“I’ll send you soon a sketch of my intentions as to ‘The Dodd’ papers; perhaps you are right in keeping the name back.
“Your brother was quite right. My compliments to him, and say he shall not be bored with any more Italian politics. I suppose my old medical instincts led me into the mess, and made me fancy that an ‘occasional bitter’ was always useful I’ll send you a batch of MSS. in a day or two, and when you send me the proofs I’ll go ahead vigorously.
“I am reading Kinglake, and delighted with him. I go with every line of him.”
To Dr Burbidge.
“Casa Capponi, Florence, Dec, 1,1863.
“I have at last bullied my attack, though a severe rheumatism has seized on me and brought me to my knees in more senses than one. I am truly sorry to hear you are out of sorts. Let me prescribe. Go up to the V. Consulate, extremity of the Casa Falconi, and make Freddy (Sanders, F.) search out from among the bottles there one of brandy—it is wonderfully old and good—and take it home, and give yourself a stiffish glass of the same, cold, without water, a short time before bed-hour, and follow it each day by ten grains quinine in two separate doses—five grains each, [?C’est] la grande cure.
“I am not yet sure whether I have lost MSS. as well as proof, the last, certainly, as you may know to your cost some fine day when you see No. 2 walk in once more to have his face washed, for indeed I could not make the corrections you did, and I know they ought to be made. By the way, neither of us remarked that I gave the same maid—Honoré—to Sir William Wardle and the Vyners.
“I cannot get to work as I ought. I have a good many anxieties, and I bear them less well than I used. Strange dispensation, that one’s load should grow heavier as the back to bear it grows weaker!
“I am making a shocking mull of ‘Luttrell,’ I feel and know, and can’t help it. I suppose I shall go down to Spezzia in a few days—that is, next week, but I don’t like leaving home with my wife so nervous and suffering.
“The Church here at a dead-lock. Pendleton threatening, the vestry coaxing, the parson putting forth each Sunday all his most attractive graces, but still, to be sure, asking for more; and the public, most of whom are in the migratory state, declare that they belong to another parish, and are deaf to the charmer.”