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thought of this, and a new cookery-book showing when each thing ought to be eaten, and making a sort of gastronomic tour, have been addling my head the last three nights. But now I sit down steadily to ‘Tony,’ and ‘God give me a good deliverance.’”

      To Mr John Blackwood.

      “Florence, Sept. 8.

      “I am in such a hang-dog humour that I must write you.

      “I suspect Anster has got his CD., but his damnable writing has misled me. What I thought was a complaint for its non-arrival was, I imagine, a praise of its contents.

      “I send you the rest of ‘Tony’ for October: God grant it be better than I think it is. But if you only saw me you’d wonder that I could even do the bad things I send you.

      “Tell me, are you sick of the cant of people who uphold servants and talk of them as an ‘interesting class’? I think them the greatest rascals breathing, and would rather build a jail for them than a refuge. I want to O’Dowd them; shall I?

      “Gout is overcoming me completely! Isn’t it too hard to realise both Dives and Lazarus in oneself at once?”

      To Mr John Blackwood.

      “Villa Morelli, Sept. 19.

      “I send you the last chap, for the November ‘Tony,’ and I want all your most critical comment on the Envoy, because, as the book draws to the end, I desire to avoid the crying sin of all my stories, a huddled-up conclusion. Be sure you tell me all my shortcomings, for even if I cannot amend them I’ll bear in mind the impression they must create, and, so far as I can, deprecate my reader’s wrath. You have not answered me as to the advisability of a name or no name, – a matter of little moment, but I’d like your counsel on it. My notion is this. If ‘Tony’ be likely to have success as a novel when published entire, a name might be useful for future publication, and as to that, I mean futurity, what would you say to a Stuart story, taking the last days of Charles Edward in Florence, and bringing in the great reforming Grand Duke, Pietro-Leopoldo and Horace Mann, &c.?3

      “I have been mooning over this for the last week. The fact is, when I draw towards the close of a story I can’t help hammering at another: like the alderman who said, ‘I am always, during the second course, imagining what will come with the woodcocks.’ Mind above all that no thought of me personally is to interfere with other Magazine arrangements, for it is merely as the outpouring of a confession that I speak now of a story, and if you don’t want me, or don’t want so much of me, you will say so.

      “As I told you once before, I believe I am, or rather was – for there is very little ‘am’ left – better at other things than story-writing, and certainly I like any other pen labour more. But this shall be as you determine…

      “Give me some hints as to the grievances of the ‘Limited Liability Schemes.’ What are the weak points? Brief me!

      “I have a notion that a course of O’Dowd lectures on Men and Women would be a success, orally given. What think you?”

      To Mr John Blackwood.

      “Villa Morelli, Sept. 20.

      “In my haste of correction in T. B. I believe I left ‘Castel d’Uovo’ ‘Castel Ovo’; now it should be the former– pray look to it. God help me! but if I live a little longer I shall find spelling impossible. Till I began to correct the press I never made a mistake; and now I understand what is meant by the tree of knowledge, for when once you begin to see there’s a right and a wrong way to do anything, it’s ‘all up’ with you. In my suspicion that the missing O’Ds. might possibly have come to your hand, I asked you to cancel [the bit] about Pam. Pray do so. It was ill-natured and gouty, though true; and, after all, he is a grand old fellow with all his humbug, and if we do make too much of him the fault is ours, not his.

      “I have just got yours, 16th, and my mind is easy about the O’Ds. which never reached me. It will be easier, however, when I know you have squashed all about Pam.

      “I am now doubly grieved to have been worrying about your nephew, but I am sincerely glad to know it is no more than a fall. I believe I have not a bone from my head to my heel unmarked by horse accidents, and every man who really rides meets his misadventures. Whenever I hear of a man who never falls, I can tell of one who never knew how to ride.

      “Now of all my projects and intentions never bore yourself a minute: the fact is – writing to you pretty much as I talk at home, I have said some of the fifty things that pass through my vagabondising brains, just as I have been for the last twenty years plotting the Grand Book that is to make me.

      “But now that you know me better, treat all these as the mere projects of a man whose only dream is hope, and whose case is all the worse that he is a ‘solitary tippler’; and, above all, trust me to do my best – my very best – for ‘Tony,’ which I am disposed to think about the best thing I have done.”

      To Mr John Blackwood.

      “Villa Morelli, Florence, Sept. 26,1864.

      “Don’t be afraid that I am impatient to close ‘Tony’; if it only ‘suited your book’ I’d go on with him for a twelvemonth. And now tell me, does it make any difference to you if he should go on to the January No.? I mean, does it spoil magazine symmetry that he should appear in a new volume? Not that I opine this will be necessary, only if it should I should like to know.

      “You must send me ‘Tony’ in sheets, as you did O’D., to revise and reflect over, and I’ll begin at him at once.

      “I knew well what a blow Speke’s death would be to you, and I am truly sorry for the poor fellow.

      “I don’t remember one word I write if I don’t see a proof, so I forget what I said about an idea I had of a story. At all events, as Curran said he picked up all his facts from the opposite counsel’s statement, I’ll soon hear what you say, and be able to guess what I said myself.

      “I’m gout up to the ears, – flying, dyspeptic, blue-devil gout, – with a knuckle that sings like a tea-kettle and a toe that seems in the red-hot bite of a rabid dog, and all these with – But I swore not to bother you except it be to write to me.”

      To Mr John Blackwood.

      [Undated.]

      “I am up to my neck in Tony, – dress him, dine with him, and yesterday went to his happy marriage with (this for Mrs Blackwood and yourself) Dolly Stuart, he having got over his absurd passion, and found out (what every man doesn’t) the girl he ought to marry.

      “I am doing my best to make the wind-up good. Heaven grant that my gout do not mar my best intentions!

      “This informal change of capital has raised my rent! More of Cavour’s persecution. I told you that man will be my ruin.

      “Whenever you have time write to me. There are such masses of things you are to answer you will forget one-half if you don’t make a clearance.

      “I am very sulky about the coldness the public have shown O’D. in its vol. form. Why, confound them! – But I won’t say what is on my lips.”

      To Mr William Blackwood.

      “Villa Morelli, Florence, Oct. 4, 1864.

      “Your own fault if you have to say ‘Damn his familiarity’; but if you won’t return it you can at least say ‘Damn O’Dowd.’

      “Your cheque came all safe this morning. I wish I had not to add that it was a dissolving view that rapidly disappeared in my cook’s breeches-pocket.

      “I suppose my gout must be on the decline from the very mild character of the ‘O’Dowd’ I now send you. Tell your uncle if he won’t write to me about my forty-one projects, I’ll make an O’D. on Golf-players, and God help him!

      “I hope I shall meet you one of these days. I am as horsey as yourself, and would a devilish deal sooner be astride of the pigskin than

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