“I was very impatient to hear from you. What you say of the whist story is all true, though I didn’t make my man a fellow of All Souls’ but only a master of that college. Some of the fellows are, however, notoriously the worst whisters going. They are selected for convivial qualities, not the gentlemanlike ones. Unhappily there is a distinction.
“Of course it wants point, just as one-franc Bordeaux wants ‘body.’ It is merely meant to be light tipple, and if it does not give heartburn there is nothing to grumble at over it.
“Still I’d have made it better if I knew how, but I couldn’t hit on anything I thought improvement.
“My wife has got a serious relapse, and I have not written a line since I wrote to you. It will suit my book—that is, my story (not my banker’s book)—if you could begin with me by your new volume in July; but of course I am at the mercy of your other engagements.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Trieste, March 2, 1869.
“I send you two short, but I think spicy, O’Ds., and will try to add another. My girls say that if F. O. does not ‘inform me’ something about the ‘new series,’ it will be strange and singular, for it is certainly impertinent.
“The war is evidently drawing near, but the terror of each to begin grows greater every day. It is firmly believed here that a secret understanding binds Russia and America, and that if England moves out of strict neutrality the States mean to be troublesome. Farragut told me he saw no navy to compare with the Russian, but I know enough of Yankees to accept his talk with more than one grain of salt.
“The efforts of France and Prussia to secure the alliance of Italy are most amusing, as if the events of late had not shown how totally inoperative Italy was, and that nothing could be worse than her army except her fleet.
“My poor wife makes no progress towards recovery, and all we can do, by incessant care, is to support her strength. I never leave the house now, and am broken in spirits and nearly ‘off the hooks.’