Frederick Pollock on being made Queen’s Remembrancer. Has written to The Times to suggest that the Oxford railway accident may have been caused by the use of an old carriage.

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Exeter.
Dec 27/74

Dearest Mother

I can’t write anything coherently because there is a man here talking to Papa and and nothing muddles me like a noise. Poor Lucy is laid up with a very severe cold and slight fever. She had a violent toothache and her face swelled up to an awful size and I took her to Fletcher who did her some good. But the doctor says she won’t be able to get up for two or three weeks, poor little thing. It’s very wrong of Mr Providence to make her ill just as I have to be down here and can’t look after her. My little sister Minnie (9½) has distinguished herself. She was saying the creed to Edith “he descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the dead ‥ and after several other adventures he got back to heaven.” They all send their love to you. Please to congratulate Sir Frederic from me on being made Queen’s Remembrancer and ask him to remind her that I am going to be married and would like a nice large pension.

Mind you get rid of your cold and don’t go to see Hamlet too often. I have written to the Times to say that an old carriage broke down on the train I came down by, just at the time of the Oxford accident; merely to illustrate the practice of the railway company. {1} It may be put in tomorrow (Monday). I shall write to Morley tomorrow and tell him to apply to you. I have read more of my book about the Arabs (Dozy, histoire des Musulmans d’Espagne) and am more than ever delighted with it. Goodnight, dear Mama; a happy new year to you all.

Your loving son
Willi

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Letter-head monogrammed ‘W C’, presumably the initials of the writer’s father.

{1} On 24 December a serious railway accident occurred on the Great Western Railway line close to Shipton-on-Cherwell, near Oxford. Thirty-one people were killed and more than seventy injured. Clifford wrote to The Times the next day to suggest that the accident might have been caused by the use of an old carriage ‘which had not been used for some time’, since the breakdown of an old carriage had delayed his own journey from Paddington to Exeter on the same day. His letter was printed on Thursday the 31st (p. 7).

(Place of writing not indicated.)—They were relieved to get her letter, as they had been afraid she would break down. It is a good climate to get well in, so they hope for good news of both her invalids.

(Undated. Written some time between Clifford’s marriage in 1875 and his death in 1879.)

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Dearest Mama—I was so glad to get your letter—it is a weight off all our hearts and must be like a new life to you. We have thought of you constantly and were afraid you would break down under so much trouble, especially in a foreign place. You have one comfort now, that it is a very good climate to get well in. So we shall expect the best news of both your invalids and you must take the best possible care of yourself. Lucy will go to the bank the first thing tomorrow morning to see about the circular notes. Here are Mr & Mrs Lane come just as we were going to bed, but I don’t think they will stay long, for we are nearly dead asleep. Best love to all of you and rapid recovery

your most loving son
Willi

26 Colville Road, Bayswater, W.—Aunt Francis (sic) died this morning. Lucy would have gone to her (Granny) straight away, but is not fit to get up yet. Agnes and ‘our baby’ (Ethel or Margaret) will come and see her tomorrow.

(Dated Thursday.)

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26 Colville Road, Bayswater | W
Thursday

My dear Granny

I am sorry to have the worst news to tell you of poor Aunt Francis†. She died this morning. Lucy would have gone off to you directly, but I would not let her, because she is really not fit to get up at all yet, though she will come down stairs a little in the afternoon. I write this for her as she is waiting to go to sleep. Don’t be unhappy about her, she will be all right if she keeps quiet, but she may do herself a lasting injury if she gets about too soon. And don’t fret about anything, dear old Dovey, we will both come and see you as soon as we can.

Your loving grandson
Willi

Agnes and our baby are going to see you tomorrow.

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Black-edged paper.

Combe Bank, Sevenoaks.—Has found his collars, and hopes to find his socks too. Is sorry to hear about Smut (their dog). Refers to the characters of Cyril and Hughie (Spottiswoode’s sons), and wishes she were there. Fred Pollock has sent an account of his forthcoming lecture at the Royal Institution.

(Dated Sunday.)

