“‘Oh dear, what a trial it is – to be kicked by a cripple.’
“I have added a few lines to complete the ‘Church’ O’Dowd; pray see that it is correct. I am curious to see the new vol., and to hear from you about its success.
“Do write to me – and as often as you have spare time. If we ever meet, I’ll pay it all back in talk.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Croce di Malta, Spezzia, March (St Pat.‘s Day).
“Gout, a rickety table, and four stupid Piedmontese authorities talking bad Italian and smoking ‘Cavours’ at my side, are not aids to polite letter-writing, and so forgive me if unusually incoherent and inexplicable.
“I came hurriedly down here to be consular, and to see poor old Mrs Somerville, who was very seriously ill. She has rallied, but it is the rally of eighty odd years. Nothing short of a Scotchwoman could have lived through her attack.
“On looking over the ‘Whist’ proof, there are a few changes I would suggest. I would, for instance, insert the 7 pp. copy in place of the piece marked ( – ). It will need your careful supervision and reading. The other bit of a page and half copy I would insert at p. 4, after the word ‘frankness.‘The concluding sentence is in its due place. These bits are meant to take off the air of didactic assumption the article is tinged with, and also to dispose the reader to think I am not perfectly serious in esteeming Whist to be higher than Astronomy or the Physical Sciences.
“I have shown ‘Foss’ to a very critical fellow here, and he says it is better in manner than ‘Tony.’ I don’t believe him, though I should like to do so.
“You shall have the proof at once. My daughter writes me that O’D. 2 has arrived and looks very nice. Tell me how subscribed! Tell me what said of it!
“Is it true you are all in a devil of a funk at a war with America? So say the diplomats here, but they are very generally mistaken about everything except ‘Quarter day.’ I had Hudson to dinner on Monday, and we laughed ourselves into the gout, and had to finish the evening with hot flannels and colchicum. There is not his equal in Europe. If I could only give you his talk, you’d have such a Noctes as I have never read of for many a year, I assure you. I wished for you when the fun was going fast. Good Heavens! how provoking it is that such a fellow should not be commemorated. Listening to him after reading a biography is such rank bathos; and as to settling down to write after him, it is like setting to work to brew small beer with one’s head swimming with champagne. I hope to be back at Villa Morelli by Sunday, and to find a proof and a letter from you when I arrive.
“I shall be very glad to see Mr M. Skene when he turns up at Florence. I need not tell you that a friend of yours comes into the category of the favoured nations. My life is now, however, a very dull affair to ask any one to look at, and it is only by a real feeling of good-nature any one would endure me.
“Only think of this climate! I have had to close the jalousies to keep out the sun, and it is now positively too hot where I am writing. I could almost forgive the ‘Excursionists’ coming out to bask in such sunshine.
“I hear the ‘M. Post’ has had a long and favourable notice of ‘Tony.’ Have you seen it?
“Now be sure you write to me and often. Addio.
“The American consul has just called and told me that his Government are sending a smashing squadron over here under an admiral – a sort of ‘Io Triumphe’ after the raising of the blockade. All the big frigates are to be included in it.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, March 30,1865.
“This is only to say how much your criticism on ‘Sir B.’ has pleased me, but don’t believe the book is better than ‘Tony’ – it is not. The man who wrote the other hasn’t as good in his wallet.
“I am sure the Major is right, and the story of being chasséd from Austria reads wrong; but it is not, as one might imagine, unfounded. The case was Yelverton’s, and present V. Admiral in the Mediterranean, and the lady an Infanta of Portugal, and it went so far that she was actually going off with him. Now, if you still think it should be cancelled, be it so. I have only recommended it to mercy, not pardoned it.
“Besides my gout I am in the midst of worries. The New Capital is playing the devil with us in increased cost of everything, and my landlord – the one honest man I used to think him in the Peninsula – has just written to apprise me that my rent is doubled. Of course I must go, but where to? that’s the question. I’d cut my lucky and make towards England, but that our friends at the Carlton say, ‘Hold on to Spezzia and we’ll give you something when we come in.’ Do you remember the German Duke who told his ragged followers they should all have shirts, for he was about to sow flax? I threw my sorrows into a doggerel epigram as I was in my bath this morning. —
“To such a pass have things now come,
So high have prices risen,
If Italy don’t go to Rome,
Then – I must go to prison.
