_To Mr John Blackwood._
"Trieste, _July_ 6, 1868.
"My 'Lab.' O'D. was, I believe, niched out of the post here: no loss, perhaps, for it was terribly wicked and personal. This is milder, and cuts _two_ ways. Let me see a proof, and if I have a third in the meantime, I will send it.
"Do print my story, like a good fellow. You'll see it is a hit.
"I have just received news that the fleet will be here on Friday, and then--the deluge!
"I have ordered such a supply of bitter ale and cigars that the authorities are curious to know if I am about to open a _Biergarten_, which I secretly suspect I am--minus the ready-money profits.
"Tegeloff comes down to meet the admiral, and if anything turns up you shall have it."
_To Mr William Blackwood._
"Trieste, _July_ 16, 1868.
"Oh, B. B., what a humbug you are! affecting to be hard-worked, and galley-slaved, and the rest of it. Telling this to _me_ too. Dives lecturing Lazarus on the score of dyspepsia is a mild case compared to a publisher asking compassion from a poor devil of an author on the score of his fatigue. I picture you to myself as a careless dog, hunting, flirting, cricket-playing, and picnic-ing, with no severer labour than reading an amusing proof over a mild cheroot and a sherry cobbler.
I tell you that on every ground--morally, aesthetically, and geographically--you _ought_ to come and see me, and if you won't, I'll be shot but I'll make an O'Dowd on you.
"So now it seems there is not one 'Labouchere' O'D. but two 'Labouchere'
O'Ds., and I see nothing better to do than take your choice. I believe the last the best.
"As the Government are good Christians, and chasten those they love, they have made Hannay a consul! Less vindictive countries give four or five years' hard labour and have an end of it; but there is a rare malice in sending some poor devil of a literary man who loves the Garrick, and lobster salad, and small whist, and small flattery, to eke out existence in a dreary Continental town, without society or sympathy, playing patron all the while and saying, 'We are not neglecting our men of letters.' I'd rather be a dog and bark at the door of the Wyndham or the Alfred than spend this weariful life of exile I am sentenced to.
"I hope you'll like Bob Considine's story, and let it be a warning and a lesson to you how you worry your wife when you have one, and how unsuspectingly a husband should walk all the days of his life. I don't think the world sees it yet, but I am a great moralist, terribly undervalued and much misunderstood.
"Kinglake is admirable; he has but one fault,--and perhaps it would be none to less impatient men than myself,--he does not _get on_ fast enough. It is splendidly written, and with a rare courage too.
"What a fuss you are all making over Abyssinia I Hech, sirs, but ye are gratefu' for sma' mercies! I wish to Heaven the press would moderate its raptures, or we'll get a rare set down from the foreign journals.
"Did I tell you that there is a great rifle-match, open to all nations (even Scotch and Irish), at Vienna this month? There's another reason for coming out. You could make your bull's-eye on your way to me. You had better accede, or you may read of yourself as 'The man who wouldn't come when he was axed.'"
_To Mr John Blackwood._
"Trieste, _August_ 16, 1868.
"I am worn out with fatigue and anxiety: for five nights I have not been to bed. My poor wife is again dangerously ill, and as yet no sign of any favourable kind has appeared. God help me in this great trouble!
"I wanted to see those things in print, but it is late now to correct them. I believe I wrote 'Mincio' in the 'La Marmora' paper when it should be 'Oglio.' Look to this for me."
_To Mr John Blackwood._
"Aug. 18, 1868
"You will, I know, be glad to hear my wife has had a favourable change.
One of the doctors of the fleet has been fortunate enough to hit on a lucky treatment, and the admiral most kindly allows him to remain behind and continue the treatment. The fleet sails to-day.
"I send you a few lines which, I believe, would be well liked and opportune: they are true, at all events."
_To Mr John Blackwood._
"Trieste, _Sept_. 3, 1868.
"I thank you heartily for your kind words about my wife. Thank God, she is now improving daily, and my anxiety has at last got some peace.
