“Villa Morelli, Nov. 13, 1864.
“On second thoughts I send you off the enclosed at once. One chap, more will finish ‘Tony,’ but I want to have your judgment on these before I write the last. I have worked nearly two nights through to do this. I am uncommonly anxious—more than I like to tell—that the book should be a success. I know well nothing will be wanting on your part, and I am all the more eager to do mine. Write to me as soon as you can, for I shall lie on my oars till I hear from you, except so far as correcting the volumes of T. and O’D.
“It has been, with all its fatigues, a great mercy to me to have had this hard work, for I have great—the greatest—anxieties around me, and but for the necessity for exertion, I don’t think I could bear up.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, Nov. 16, 1864.
“I have never quitted ‘Tony’ since I wrote to you, and here goes the result! I have finished him, unless you opine that a few more lines are needed, though what they ought to detail is not usually thought fit for publication.
“I hope to Heaven it is good. If you knew how I have laboured to fancy myself in a love-making mood,—if you knew by what drains on my memory—on my imagination—I have tried to believe a young damsel in my arms and endeavoured to make the sweet moment profitable,—you’d pity me. Perhaps a page of notices of what became of Mait-land, M’Caskey, &c, is necessary, though I’m of the Irishman’s opinion, ‘that when we know Jimmy was hanged, we don’t want to hear who got his corduroys.’
“Do you give me your opinion, however, and God grant it be favourable! for I’m dead-beat,—gouty, doubty, and damnably blue-devilled into the bargain.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, Nov. 23,1864.