“I find that Skene and I are old friends who have fought many a whist battle together. I wanted him to dine with me yesterday to meet Knatchbull and Labouchere, but he was lumbagoed and obliged to keep his bed: he is all right to-day, however.
“I hope to have a few days (a week) in England this spring – that is, if I keep out of jail, – but I’ll let you know my plans when they are planned.
“I have not written since – better I should not – for I go about saying to myself ‘D – Morelli,’ so that my family begin to tremble for my sanity.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Spezzia, April 6, 1865.
“Your letter has just caught me here. I came down hurriedly to see if I couldn’t find a ‘location,’ for my Florentine landlord – actuated by those pure patriotic motives which see in the change of capital the greatness of Italy and the gain of Tuscany – has put 280 odd l. on my rent! As I have been stupid enough to spend some little money in improving my garden, &c. he is wise enough to calculate that I feel reluctant to leave where I have taken root.
“These are small worries, but they are worries in their way, and sometimes more than mere worries to a man like myself who takes a considerable time to settle down, and hates being disturbed afterwards. It never was a matter of surprise to me that story of the prisoner who, after twenty year’s confinement, refused to accept his liberty! And for this reason: if I had been a Papist I’d never have spent a farthing to get me out of Purgatory, for I know I’d have taken to the place after a while, and made myself a sort of life that would have been very endurable.
“You will see from this that ‘Sir B.’ is not advancing. How can he, when I am badgered about from post to pillar? But once settled, you’ll see how I’ll work. It’s time I should say I had your cheque all right; and as to ‘Sir B.,’ it shall be all as you say.
“I am sorely put out by ‘Tony’ not doing better. I can understand scores of people not caring for O’Dowd, just as I have heard in Society such talk as O’D. voted a bore. Englishmen resent a smartness as a liberty: the man who tries a jest in their company has been guilty of a freedom not pardonable. But surely ‘Tony’ is as good trash as the other trash vendors are selling; his nonsense is as readable nonsense as theirs. I am not hopeful of hitting it off better this time, though I have a glimmering suspicion that ‘Sir Brooke’ will be bad enough to succeed.
“Skene and Preston came out to me one evening. I wish I had seen more of them. We laughed a good deal, though I was depressed and out of sorts.
“Of course if Hudson goes ‘yourwards’ I’ll make him known to you. What a misfortune for all who love the best order of fun that he was not poor enough to be obliged to write for his bread! His letters are better drollery than any of us can do, and full of caricature illustrations far and away beyond the best things in ‘Punch.’ Who knows but one of these days we may meet at the same mahogany; and if we should —
“I forget if I told you I have a prospect of a few days in town towards the beginning of May – my positively last appearance in England, before I enter upon that long engagement in the great afterpiece where there are no Tony Butlers nor any O’Dowds.
“I do hope I shall see you: no fault of mine will it be if I fail.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, April 10, 1866.
“Send for No. 1 of ‘The Excursionist,’ edited by a Mr Cook, and if you don’t laugh, ‘you’re no’ the man I thought ye.’ He pitches in to me most furiously for my O’Dowd on the ‘Convict Tourists’; and seeing the tone of his paper, I only wonder he did not make the case actionable.
“He evidently believes that I saw him and his ‘drove Bulls,’ and takes the whole in the most serious light. Good Heavens! what a public he represents.
“The extracts he gives from the T. B.‘s article are far more really severe than anything I wrote, because the snob who wrote them was a bona fide witness of the atrocious snobs around him; and as for the tourist who asks, ‘Is this suit of clothes good enough for Florence, Mr Cook?’ I could make a book on him.
“The fellow is frantic, that is clear.
“Heaven grant that I may fall in with his tourists! I’ll certainly go and dine at any table d’hôte I find them at in Florence.
“I have been so put out (because my landlord will insist on putting me out) by change of house that I have not been able to write a line.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, Florence, April 14,1865.
“After the affecting picture Skene drew of you over one of my inscrutable MSS., I set the governess to work to copy out a chapter of ‘Sir B.,’ which I now send; the remainder of the No. for July I shall despatch to-morrow or next day at farthest. That done, I shall rest and do no more for a little while, as my story needs digestion.
“I have asked for a short leave. I am not sure the answer may not be, ‘You are never at your post, and your request is mere surplusage, and nobody knows or cares where you are,’ &c. If, however, ‘My Lord’ should not have read ‘The Rope Trick,’ and if he should be courteously disposed to accord me my few weeks of absence, and if I should go, – it will be at once, as I am anxious to be in town when the world of Parliament is there, when there are men to talk to and to listen to. I want greatly to see you: I’m not sure that it is not one of my primest objects in my journey.
