declining, he gave, as his reason, failing health; but, had he been stronger, he would have still preferred retirement to working under the new constitution.
His deliverance from official work in 1858 was followed by the crushing calamity of his wife's death. He was then on his way to spend the winter in Italy, but immediately after the event he returned to his home at Blackheath. For some months he saw nobody, but still corresponded actively on matters that interested him. His despondency was frightful. In reply to my condolence, he said: "I have recovered the shock as much as I ever shall. Henceforth, I shall be only a conduit for ideas." Writing to Grote, he descanted passionately on his wife's virtues: "If you had only known all that she was!"
In the beginning of 1859 I was preparing for publication my volume on "The Emotions and the Will," I showed the manuscript to Mill, and he revised it minutely, and jotted a great many suggestions. In two or three instances his remarks bore the impress of his lacerated feelings.
He soon recommenced an active career of publication. The "Liberty" was already written, and, as he tells us, was never to be retouched. His pamphlet on "Parliamentary Reform," written some years previously, was revised and sent to press. On this he remarked in a letter: "Grote, I am afraid, will not like it, on account of the ballot, if not other points. But I attach importance to it, as a sort of revision of the theory of representative government." A few days later he wrote, "Grote knows that I now differ with him on the ballot, and we have discussed it together, with no effect on either."
Of course the pamphlet was well reasoned, but the case against the ballot had not the strength that I should have expected. The main considerations put forward are these two: First, that the electoral vote is a trust, and therefore to be openly exercised; second, that, as a matter of fact, the coercion of the voter by bribery and intimidation has diminished and is diminishing. The argument from "a trust" was not new; it had been repeatedly answered by Grote and by others. The real point at issue was, whether the withdrawing the elector from the legitimate control of public opinion be not a less evil than exposing him to illegitimate influence; and this depends on the state of the facts as to the diminution of such influence. Experience seems to be against Mill on this head; and it is unfortunate for his political sagacity and prescience that the Legislature was converted to the ballot after he had abandoned it.
The "Liberty" appeared about the same time. The work was conceived and planned in 1854. While thinking of it, he told Grote that he was cogitating an essay to point out what things society forbade that it ought not, and what things it left alone that it ought to control. Grote repeated this to me, remarking, "It is all very well
