“I send you an O’D. to make enough for a short paper with the other sent on Monday last.
“I sent your uncle a specimen page of M’Caskey, but by bad luck I despatched it on my birthday, the 31st August,* and, of course, it will come to no good. It was Dean Swift’s custom to read a certain chapter of Job on his birthday, wherein the day is cursed that a man-child was born. I don’t go that far, but I have a very clear memory of a number of mishaps (to give them a mild name) which have taken this occasion to date from. It would be very grateful news to me to learn I was not to see ‘another return of the happy event,’ but impatience will serve me little, and I must wait till I’m asked for.”
* The statement here as to his birthday is sufficiently
explicit See vol. i p. 2.—E. D. the credit of reviewing
‘Lothair,’ I am determined to say that these papers were
written by Colonel Humbug!
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Trieste, Sept 11,1870.
“Since I got your ‘go on’ I have never ceased writing about M’Caskey. Upon you I throw all the responsibility, the more as it has very nearly turned my own brain with its intrinsic insanity.
“I suppose I have sent you folly enough for the present month; and if you will write me one line to say you wish it, I will set to work at once at the next part and to the extent you dictate.
“Pray look fully to the corrections, and believe me [to be] not very sane or collected.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Trieste, Sept. 13, 1870.