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Transcript

Combe Bank, Sevenoaks {1}
Sunday

My own pet—I have found my collars: there is so much furniture in this room that it takes a week to investigate all the drawers; but I hope before coming home to have discovered my socks also. The news about Smut is very sad—he ought to have some medicine, but do not give him Morison’s pills because they do not agree with him. Cyril is a dear little boy; he never thinks of himself but is entirely wrapped up in Hughie whom he thinks a most alarming swell. {2} They have a conjuring book and are always doing tricks except when they play cricket with the dog. Oh my sweet child if you were only here! {3}—mushrooms! grown in a hot-house in the dark—such beauties—dwell upon them in silence for a few moments. Fred Pollock has sent an account of his lecture that he is to give at the R. I. in words of one syllable. {4} Here is the post going so I must shut up

By-bye my own darling child
Your loving old man
Willi.

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{1} Home of William Spottiswoode.

{2} The references are to Spottiswoode’s two sons, Cyril Andrew (born 1867) and William Hugh (born 1864).

{3} Lucy may have stayed at home because she was about to give birth to the couple’s second child, Alice Margaret, born on 11 April.

{4} Pollock delivered a Friday evening discourse on Spinoza at the Royal Institution on 20 April. See The Times, 24 April 1877, p. 12.

(Place of writing not indicated.)—Praises Fred Pollock’s obituary notice. Will try and see her on Wednesday if her head is better.

(Dated Sunday.)

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Transcript

Sunday

My dear Mrs Clifford I have just read Fred Pollocks beautiful notice. It is written without words I think & makes one feel what it is he knows so well, & something of what your blessed knowledge & love & loss must be. Thankyou for sending it to me.

I am not yet up but tomorrow I shall be all right I hope—& meanwhile I must tell you how I have read it & how thankful I am that you have the—only—consolation of feeling that your husbands influence & sympathy kindles such hearts.

If my head gets right I shall try & find you on Wed[nesda]y morning & bring the book.

Your affectionate
Anne Ritchie

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Written in pencil. Letters missing from a word abbreviated by a superscript letters have been supplied in square brackets.

11 Portsea Place, Connaught Square, W.—Has sent for a copy of Little People, and will copy out the ‘lily song’ (see A2/7). Refers to aspects of her husband’s personality she would Pollock to bring out in his memoir. Has been trying to comfort herself with ideas of a future consciousness. Mrs Deffell is concerned that the Pollocks are not enjoying their holiday.

(With an envelope.)

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Transcript

11 Portsea Place. Connaught Square. W.
Weds night 16th Ap[ri]l

My dear Fred

I have sent for my copy of Little People {1}. Meanwhile I will copy out the lily song in case you want if from the MS copy he gave me because it has a little note which was too late to include in the book. I hope you are not working too hard. I am convinced I shall be the death of you because I keep thinking of more & more sides which I am anxious you shall bring out. I have been thinking now of how merry he was, how he liked to see his friends about him (he was always arranging little dinners & asking if we could not afford “a little party” & you remember his bachelor parties.) And how simple & how happy he was & what a ringing laugh he had with a little shout at the end. There was such a wonderful light & life & brightness ab[ou]t him.

I often think of his glee when he came home from the Metaph: {2} if it had been a good night & the Bishops had appeared & he had been in good form how he w[oul]d not only tell me everything everybody had said but mimic the manner in which it was said. We have sat over the fire & shouted with laughter when he added ridiculous little tags of his own on to what had been really said. The last time he ever went he spent all the money he had on the way (he dined at the club first) & when he was at the station coming home found to his dismay he had’nt† a penny. Lord Arthur Russell turned up so he borrowed a 1/– took a ticket & “paid back 6d on account”.1 It will be good for people to see his brightness & spice of wickedness. I should be so sorry if they thought he always lived at high pressure like a prophet—it w[oul]d spoil his humanity.

It seems as if one could say too much ab[ou]t him—too many things that were good. I have been thinking such wild things lately and—supposing for a moment there is after consciousness—wondering if it could be possible for many forms of intellect & beauty to take refuge in one physical frame until they made up a perfect whole worthy of standing alone; so that Willi represented the former consciousness of many & is after all living still or carrying on in some other world what is first going on in this—the survival of the fittest. You see this differs from the old transmigration idea (the Buddhist &c.) because it makes only the best & greatest, i e the strongest, survive, & even these are grouped after the fashion of the atom & molecule theory—it is that over again until the higher type is formed. It would quite account for his many sidedness, his many forms of greatness imperfect only from accident or physical restraint.