"I was greatly pressed to join Lord Clarence Paget down amongst the islands of Dalmatia, and nothing but my anxiety for my wife prevented me. It would have been a rare opportunity to pick up much odd material, and a pleasant ramble besides. Sir H. Holland has spent a few days with me, and wished me much to join his tour,--and _his_ companionship would have been delightful,--but I was obliged to refuse. It is weeks since I wrote anything but a few passing lines, and I have not yet come round to the pleasant feeling that in settling down to my work I have got back to a little world where no cares can come in save those necessary to my hero and heroine. But I hope this will come yet.
"I'd have waited to send you another O'D. or two, but I wanted to thank you for your hearty note, and acknowledge its enclosure. Just as a little money goes far with a poor man, a few words of sympathy are marvellous sweetness in the cup of a lonely hermit like myself, for you have no idea of the dreary desolation of this place as regards one who does not sweat guineas nor has any to sweat. The Party, I fear, will go out before _I_ can, and for all I see I shall die here; and certainly if they're not pleasanter company after death than before it, the cemetery will be poor fun with Triestono.
"I don't think Trollope _pleasant_, though he has a certain hard common-sense about him and coarse shrewdness that prevents him being dull or tiresome. His books are not of a high order, but still I am always surprised that he could write them. He is a good fellow, I believe, _au fond_, and has few jealousies and no rancours; and for a writer, is not that saying much?
"What I feel about Kinglake's book is this. The great problem to be solved is, first, Was Sebastopol assailable by the north side? Second, Were the French really desirous of a short war? I suspect K. knows far more than, with all his courage, he could say on the score of our Allies' loyalty; and any one who has not access to particular sources of knowledge would be totally unable to be his reviewer, for in reality the critic ought, though not able to write the book he reviews, to be in possession of such acquaintance with the subject as to be in a position to say what other versions the facts recorded would bear, and to weigh the evidence for and against the author's. Another difficulty remains: what a bathos would it be--the original matter of almost any writer--among or after the extracted bits of the book itself. Kinglake's style is, with all its glitter, so intensely powerful, and his descriptive parts so perfectly picture-like, that the reviewer must needs take the humble part of the guide and limit himself to directing attention to the beauties in view, and make himself as little seen or felt as need be. Not that this would deter me, for I like the man much, and think great things of his book; but I feel I am not in a position to do him the justice his grand book deserves. If I were a week with you in Scotland, and sufficiently able to withdraw from the pleasures of your house, I believe I could do the review; but you see my bonds, and know how I am tied.
"You will see by the divided sheet of this note that I started with the good intention of brevity; but this habit of writing by the sheet, I suppose, has corrupted me, and perhaps I'll not be able now to make my will without 'padding.'
"I have the Bishop of Gibraltar on a visit with me: about the most brilliant talker I ever met."
_To Mr John Blackwood._
"Trieste, _Sept_. 14, 1868.
"I send you a very spicy bit of wickedness on the Whig-Radicals--but, for the love of the Virgin, let the proof be carefully looked to! I am as uncertain about the errors of the press as I am about my personal shortcomings; but I rely on your reader with the faith of a drowning man on a lifebuoy.
"My wife is a shade better, but my anxiety is great, and I (who habitually sleep eighteen hours out of twenty-four) have not had a night's rest for ten days.
"We are suffering greatly here from drought. No rain has fallen for three months, and my well is as completely drained as my account at my bankers, or anything else you can fancy of utter exhaustion.
"Who writes 'M. Aurelia'? He or she certainly knows nothing of Italian nature or temperament. Not but that the story opens well and is cleverly written, but I demur to the Italian. _I_ know the rascals well; but, like short whist, it cost me twenty years and some tin to do it. Keep my opinion, however, to yourself, for I hate to disparage a contemporary, and indeed this slipped out of me because my daughter has been talking to me of the story while I write."
_To Mr John Blackwood._
"Trieste, _Sept_. 16, 1868.
"I have just had a round of clerical visitors, beginning with the Bishop of Gibraltar and ending with the Dean of Exeter. Very pleasant talking and humorous men, and only agreeably dashed with the priest element, which is sufficiently feminine to temper down the rougher natures of lay humanities.