“I am still confined to the house with a feverish cold, and overrun by travellers to and from Suez.
“The Dalmatian revolt is becoming a very serious affair. The peasants are beating the troops, and now the season must stop all operations till spring. Whether by that time the complication will not take wider limits and embrace Servia and the Balkans, is not easy to see. That blessed ally of ours, Louis Napoleon, is now intriguing to get a Russian alliance and undo all the work of the Crimean campaign, and of course our ‘Non-interference Policy’ will leave the coast free to him! Thank God, his home troubles may overtake him before he goes much farther!”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Trieste, Dec. 11, 1869.
“Thanks for your note and its enclosure, and thanks, too, for telling me that the deferred O’Ds. are not rejected ones, for I was getting low-spirited at the number of recruits sent back as below the standard. When I asked you to send me the unused, it was a painful confession. It was like a manufacturer owning to his being reduced to work up his old material. Perhaps I shall one of these days make an O’Dowd on ‘Devil’s Dust in Literature.’ What do you think of it?
“I hope you will like the ‘O’Dowd’ I send. It is meant to expose a very common blunder respecting the influences of the better classes abroad. You must ensure the correction yourself, and it will be the last I shall forward this month. For the last week I have been keeping a dark room with a severe ophthalmia. It was a dreary time, and I am glad it is over.
“Gladstone is going to propose a sort of Court of Arbitration for land purposes—that is, another body of men to be shot at when the peasants find landlords scarce, or what the sportsmen call ‘wild.’
“This Dalmatian revolt must sleep during the winter, but it will be a serious mischief yet, especially if this Franco-Russian alliance takes place. Our policy now ought to be to reconcile Austria and Prussia at once, and prepare for the big struggle that is coming to undo the results of the Crimean War. I wish, if it be decided to represent England abroad by old women, that at least they would send us old ladies.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Trieste, Dec. 14, 1860.