I think I shall set up as having invented a new religion. You cannot think how well it works in many ways. It would account for the dim remembrance of things we have never consciously seen which sometimes flickers across us. What a comfort the flicker would be a sign we were working upwards. Then (in old days) the population question frightened me so when I thought of the people that had been pouring into the unseen world since we first became me. It gets rid of this—the weak & useless & so the majority die out, are lost in the struggle for existence yet we sh[oul]d all believe our own people immortal—is it not Darwinian? It gives no excuse for persecution or priesthood and has many other sides all of which I have arranged most carefully. I don’t know where my unknown world is to be because I know nothing about Space or what my immortals (they need not even be immortal) are to do, the higher type would find the higher worlds—which of course would still be progressive. Of course I know it is all nonsense & I know it all ceases with the circulation & that the brain & nerves & grey matter & all that makes our consciousness dries up and there is no more life left than in spoilt quicksilver or mercury, but one tries to comfort oneself with any madness.

Mrs Deffell came yesterday. She said Georgie had sent her “a charming letter” but she (Mrs D.) seemed much concerned ab[ou]t your holiday & drew a tragic picture of you writing & Georgie sewing & the rain raining & nothing going on but the bill. I wonder if Jack’s toes are visible yet. I fear the poor little chicks are not getting much good out of the country in this wretched weather.

Now I will take my chloral which I have reduced from 22 to 16 grains as an experiment & go to bed. Goodnight my dearest Georgie & Fred

Y[ou]r loving
Lucy Clifford

Willi often used to say “be free” at the end of his letters, he said it was an old form & much better than goodbye which was full of superstition.

[Direction on envelope:] F. Pollock Esq | Royal Ascot Hotel | Ascot

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Black-edged paper and envelope. The envelope was postmarked at London, W., and at Staines and Sunninghill, on 17 April 1879. Letters missing from words abbreviated by superscript letters have been supplied in square brackets.

{1} The Little People, and Other Tales (London: Chapman and Hall, 1874), a collection of fairy stories by Lady Pollock, W. K. Clifford, and W. H. Pollock.

{2} The Metaphysical Society.

† Sic.

26 Colville Road, Bayswater, W.—Sketches the seating arrangement for a proposed dinner-party, and sends greetings from his wife.

(Dated Monday(?). The bride and bridegroom depicted in the sketch are probably Emma Pipon and Walter Pollock, who were married on Tuesday, 11 January 1876.)

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Transcript

26 Colville Road | Bayswater. W.
Monday {1} Evening

Dear Sir Frederic†

[There follows a sketch-plan showing a seating arrangement round a dining-table, with various articles on the table. The sitters are labelled, clockwise, as ‘The fair young bride’, ‘The dear girl’, ‘Sir F. P.’, ‘Mrs W.K.C.’, ‘The dark young bridegroom’, ‘Miladi’, ‘W.K.C.’ Next to the last-named is ‘Smut’, the dog.]

There you are! Space has more dimensions than men quwhot of, but I have contrived to get on the free list. The thing in the middle is not, as you would of course suppose, the book of Genesis open at the account of the 6 days of creation, but a cruet-stand containing 6 varieties of condiment. I am instructed to send my wife’s love and to say that she would have written herself if I had not taken it in hand through observing that she is tired from going to Woolwich to say that she has got another finger-glass from her Aunt and everything is now quite as she (not her Aunt) could desire except Smut who has got the pip, poor beggar, and is getting bald—the Balder the Beautifuller, as the Eddas say. However, you must not now disappoint us, or what will the Dear Girl do? We can’t dine with two ghosts, and now that I have drawn the picture I perceive an a priori necessity for dining in the number of perfection. The Ding an Sich is a mere mistake for dine seven at seven.

Yours always
W. K. Clifford.

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{1} Reading uncertain.

† Sic.

Garrison Library, Gibraltar.—Is glad his health has improved. They (he and Lucy) have done little sightseeing. Refers to his meeting with a Monsignor Clifford, and to the views of Milner Gibson and others on the prospect of war. On Thursday they start for Genoa, Leghorn, Naples, Patras, Corfu, and Venice.

(Misdated Tuesday, 24 April 1878. The 24th was a Wednesday. The reference to ‘Thursday’ rather than ‘tomorrow’ suggests that the error is probably in the day of the month.)

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Garrison Library, Gibraltar
Tuesday Apr. 24/78

Dear Sir Frederic†

I am very glad indeed to hear reports of your mending, and hope that by the time this reaches you there will be nothing the matter. We have been very happy and lazy here, and have carefully avoided all objects of local interest. We meant to go over to Tangier today, but thought at the last moment that it would be rather a business, and that we could very well imagine the camels and the fleas. We have not even been to see the monkeys on the rock, though there are now 18 of them. The chaplain tells me that a register is kept of their births and deaths, but there is a difficulty about the marriages, as they do not apply to him for his services.

