“Hôtel de Milan, Spezzia, July 15, 1865.
“I send off O’D. proof to-night. I last night sent by private hand some pages to conclude it. Do look very carefully to both; my orthography (like Acre’s courage) oozes out of my finger-ends in this hot weather.
“I have had a two hours’ swim, and am so sleepy and ‘water-logged’ that I can’t write, though I’m dying to O’Dowd the judge for his remarks on Dr Paterson in the Pritchard case. They are so ignorant, and so vulgar to boot.
“If every doctor who suspected foul play in the treatment of malady was to cry out Murder! the whole world would be one wild shout of assassination. What between medical timidity, terror, gobemoucherie, and sometimes private malice, the police-courts would have enough on their hands. They say railroads must have no signals because pusillanimous travellers would be eternally summoning the guard, and here is exactly a similar evil with worse consequences.
“I don’t think I ever conversed with a country practitioner who hadn’t a story or two of ‘foul play,’ and so palpably untrue as to be laughable. In all probability Paterson’s impressions were only strong when he found the woman had died, and it is a very medical error to imagine a skill in prediction which only comes after the event. The world is all subserviency to the doctor when there is an epidemic abroad, and ‘takes it out’ in insult when the weather is fine and the season salubrious.
“‘The Spanish fleet’ is not in sight.
“Remember I rely upon you to look closely to these last ‘Sir Bs.’ and ‘O’Dowds,’ for I am as near softening of the brain as it is permitted to a consul to be.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Hôtel de Milan, Spezzia, July 28, 1865.
“It seems like a century to me since we heard of each other. Here I am still awaiting the fleet. They were to come on the 27th, and they are to be here positively on the 6th, most positively on the 8th, and as sure as the Lord liveth (I mean the First Lord), on the 12th August.