“All this, however, must depend on F. O., which, to say truth, owes me very little favour or civility. I have been idle latterly – not from choice indeed; but my wife has been very poorly, and there is nothing so entirely and hopelessly disables me as a sick house: the very silence appals me.”
To Mr John Blackwood,
“Villa Morelli, April 23,1865.
“I send you a short story. I have made it O’Dowdish, but you shall yourself decide if it would be better unconnected with O’D. It would not make a bad farce; and Buckstone as ‘Joel,’ and Paul Bedford as ‘Victor Emanuel,’ would make what the Cockneys call a ‘screamer.’
“I have not yet heard anything of my leave, but if I get it at once, and am forced to utilise it immediately, my plan would be to go over to Ireland (where I am obliged to go on business), finish all I have to do there, and be back by the 20th to meet you in London. I cannot say how delighted I should be to go down to you in Scotland. I’d like to see you with your natural background, – a man is always best with his own accessories, – but it mauna be. I can’t manage the time. Going, as I do, from home with my poor wife such a sufferer is very anxious work, and though I have deferred it for the last five years, I go now – if I do go – with great fear and uneasiness. It requires no small self-restraint to say ‘No’ to so pleasant a project, and for God’s sake don’t try and tempt me any more!”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, May 6,1865.
“I suppose (from your silence) that you imagine me in, or about to be in, England. But no; thanks to ‘The Rope Trick,’ perhaps, my Lord has not vouchsafed any reply to my asking for leave, and here I am still. It is the more provoking because, in the expectation of a start, I idled the last ten days, and now find it hard to take up my bed and walk, uncured by the vagabondage I looked for.
“Besides this, I had received a very warm and pressing invitation to I know not what celebrations in Ireland, and meant to have been there by the opening of the Exhibition. However, the F. O. won’t have it, and here I am.
“I am deucedly disposed to throw up my tuppenny consulate on every ground, but have not the pluck, from really a want of confidence in myself, and what I may be this day twelve months, if I be at all.
“Write to me at all events, and with proof, since if ‘the leave’ does not arrive to-morrow or next day, I’ll not avail myself of it.
“If I could hear O’D. was doing flourishing I’d pitch F. O. to the devil by return of post.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, Florence, May 10,1866.
“When this comes to hand I hope to be nearer you than I am now. My address will be care of Alexander Spencer, Esq., 32 North Frederick Street, Dublin. Any proofs – and I hope for some – will find me there.
“F. O. meant to bully, and did bully me; but, after all, one must say that there is an impression that I wrote ‘Tony Butler,’ and as I am indolent to contradict it, que voulez-vous? I only got my blessed leave to-day, and go to-morrow. Never feeling sure that I should be able to go, I have left everything to the last, and now I am overwhelmed with things to do.
“My stay in Ireland will be probably a week, and I hope to be in London by the end of the month. Let me know your plans and your places.
“I am a (something) at the Irish Exhibition (remind me to tell you a story of the D. of Richmond at Rotterdam, which won’t do to write); and perhaps it would not be seemly to O’Dowd the Dubliners.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Morrison’s, Dublin, May 21,1865.
“My movements are to go up to London by Wednesday next. I have a fortnight at least to give to London, but don’t mulct any engagements on my account, but let me see you on your ‘off days.’
“I sent off the ‘Hero-worship,’ corrected, by yesterday’s mail, but added in the envelope a prayer to whomever it might concern not to trust to my hasty revisal, but to look to the orthographies closely, and especially to make Mr Jack ‘Mr Joel,’ as he ought to be.
“Heaven reward you for sending me money! I wonder how you knew I lost £40 last Wednesday night at whist at a mess. I shall, I hope, have wherewithal to pass me on to my parish, but no more.
“The Exhibition here is really good, and very tasteful and pretty. The weather is, however, atrocious, and I am half choked with a cold.
