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  Dear Mr. Whitman—

Thy postal card of ten days ago has just come. It is so good of thee to write. I am ashamed when I think how long a silence I have kept—yet I have thought of thee very often I have been so busy—"facilis decensus"—into politics!—and when once there, it is hard to get out.  Of course the one miserable thing occupying the political field is Parnell's incredible meanness. He has dealt the death blow to Home Rule in this generation, I am afraid. I feel so sorry for the many Liberals whose one cry and interest has been Home Rule. It is not so unhappy for me, because for several years all my work has been given to what seems to me infinitely more interesting than the machinery of politics—the reform of existing social abuses, such as the  overwork & underpay & the generally wretched conditions under which the poor live—The collapse of Home Rule will bring these questions much more to the front, but I think it means a Liberal defeat at the next election, as the Party is not prepared.

I feel quite in the vein of writing a volume of newspaper "leaders" on the subject, but I will refrain!

We are all so well—children & all. Ray goes to a little  Kindergarten school every day. Frank & I are going to spend our Xmas holiday at Rome, if all goes well.

Father is undergoing transformation into the "Country Squire" of fiction. He is wrapt up in "the place" at Haslemere, spends most of his time there.

Many thanks for all the papers, which greet me from time to time with a sight of thy hand writing.

Lovingly thine, Mary Whitall Costelloe