This new Indian Civil Service scheme may, I dare say, interest you. I rather regret that so little is made of Eastern languages. I think Persian might be allowed as a study almost co-ordinate with Latin and Greek, and quite with French, German, and Italian, as at present valued in the scheme.
To Professor F. J. Child.
London: January 31, 1855.
Here we are with, I am just told, the Tories in once again. When they last came in, they drove me from England into New England. I don’t know how it will be now.
Our literature, at present, is the war column in the newspaper. The best military reports are those of the ‘Morning Herald,’ I am told; but Macdonald, the hospital correspondent at Constantinople, has been more successful practically than ever newspaper correspondent yet had the glory of being.
February 2.
This steamer, it appears, will not quite certainly tell you ‘under which’ Prime Minister we are to ‘do our duty,’ but Palmerston must manage somehow we suppose. Yesterday we believed that Lord Derby would be our king, and Disraeli our foreign minister, Palmerston holding the war department; but that seems over altogether.
To the same.
London: May 3, 1855.
Last week we had Emperor and Empress passing by here under our windows, with Queen and Prince, in the midst of applauding multitudes, and certainly there is no denying Louis Napoleon’s courage.