There is a Mgr. Clifford here, who comes to breakfast at the hôtel sometimes. He was much interested to find that we were namesakes and that I came from Devonshire. I assured him that my father came from Herts and that I had not the faintest idea who my grandfather was; and then he said “there was a Professor Clifford, of Exeter ‥” to which I replied “that’s me”. At that he grinned hugely and said he knew where he was. He seems a nice man, and says he has been yer tu months in a way that sounds quite like home.

Milner Gibson has turned up in a little yacht. He seems to have been doing so for about 50 years. He says he got the last pass of the Algerine pirates in 1830, just before the French went in. {1} He has bet Lucy a pair of gloves that there will be no war for 12 months, and all the foreign military and the sea captains say so too; but the English officers think that the Indian contingent is to go straight to Gallipoli, and that the new housing at Malta is for some of the 1st Corps. We get a short telegram here every afternoon, but the papers are 6 days late.

On Thursday we start by a Cunard for Genoa, Leghorn, Naples, Patras, Corfu and Venice,—after that the skipper only knows where. They say we may get letters at Naples in answer to those posted today, as we loiter a day or two at each port; but I should think Venice the safest place, because we take 17 days to get there. I presume that we shall not be captured by a privateer. Mind you get well.

yours always
W. K. Clifford.

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{1} Gibson was on board his yacht, the Resolute, at Algiers, at the time of his death in 1884.

† Sic.

Corfu.—They (he and Lucy) have just returned from a scenic drive. Discusses the ancestry of the inhabitants.

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Corfu May 18

Your note came just after mine had left. We have just come back from the most lovely drive that was ever seen, full of landscapes wooded with old olive trees, glimpses of surrounding islands, and snowy mountains of Albania in the distance. Half the people are obviously fils et filles du Reg[imen]t 31, which was quartered here; the rest are very like Maories, according to two of our fellow travellers who took a carriage with us, and who have been in New Zealand. This enables us to understand how the ancient Greek race has been preserved so pure. They pretend to write the names of their shops in Greek, but they don’t spell very well. This may be due to the Irish blood.

yours always W.K.C.

[Direction:] Sir Frederic† Pollock | 59 Montagu Square | London W | H. M. πβρεττάνια

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The postmark is indistinct, except the year, ‘78’. Letters omitted from a word abbreviated by a superscript letter have been supplied in square brackets.

† Sic.

11 Portsea Place, Connaught Square, London, W.—Describes a recent dream about her husband.

(With an envelope, marked 'May 1879' and ‘If I die give this to F. Pollock | July 79.’)

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17th May 1879
11 Portsea Place
Connaught Square. W.
London

I wish to write down a dream or what I think to be a dream concerning my husband W. K. Clifford.

I wish to say first that the night at Madeira he died—some hours later when I was in the next room I heard a voice by my side which I cannot even be certain was his voice, say “Darling”. I started up saw & heard nothing more but I told Miss Emma Stead, who was in the room, of it immediately. She will confirm what I say. She lives at Ovingdean Rectory Brighton. I attached no importance to this only regarding it as an outcome of my overstrung state of mind.

Last week, I cannot now fix the date but I think it was Thursday night, {1} I went to bed, as usual sleeping with Ethel. After a time I dreamt, first I was with my husband at Madeira & heard him talk to me of the visitors staying in the hotel, then in a field somewhere else where I lost sight of him. All this proves that my mind was not clear & also that I was certainly not awake, on the other hand I was very restless all night & feel certain I was not sound asleep. Then came the 3rd dream. I cannot be certain of the order of these 3 dreams. I am not certain it was a dream, I have been trying ever since to realize whether I was awake or asleep. I thought I was lying down, I was conscious of Ethel being beside me. I do not know where I was lying but my distinct impression is that I realized I was lying in the little bed as I actually was. I looked up & saw my husband standing by my side (the right side—on the other was Ethel) {2}. I am only conscious of having seen his face distinctly & I dimly remember a hand. I knew perfectly that he was dead. He looked pale & ill & worn & thin & sad. I put my arms up as if to put them round his neck. They brought his face down to mine. I do not remember my arms touching anything only that he stooped within them. He half turned his face so that I only kissed the left hand corner of his forehead. It was chilly—it did not feel natural. I said longingly “You have found me now, you will come often?” He answered “No, only this once”. I asked “Why?” A look of sadness & pain passed over his face & he looked away from me as he said “It would make a difference”. Then I said & I felt my face get hot & red with eagerness & as it did a momentary remembrance so keen I almost saw it, of the red face of a friend who had called on me recently passed before my eyes (I mention this to show my state of mind). I said “Tell me shall I come soon—will be† be long—shall I come to you again”. He answered thoughtfully “I cannot tell, you are among the Middle Shadows”. That is all. How he went I do not know. I know nothing more. His voice was low & sad. But it was not in a whisper. I know nothing more. I did not I think dream again but slept till fairly early morning.

