To Dr. Chambers

3rd January, 1859.

My dear Chambers,—As I said in my note yesterday, what I am going to suggest to you here will be nothing more than would have been, I doubt not, suggested to you as clearly by your own reflections; and I only put it down in order to give you more confidence in the truth of the conclusions which you will see are substantially the same whatever side of the subject an earnest man approaches it upon—yours, the scientific, and mine, the æsthetic.

Of course the first thing one has to urge on a young Prince is in this as in all other matters, that he should think for himself. Not, that is, take up an opinion carelessly, and maintain it positively, because it is his, but that he should himself do the hard and painful work of making the thought really his own, and for himself testing its truth. A King is, of course, exposed to all kinds of efforts to deceive him; the interest in obtaining his approval is so great that all mean persons are for ever striving to blind him to the merits of others and recommend their own—impartial teaching is a thing almost impossible in his case. I am myself rough and bold enough in general in what I say, but I never would say so hard a thing of a living artist in the Prince's hearing as I would say in the hearing of a person of small power; so that the honestest men are influenced and warped by his rank, and the dishonest men put to their skilfullest pinches.