“I was very glad to see the part which I now return corrected, fearing that some mischance had befallen it. I hope you like it: I am eager to hear what your impression of the whole tale is on looking back over it.
“If I thought it was of the least consequence to you I would not dun you, but I want money. I am in a difficulty about a large—that is, for me, a large—bill due on the 25th, the last of those debts I once told you of, and with this I end them.
“I am writing hard at ‘Sir B.,’ and hope the ending will come right. My home advisers say ‘Yes.’
“The character of Mrs Sewell was a great difficulty—that is, the attempt to show how mere gracefulness could appear something better, and that a woman might be as depraved as a man without forfeiting to a great extent our sympathy and even something stronger.
“Have I succeeded? I don’t know, nor do I know if any one will take the trouble to see what I have aimed at.
“I wrote this epigram on the loss of the Affondatore, and it has some
vogue here:—
“Al Affondatore.
“Ta meritai bene il tuo nome strano,
Se non i nemici: Affondersi Pereano.
Or in doggerel—
“To the Sinker.
“You well deserve your name, one must say with candour,—
If you can’t sink your enemies you can your own commander.
“I see the Rhine question is the next for ‘trial’—the G. L. N. versus the King of Prussia. Nisi Prius.”
To Mr John Blackwood.