I feel afraid to tell this. I doubt even if it would be believed, it might be laughed at. I can not be at [all] {3} sure that it is anything more than a dream but it has made a great impression on me.

Lucy Clifford

P.S. One think† more as I saw almost the red face of my friend I remember a swift thought darting thought perhaps it is all a dream, it made me doubt the other for a moment at the moment.

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Black-edged paper and envelope.

{1} Comma supplied, in place of a full stop.

{2} ‘the right side … Ethel’ interlined; brackets supplied.

{3} This word was omitted by mistake.

† Sic.

28 Queen Anne’s Gate, Westminster.—Has spoken with Einstein about her husband's anticipations of some of his ideas, but Einstein does not read English easily and it is of little use to send him English books.

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Transcript

28 Queen Anne’s Gate, Westminster
22 June 21

Dear Mrs Clifford,

I had talk with Einstein about your husbands† genius & his anticipations of some of the ideas involved in Relativity. At these Prof. Eddington had hinted in his book, {1} which Einstein has read. But Prof. Einstein does not read English readily, & it is of little use to send him English books.

I will take my chance of finding you in at 5 on Sunday afternoon at Chilworth St.

Yours truly {2}
Haldane

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{1} Space, Time, and Gravitation (1920).

{2} These two words are indistinct.

† Sic.

Combe Bank, Sevenoaks.—Gives an account of visits to the Darwins and Lady Lubbock. Will be able to return home with the Moultons, who arrive today. Looks forward to seeing her and the ‘dear little kid’. Contrasts Daniel Deronda with the writing of Mallock.

(Dated Wednesday.)

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Transcript

Combe Bank, Sevenoaks
Wednesday—

My own darling child—we had such a nice day yesterday: breakfasted lightly in our rooms and then ate déjeuner at 12, so as to start early for an expedition in the afternoon, to the Darwins, who live about six miles off. {1} We partly walked and partly went in a fly. The object was to persuade George Darwin to lecture at the Royal Institution on the figure of the Earth. {2} He was very unwilling but I think he may come round. The grand old man talked beautifully and they were all very kind. They are reading the Symposium, but have only got as far as Martineau; Darwin says that M. is too flowery for him. I thought in this case he was more matter-of-fact than usual, but I suppose there remains a certain amount of clerical haze. {3} I told Darwin I should now regard myself as a Hadji, having made pilgrimage to my Mecca. In coming home the flyman insisted on going a long way round to avoid hills, and we suddenly found ourselves at Sir John Lubbock’s gates {4}. He is at his antics at Biarritz, but Lady Lubbock gave us some tea and was much wickeder than usual because the Archbishopess of Canterbury {5} was there—a most respectable stout party in a gorgeous black silk gown. She (L.L.) {6} told us all about her daughter’s marriage, and how the young man paints in water colours, and of such is the kingdom of heaven. {7} The next girl but one, {8} with whom I went bird’snesting at Grant Duff’s, {9} is grown very lovely, with a really splendid figure (only 14). The Moulton’s† are coming today to stay till Friday, so that I can go back with them. I will tell you all about the train. How good it will be to see my own sweet wife and the dear little kid again. Nobody can tell how fond I am of you, darling. I am reading Daniel Deronda {10} and have got through ⅓ of it. I don’t see the least falling-off in it; it is quite as interesting quâ story as any of the novels we have been reading, and one feels that one is looking at things with a large-minded sympathetic companion who is great enough to take in the best side of all the people she describes. It is exactly opposite to that poor creature Mallock, who catches superficial traits of men one knows to be great, and makes them mean. {11}

It is blowing great guns, but I must manage to go out a little before lunch. 10000 kisses to my own darling wife from her loving old man

Willi.

