LITMIR.BIZ

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begins to tremble (I never give it any cause), and I find I can scarcely decipher some words. How you do it is miraculous. My gout will not fix, but hangs over me with dreariness and ‘devil-may-careisms,’ so that though I have scores of great intentions I can do nothing.

      “I count a good deal on a two hours’ swim, and I am off to take it by Wednesday. If the sharks lay hold on me, finish T. B. Marry him to Alice, and put the rest of the company to bed indiscriminately.”

      To Mr John Blackwood.

      “Florence, July 12, 1864.

      “I send you with this a few lines to finish the serial O’D., a few also to complete ‘Be always ready with the Pistol,’ and – God forgive me for the blunder! – two stray pages that ought to come in somewhere (not where it is numbered) in the last-sent O’D. on ‘Material Aid.’ Will your ingenuity be able to find the place – perhaps the end? If not, squash it, and the mischief will not be great.

      “I start to-night for the sea-side, so that if you want to send me a proof for the next ten days, send it in duo, one to Spezzia and the other here, by which means you shall have either back by return of post.

      “The thermometer has taken a sudden start upwards to-day, 26° Réamur, and work is downright impossible. The cicale too make a most infernal uproar, for every confounded thing, from a bug to a baritone, sings all day in Italy.”

      To Mr John Blackwood.

      “Villa Morelli, Florence, July 23, 1864.

      “I was getting a great stock of health, swimming and boating at Spezzia, when I was called back by the illness of my youngest daughter, a sort of feverish attack brought on by the excessive heat of the weather, 92° and 93° every day in the shade. She is, thank God, a little better now, and I hope the severest part is over. When shall I be at work again? There never was so much idleness assisted by an evil destiny.

      “What a jolly letter you sent me. I read it over half a dozen times, even after I knew it all, just as an unalterable toper touches his lips to the glass after emptying it. I wish I could be as hopeful about O’D., – not exactly that, but I wish I could know it would have some success, and for once in my life the wish is not entirely selfish.

      “You will, I am sure, tell me how it fares, and if you see any notices, good or bad, tell me of them.

      “What a strange line Newdigate has taken, – not but he has a certain amount of right in the middle of all the confusion of his ideas. Dizzy unquestionably coquetted with Rome. Little Earle, his secretary, was out here on a small mission of intrigue, and I did my utmost to show him that for every priest he ‘netted’ he would inevitably lose two Protestants – I mean in Ireland. As for the worldly wit of the men who think that they can drive a good bargain with the ‘Romish’ clergy, all I can say is that they have no value in my eyes. The vulgarest curé that ever wore a coal-scuttle hat is more than the match of all the craft in Downing Street.

      “You are quite right, it would do me immense good to breathe your bracing air, but it ‘mauna be.’ I wish I could see a chance of your crossing the Alps – is it on the cards?

      “I wish I was twenty years younger and I’d make an effort to get into Parliament. Like my friend Corney, my friends always prophesied a success to me in something and somewhere that I have never explored – but so it is.

      “Oh! for the books that have never been written,

      With all the wise things that nobody has read.

      And oh! for the hearts that have never been smitten,

      Nor heard the fond things that nobody has said.

      “My treasures are, I suspect, safely locked in the same secure obscurity. N’importe! at this moment I’d rather be sure my little girl would have a good night than I’d be Member for Oxford.”

      To Mr Alexander Spencer.

      “Villa Morelli, Florence, July 23, 1864.

      “It would be unfair amidst all your labours to expect you could read through the volume of ‘Corney O’Dowd’ that Blackwood will have already sent – or a few days more will bring – to you. Still, if you will open it, and here and there look through some of those jottings-down, I know they will recall me to your memory. It is so very natural to me to half-reason over things, that an old friend [? like] yourself will recognise me on every page, and for this reason it is that I would like to imagine you reading it. My great critics declare that I have done nothing so good since the ‘Dodds,’ – and now, enough of the whole theme!

      “Here we are in a pretty villa on a south slope of the Apennines, with Florence at our feet and a glorious foreground of all that is richest in Italian foliage between us and the city. It is of all places the most perfect to write in, – beauty of view, quiet, silence, and seclusion all perfect, – but somehow I suppose I have grown a little footsore on the road. I do not write with my old facility. I sit and think – or fancy I think – and find very little is done after [all].

      “The dreary thought of time lost and talent misapplied – for I ought never to have taken to the class of writing that I did —will invade, and, instead of plodding steadily along the journey, I am like one who sits down to cry over the map of the country to be traversed.

      “I go to Spezzia occasionally – the fast mail now makes it but five hours. The Foreign Office is really most indulgent: they ask nothing of me, and in return I give them exactly what they ask.

      “My wife is a little better – that is, she can move about unassisted and has less suffering. Her malady, however, is not checked. The others are well. As for myself, I am in great bodily health, – lazy and indolent, as I always was, and more given to depressions, perhaps, but also more patient under them than I used to be.”

      To Mr John Blackwood.

      “Florence, Saturday, July 30.

      “Yours has just come. O’D. is very handsome. Confound the public if they won’t like them! Nothing could be neater and prettier than the book. How I long to hear some good tidings of it!

      “My daughter had a slight relapse, but is now doing all well and safely.

      “I think that the Irish papers – ‘The Dub. E. Mail’ and ‘Express’ – would review us if copies were sent, and perhaps an advertisement.

      “I know you’ll let me hear, so I don’t importune you for news.

      “Your cheque came all safe; my thanks for it. The intense heat is such now that I can only write late at night, and very little then.”

      To Mr John Blackwood.

      “Villa Morelli, Aug. 3, 1864.

      “Unshaven, dishevelled,

      I sit all bedevilled;

      Your news has upset me, —

      It was meet it should fret me.

      What! two hundred and fifty!

      Is the public so thrifty?

      Or are jokes so redundant,

      And funds so abundant

      That ‘O’Dowd’ cannot find more admirers than this!

      I am sure in the City ‘Punch’ is reckoned more witty,

      And Cockneys won’t laugh

      Save at Lombard Street chaff;

      But of gentlemen, surely there can be no stint,

      Who would like dinner drolleries dished up in print,

      And to read the same nonsense would gladly be able

      That they’d laugh at – if heard – o’er the claret at table

      The sort of light folly that sensible men

      Are never ashamed of – at least now and then.

      For

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