“Trieste, Dec. 22, 1870.
“I am so low and découragé that I have little heart to send you the two O’Ds. that go with this.
“The Gortschakoff one is, I think, smart; the other is only original. If the world should offer, meanwhile, matter for a third, I’ll try and take it
Toute fois if it be that you like and approve of these.
“I am going more rapidly downward than before. I suppose I shall run on to spring, or near it. Though, like Thompson’s argument for lying in bed, ‘I see no motive for rising,’ I am quite satisfied to travel in the other direction.
“I don’t wonder that the British world is growing French in sympathy. The Prussians are doing their very utmost to disgust Europe, and with a success that cannot be disputed.
“I hope, if you in England mean war with Russia, that you do not count on Austria. She will not, because she cannot, help you; and a Russian war would mean here dismemberment of the empire and utter ruin. If Austria were beaten, the German provinces would become Prussian; if she were victorious, Hungary would dominate over the empire and take the supremacy at once. Which would be worse? I really cannot say.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Trieste, Dec 29,1870.
“I give you all my thanks for your kind letter, which, owing to the deep snow in Styria, only reached me to-day. I am, of course, sorry the world will not see the fun of M’Caskey as do the Levers, but it is no small consideration to me to be represented in that minority so favourably.
“Poor Anster used to tell of an Irish fortune so ‘tied up’ by law that it could not be untied, and left the heirs to die in the poorhouse. Perhaps my drollery in the M’Caskey legend is just as ingeniously wrapped up, and that nothing can find it. At all events, I have no courage to send you any more of him.