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{1} Charles Darwin and his family lived at Down House, near Downe.

{2} George Darwin had read his first major scientific paper ‘On the influence of geological changes on the earth’s axis of rotation’ before the Royal Society the previous year. He returned to Cambridge by 19 April, probably about the beginning of Easter term, 6 April. See Calendar of the Correspondence of Charles Darwin, No. 10933.

{3} ‘A Modern Symposium’ was the general title of two series of essays, each by various hands, published in the Nineteenth Century in 1877 and 1878. The subjects were respectively ‘The Soul and Future Life’ and ‘The Influence upon Morality of a Decline in Religious Belief’. The reference here is to the latter series, comprising eleven essays in all, of which James Martineau contributed the third and Clifford the seventh. Clifford’s essay appeared in the April number.

{4} Sir John Lubbock’s country home was at High Elms, near Bromley.

{5} Catharine Tait.

{6} ‘L.L.’ interlined; brackets supplied.

{7} The Lubbocks’ eldest daughter, Amy Harriet, married Andrew Walter Mulholland on 15 March 1877, but he died less than three months later, on 2 June (Burke’s Peerage). It is unclear from the reference here whether the marriage had yet taken place.

{8} Gertrude Lubbock (born 1863), the Lubbocks’ youngest daughter.

{9} Possibly Sir Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant-Duff (1829-1906).

{10} George Eliot’s final novel, published the previous year.

{11} W. H. Mallock had satirised various prominent figures, including Clifford himself, in his novel The New Republic, first published in monthly parts in the magazine Belgravia between June and December 1876, and issued in a single volume in 1877.

† Sic.

Mrs W. K. Clifford, 7 Chilworth Street, W.2. - Congratulates Frazer.

Combe Bank, Sevenoaks.—The Moultons and Spottiswoode have arrived. Is unsure when he will be home tomorrow. Has received £10 from Knowles for his contribution to the ‘Symposium’.

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Combe Bank, Sevenoaks
Thursday

My own sweet pet—we started off to Sevenoaks, Hughie and I, to post my letter to you that it might arrive sooner; but when the rain began to fall we fled into a public house for shelter and so got late. Then we went to meet the Moultons and Mr Spottiswoode at the Station and they were all in great form including Bibs. {1} That thunderstorm was caused by the great induction coil which took advantage of Mr Spottiswoode’s absence to get loose and play general hell. Moulton & I have been playing billiards—I won one game he won by dint of perpetual flukes & misses on both sides. Now we are going out for a walk, and I will finish my letter when I come back; then I shall be able to say what train I shall come by tomorrow. M. goes up early to a consultation, so I shall come with Mrs M. and Bibbs, later on.

I find it isn’t quite settled about the train yet, but you had better not expect me much before dinner time unless you get a telegram. I have forgotten to tell you the great news—£10 from Knowles for the Symposium! Hooray! I wish you had been here with me both for the reasons I have previously mentioned and because I cannot shine and fascinate anybody without you to help. That is because you are such a darling. Cyril sends his love, and I send all mine only you have got it already. Your most loving old man

Willi.

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{1} The Moultons’ baby, Hugh.

Cloan, Auchterarder, Perthshire.—Is reluctant to send the enclosed (E1/1-2) to Einstein, as he cannot read English and has no historical interest in his subject.

(With envelope.)

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Cloan, Auchterarder, Perthshire
10 Aug 23

Dear Mrs Clifford,

The enclosed are very precious. That is why I hesitate about sending them to Einstein. He cannot read English & he is devoid of historical interest in his subject. His genius is concentrated on the problems of the present which engross him.

I therefore think that you should keep the letter & note until someone is heard of—there is probably someone at Cambridge—who is working out the genesis of the present, historically.

I have been here for a week—reading & walking—a complete change of occupation. I hope that you will have a good holiday.

Yours sincerely {1}
Haldane

[Direction on envelope:] Mrs Clifford | 7 Chilworth Street | London W. [Redirected to Mrs Clifford] at/ Brownwich | Titchfield | Hants.

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The envelope was postmarked at Auchterarder, Perthshire, on 10 August 1923, and at Paddington on 11 August 1923, and is marked in ink ‘W.K.C | Sylvester | Haldane’ and in pencil ‘Sent to Lord Haldane suggesting he wd like the bit of W.K.C.’

{1} These two words are indistinct.