“A Scotch friend, J. F. Drummond (some relative of George Thompson’s), has been endeavouring to have me domiciled at the house he stops at, 11 St James’s Place; but I suspect that the coming Derby has made a difficulty, and I shall probably not get in: hitherto I have always gone to the Burlington, but a notion of ‘Thrift’ (vide O’Dowd) impels me to do something that I already suspect will end in a reckless extravagance.” Lever found Dublin bright, lively, and hospitable, and he was soon ready to cry out against the killing effects of too much dining, too much whist, and too much flattery. Some of his Irish friends noticed that he suffered from occasional attacks of utter despondency. The novelist himself explains the cause of his low-spiritedness: many of his blithesome companions of the ‘Thirties and ‘Forties were dead, and most of those who remained in the land of the living had become very old and painfully prim. When he paid a visit to the Four Courts, he saw on the bench solemn care-worn personages whom he had known as struggling and light-hearted lawyers. His sympathies almost to the last were with young and lively folk: old age was his bogey. “I like the ambitions of young men,” he said, “their high and their bold self-confidence, which no man retains when he gets ‘groggy.’” Amongst his entertainers in Dublin during this visit were Sheridan Le Fanu, W. H. Lecky, and Sir William Wilde. The first two of these noted Lever’s dulness: Wilde found him more brilliant than ever. The novelist’s moods were peculiarly variable just then. Amongst the visits he paid to old haunts was one to the place where his Burschen Club had held revel thirty-five years previously. He discovered some of the club’s paraphernalia, and obtained possession of these relics of golden hours. When he visited Trinity College he was a prey to conflicting emotions, but on the whole the remembrances of the old days, when he lived at No. 2 Botany Bay, were pleasant and inspiriting. He declares that as he walked through the courts and corridors of the University he felt as if thirty years of hard conflict with the world were no more than a memory, and that he was as ready as ever to fling himself headlong into all the fun and frolic of a freshman’s life. This highly-strung mood was succeeded by a fit of deepest melancholy. As he said good-bye to Trinity he felt that he was gazing upon it for the last time. He had submitted to the ordeal of being photographed. The result did not tend to chase his gloom away. The photograph showed him features which the hand of Time had coarsened. In London he met, for the first time, John Blackwood. It was a merry meeting. Blackwood, writing from The Burlington on June 4th, says: “This place is in a greater whirl than ever, and it is with the greatest difficulty I can get anything done. In addition to the usual distractions, I have had Cornelius O’Dowd staying in the same house. He is a sort of fellow that comes into your room and keeps you roaring with laughter for a couple of hours every hour of the day… His fun is something wonderful.” Every likely attraction was provided for O’Dowd by his publisher. Hannay, Kinglake, Delane did their best to entertain him. Blackwood describes the contrast between Kinglake and Lever, – the former making neat little remarks, and Lever rattling on with story after story. Harry Lorrequer appeared in the Park, riding on a nag of Lord Bolingbroke’s. Blackwood humorously declares that, seeing a donkey-cart in Piccadilly, he was uneasy lest the author of ‘Charles O’Malley’ should be tempted to clear the cart in a flying leap. The novelist’s own impressions of this visit to London were sufficiently lively. He was entertained by Lord Houghton, Lord Lytton, and other literary big-wigs. The city seemed as new to him – “just as noisy, as confounding, as addling, as exciting, as tantalising, as never satisfying” – as when he had first seen it. London loungers, he said, had no idea of the overwhelming excitement produced on an idle Anglo-Italian by the mere sounds and sights of the streets, nor could they measure the confusion and enjoyment experienced by a man “who hears more in half an hour than he has imagined in half a year.” He returned to Florence in June, visiting Paris on the homeward journey. He was not sorry to find that official duties called him to Spezzia. He was anxious for a period of rumination – for an easy opportunity of sliding back into the routine ways of pen-craft, which were, he declares, the labour and the happiness of his life. For some weeks consular work kept him busy, and it was difficult to make much headway with ‘Sir Brook.’ Moreover, he was beginning to suffer from attacks of somnolency, akin to the attacks which had prostrated him at Templeogue. When he was not sleeping he was frequently enwrapped in a half dream. “I reflect much,” he said, “and always with my eyes closed and a pillow under my head, and with such a semblance of perfect repose that calumnious people have said I was asleep. These hours of reflection occupy a large share of the forenoon and of the time between early dinner and sunset. They are periods of great enjoyment: they once were even more so, when an opinion prevailed that it would be a sacrilege to disturb me, these being the creative hours of my active intelligence. This faith has long since changed for a less reverent version of my labours, and people are less scrupulous about interruption.” One cannot help suspecting that opium played some part in this languorousness, – though there is no evidence that he resumed the habit. It would have been impossible that Lever should allow even his slumber-fits to escape from association with some form of frolic. Attired in a negligently-worn linen suit, he fell asleep on a chair one day at the public baths. An English footman came into the place, and, mistaking the vice-consul for an attendant, he rudely shook him and declared that he wanted a bath instantly. “There you are!” said Lever, springing to his feet, seizing the flashily-dressed lackey, and pitching him into the reservoir.
