“It is not fair to pelt you with my ‘letters’ as well as my ‘literature,’ and you may reasonably claim some immunity on the former score.
“I remember a very important Englishwoman—she wrote a book called ‘The Unprotected Female in Norway’—once stopping me in the street on the ground that ‘no introduction was necessary, as I was a public man.’
“I send you back M’C, which reads in places so like reality; but on the whole I think it will do, and hope you think so too.
“Sir H. Seymour writes me word that he believes he is going to succeed to Lord Hertford’s Irish estates, a bagatelle of £70,000 per an.! I know of none more deserving of good fortune.
“‘John’ reached me after my note was closed, with a charming note from Mrs O.
“Have you heard—that is, have I told you—that the ‘Neue Presse of Vienna’ quotes M’Caskey as a veritable correspondent? But the General Brialmont did more. In his ‘Life of Napoleon’ he states, ‘Mon. Charles O’Malley raconte que,’ &c, &c.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Trieste, Nov. 20, 1870.
“There is a new complication, and for us I suspect a worse one than all—a Russian war! I believe that every one abroad knew that if even France had not the worst of it, the mere fact of her having gone through a stiff campaign, and been crippled of men and money by the effort, would have suggested to the Russians that now was the time to deal with ‘the sick man.’ The inducement on seeing France totally disabled was too tempting, and they have denounced the treaty which they had determined not to assail before next spring.
“You know better than I do what people at home are disposed to do, and what’s more, what they can do. By the newspapers I gather that at last the English people are aware that they have no army; and as a fleet, even if it floats, cannot fight on dry land, we are comparatively powerless in ourselves. Of course we could subsidise, but whom? Not the Austrians, though I see all the correspondents say so, and even tell the number they could bring into the field and the places they would occupy, &c.: and our Ambassador at Vienna, I hear, writes home most cheery accounts of the Austrian resources. Now I know that if Austria were to move to-morrow, her Slavic population, quite entirely in the hands and some in the pay of Russia, would rise and dismember the empire. Imagine Fenianism not only in Meath and Kerry but in Norfolk, Yorkshire, and Kent, and then you can have some idea of the danger of provoking such a rebellious element as the Austrian Greek.