“I have not written since—better I should not—for I go about saying to myself ‘D——— Morelli,’ so that my family begin to tremble for my sanity.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Spezzia, April 6, 1865.
“Your letter has just caught me here. I came down hurriedly to see if I couldn’t find a ‘location,’ for my Florentine landlord—actuated by those pure patriotic motives which see in the change of capital the greatness of Italy and the gain of Tuscany—has put 280 odd l. on my rent! As I have been stupid enough to spend some little money in improving my garden, &c. he is wise enough to calculate that I feel reluctant to leave where I have taken root.
“These are small worries, but they are worries in their way, and sometimes more than mere worries to a man like myself who takes a considerable time to settle down, and hates being disturbed afterwards. It never was a matter of surprise to me that story of the prisoner who, after twenty year’s confinement, refused to accept his liberty! And for this reason: if I had been a Papist I’d never have spent a farthing to get me out of Purgatory, for I know I’d have taken to the place after a while, and made myself a sort of life that would have been very endurable.
“You will see from this that ‘Sir B.’ is not advancing. How can he, when I am badgered about from post to pillar? But once settled, you’ll see how I’ll work. It’s time I should say I had your cheque all right; and as to ‘Sir B.,’ it shall be all as you say.
“I am sorely put out by ‘Tony’ not doing better. I can understand scores of people not caring for O’Dowd, just as I have heard in Society such talk as O’D. voted a bore. Englishmen resent a smartness as a liberty: the man who tries a jest in their company has been guilty of a freedom not pardonable. But surely ‘Tony’ is as good trash as the other trash vendors are selling; his nonsense is as readable nonsense as theirs. I am not hopeful of hitting it off better this time, though I have a glimmering suspicion that ‘Sir Brooke’ will be bad enough to succeed.
“Skene and Preston came out to me one evening. I wish I had seen more of them. We laughed a good deal, though I was depressed and out of sorts.
“Of course if Hudson goes ‘yourwards’ I’ll make him known to you. What a misfortune for all who love the best order of fun that he was not poor enough to be obliged to write for his bread! His letters are better drollery than any of us can do, and full of caricature illustrations far and away beyond the best things in ‘Punch.’ Who knows but one of these days we may meet at the same mahogany; and if we should———
“I forget if I told you I have a prospect of a few days in town towards the beginning of May—my positively last appearance in England, before I enter upon that long engagement in the great afterpiece where there are no Tony Butlers nor any O’Dowds.