To Dr Burbidge.
“Villa Morelli, July 1,1865.
“I am much obliged by your interest for me at Valetta. I really want the house, first, because I would be glad to get away from Florentine dear-ness; and secondly, I ought to give up Spezzia or go to it. If, then, anything can be done anent this matter, it will serve me much.
“Of course I am sorry to hear that you should leave Spezzia, but I cannot but feel the bishop’s offer a good one – good as the means of securing an excellent position and field for further effort. To me Malta would be very palatable. I like the 49th, and their stupid talk. I like pipeclay, and facings, and camp gossip. I like the Mess, and the half-crown whist, and the no ‘canon’ company.
“You are above all this, and tant pis for you. It is a grand lesson in life to have habits and ways that will suit the lowest rate of intelligence; and as for me, I have not a pursuit that could not be practised by the company of a private madhouse.
“I have seen a review of ‘Tony,’ excellent in its way, and giving some encouragement to the ‘evidently young author,’ and warning him that his Italian politics are too heavy for fiction.
“I have begun a new story, ‘Sir Brook Fossbrooke.’ What it will turn out, God knows. ‘Luttrell is complete and out, and another vol. of ‘O’Dowd’ appears next week.
“There is a new evening paper (Tory) called ‘The Pall Mall Gazette’ started. They have asked me to join them, but I don’t like newspaper work, and have said ‘No.’
“Till ‘the party’ are able to strike out some line essentially different from Palmerston’s, not merely crotchety, but really distinctive, all advocating of them in the press is impossible. Now, it’s hard work to read platitudes; it’s the devil to write them. Hannay is to be the editor.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Hôtel de Milan, Spezzia, July 11,1865.
“I have just got your note and the proof of O’D. in the midst of my consular cares, with my Jack flying out of my consular windows, and my consular brains broiling under a temperature that would roast a woodcock.
“I sent you off Sir B. in proof by this post. ‘O’Dowd’ shall follow (if possible) to-morrow, at all events in time. For the love of God, let some man learned in orthographies look to my proofs, for I can’t spell after the thermometer passes 90° in the shade, and if I were to be d – d I don’t know how many d’s there are in granddaughter.
“As to writing here I need only say that it costs me a small apoplexy to perform the present note. The railroad screams under my window, and two Miss Somervilles are sol-faing overhead (and I vow to Heaven I like the locomotive best), and I have a telegram to say that the admiral may be here any day after the 17th, and stay as long as he finds it pleasant, – a condition which (if I know myself) will not entail any undue delay.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Hôtel de Milan, Spezzia, July 13, 1865.
“Your note came on here to-day, the enclosure stayed at Florence. What cruel inspiration suggested your thoughtful kindness? I left home declaring that I was ruined, had overdrawn you, and had not a sou for anything; that we must live on roots and drink water till next spring: and now my beautiful budget, that I have just carried at the risk of the Government, is all gone and smashed.
“You (fortunately for you) don’t know that all these things are very great things to people who are always swimming for their lives, – but enough of it.
“I have been exceedingly busy since I came here. An order of the Queen’s Bench named me a Commissioner to take evidence in a case coming on for trial next November, and I have been sitting up – like a Brummagem Chief-Justice – and rebuking witnesses, and scowling at the public like a real judge.
“I send a few lines to complete O’D. for the month. How I wrote them I don’t know, for this infernal place is so noisy, and the interruptions so frequent, I’d fain be back in Brook Street for quiet.
“I fear I shall be detained here all this month, for the admiral is on his way here, and the whole Maltese fleet are thirsting for bitter beer and champagne. I wonder if I were to put down their powers of suction in my extraordinaries would F. O. stand it?”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Hôtel de Milan, Spezzia, July 15, 1865.
“I send off O’D. proof to-night. I last night sent by private hand some pages to conclude it. Do look very carefully to both; my orthography (like Acre’s courage) oozes out of my finger-ends in this hot weather.
