“I am ordered off to Fiume for change of air—the change of scene that is to affect me is somewhat farther. Before I go I send you two O’Ds. that have been under my hands these few weeks back. Whether they be print-worthy or not, you will know and decide; if so, I shall be back to correct and add another by the time a proof could reach me.
“I am in a very creaky condition, and why I hold together at all I don’t understand. Like the Megæra, all the attempts to stop the leak only widens the breach.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Trieste, Feb. 15, 1872.
“It was an angel from heaven suggested to your wife the thought of a run out here. Only come and I’ll go with you to Japan if you like. There are no two people in the world I should rather see, and though the place is a poor one and I a dull dog, the thought of seeing you here would brighten us both up, as the mere notion has cheered me already.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Trieste, Feb. 26, 1872.
“I send you (and thus early to be in time for next month) a short sketchy story which, as the man said of the Athanasian Creed, is founded on fact, but not the better (I mean the story) for that.
“It has a moral too, or rather several morals, to be distributed according to age and sex, and, in fact, is a ‘righte merrie’ and well conceived tale, as I hope you will tell me.
“I had fully made up my mind to write no more, and to water my grog to enable me to do so, but I now discover that neither of my two daughters like ‘watered grog’ at all, but prefer whatever dietary habit has inured them to. ‘For this reason and for the season’ I am at it once more, though my ink-bottle looks as ruefully at me as the Yankees at Gladstone for backing out of the N. Y. Convention.