“These questionable publishers who say, ‘Buy my share and I’ll give you a book,’ represent the contract by which Sanders obtained Marola. That is, he bought the shares—viz., the house, and they gave him the book, meaning the ‘Arsenal.’ All fair and right so far! But nobody ever supposed that the share was connected with the book, had a market value, or was worth more to a purchaser than its price as a share. Now the opposite is precisely the mistake Sanders has fallen into. The rent of Marola represents in pounds the eagerness of M. Bolla to sign a certain agreement, but I have no such eagerness; for me no docks are digged, no mud excavated, no roads cut up and trees cut down; I have no interest in all the filth, dirt, drunkenness, or small assassinations introduced into a once lonely spot; I neither derive ten per cent profits or sixty per cent frauds. I have no part in the honest gains of Sanders or in the wholesale robberies of Bolla,—I merely want a house at the price of a house. Hence to pay £60 to £70 for a two-floor villa, furnished!—three chairs and the bath,—is certes too dear, not to add the Mackie difficulty. I have nothing definitely about my villa here, nor need I for some days.
“Is the wretched little toy-house under the Cappucines still unlet? and if so, what rent does M. Torri expect for it?—for, though he has no straw, he has more than the equivalent in the pestilent rascality of a true Spezzino.
“I hear from ‘The Morning Post’ people that Pam has at length got the Emperor’s consent to be warlike. A la remarque de la France is a tune we know better nowadays than ‘Rule Britannia.’ The story goes: he, L. N., is to have the freyen deutschen Rhein, and we are to be permitted to fill up again M. Lessep’s canal at Suez—suum caique.
“Who is to say l’Alliance brings no gain? One clears a river, t’other fills a drain.
“It is absurd to revile—as ‘The Times’ does—the Derbys for not announcing a policy. It is only a wise precaution in a bather who has once been robbed to hide his clothes when he next goes for a swim. This is all Dizzy is doing.
“I am now in a rare mess about ‘Luttrell,’ and cannot write a word.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Croce di Malta, Spezzia, April 7, 1864.
“I now send you the June ‘Tony,’ anxious to hear that you are satisfied. If I bore you by my insistence in this way, my excuse is that just as a sharp-flavoured wine turns quickest to vinegar, all the once lightness of heart I had has now grown to a species of irritable anxiety. Of course it is the dread a man feels of growing old lest he become more feeble than he even suspects, and I confess to you that I can put up with my shaky knees and swelled ankles better than I can with my shortcomings in brain matters. At all events, I am doing as well as I can, and quite ready to be taught to do better.”
To Mr John Blackwood.