“I have had a two hours’ swim, and am so sleepy and ‘water-logged’ that I can’t write, though I’m dying to O’Dowd the judge for his remarks on Dr Paterson in the Pritchard case. They are so ignorant, and so vulgar to boot.
“If every doctor who suspected foul play in the treatment of malady was to cry out Murder! the whole world would be one wild shout of assassination. What between medical timidity, terror, gobemoucherie, and sometimes private malice, the police-courts would have enough on their hands. They say railroads must have no signals because pusillanimous travellers would be eternally summoning the guard, and here is exactly a similar evil with worse consequences.
“I don’t think I ever conversed with a country practitioner who hadn’t a story or two of ‘foul play,’ and so palpably untrue as to be laughable. In all probability Paterson’s impressions were only strong when he found the woman had died, and it is a very medical error to imagine a skill in prediction which only comes after the event. The world is all subserviency to the doctor when there is an epidemic abroad, and ‘takes it out’ in insult when the weather is fine and the season salubrious.
“‘The Spanish fleet’ is not in sight.
“Remember I rely upon you to look closely to these last ‘Sir Bs.’ and ‘O’Dowds,’ for I am as near softening of the brain as it is permitted to a consul to be.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Hôtel de Milan, Spezzia, July 28, 1865.
“It seems like a century to me since we heard of each other. Here I am still awaiting the fleet. They were to come on the 27th, and they are to be here positively on the 6th, most positively on the 8th, and as sure as the Lord liveth (I mean the First Lord), on the 12th August.
“I have my youngest daughter with me, who keeps me in a perpetual round of croquet, picnics, boat-races, and moonlight rowing-parties.
“If you knew, then, the difficulty I have had to write the two chaps. I now send you (my first instalment of Sept. ‘Fossbrooke ‘), you would prize them more certainly than their merit could call for.”
To Mr William Blackwood.
“Hôtel de Milan, Spezzia, Aug. 6, 1865.
“I got your telegram just as I was starting for a picnic, to eat my lobster afterwards with what appetite I might. I suspect (it is mere suspicion) that chap, i., enclosed in an envelope I had borrowed from an American colleague, has gone (through the words ‘U.S. Consulate’ on the corner) to America, and that Sir B. F. is now making the tour of ‘the Union.’
“Rewriting is all very fine; but I have forgotten all I wrote, as I always do, or I should go mad. If Providence had only inflicted me with a memory in proportion to my imagination, I’d have been in Bedlam twenty years ago. I have therefore set to work and written something else. If the other turns up, you may prefer it (‘You pays your money and takes your choice,’ as the apple-women say).
“God forgive me, but I grow less wise as I grow older. The old smack of devil-may-care, that sat so easily on me as a boy, keeps dodging me now in grey hairs and making a fool of me; but you’ve read the German story of the fellow whose wooden leg was ‘possessed’ and ran away with him. I haven’t a wooden leg, but I have a wooden stick that plays a like prank with me.
“O’Dowd indeed! And I flirting with little Yankee girls, and teaching them to swim! Don’t talk to me of O’Dowd!
“Tell your uncle to send me whatever there remains of balance of the last O’Ds., for I am losing my money here like fun, and ashamed to send to my bankers for more.
“Continue to address me here: I see no prospect of my getting back to Florence. The English fleet is still at Rosas, and the three balls we intended to give them have already come off here, and we are all ruined in champagne and crinoline before the honoured guests have arrived. What an O’D. one might make on ‘The Fleet of the Future’!”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Hôtel de Milan, Aug. 14,1866.
“When I read of Aytoun’s death in the papers I knew how it would affect you. I am well aware what old ties linked you; and these old ties bind not only heart to heart, but attach a man to his former self, and make up the sweetest part of our identity. They are often, too, the only light that shines on the past, which would be dark and untraceable if love did not mark it.
“It is strange, but I feel (and I wrote it to my wife) that I thought I had lost a friend in losing him, – though we never met, and only knew each other in a few kindly greetings transmitted by yourself from one to the other. How right you are about the solemn fools! I go even farther, and say that the solemn wise, the Gladstones of this world, are only half great in wanting that humouristic vein that gives a man his wide sympathy with other men, and makes him, through his very humanity, a something more than human. I am sure it is in no unfair spirit I say it, but the Aytoun type grows rarer every day. It is a commodity not marketable, and Nature somehow ceases to produce what has not its value in the pièce courant.