To Mr John Blackwood.
“Hôtel de Milan, Aug. 14,1866.
“When I read of Aytoun’s death in the papers I knew how it would affect you. I am well aware what old ties linked you; and these old ties bind not only heart to heart, but attach a man to his former self, and make up the sweetest part of our identity. They are often, too, the only light that shines on the past, which would be dark and untraceable if love did not mark it.
“It is strange, but I feel (and I wrote it to my wife) that I thought I had lost a friend in losing him,—though we never met, and only knew each other in a few kindly greetings transmitted by yourself from one to the other. How right you are about the solemn fools! I go even farther, and say that the solemn wise, the Gladstones of this world, are only half great in wanting that humouristic vein that gives a man his wide sympathy with other men, and makes him, through his very humanity, a something more than human. I am sure it is in no unfair spirit I say it, but the Aytoun type grows rarer every day. It is a commodity not marketable, and Nature somehow ceases to produce what has not its value in the pièce courant.
“I can’t write a line here. My youngest daughter keeps me ever concocting new gaieties for her, and she has such an insatiable spirit for enjoyment the game never ends.
“Our fleet is becalmed outside Spezzia, but may be here at any moment.
“I shall send off the proof by book-post, and (if no other reach me) beseech you to remember that, being away from my wife and eldest daughter, I am neither to be relied upon for my orthographies nor my ‘unities,’ nor indeed any other ‘ties. Look, therefore, sharply to my proof, and see that I am not ever obscure where I don’t intend it.
“I see no chance of getting away before the end of the month, and till I reach V. Morelli my ink-bottle is screwed up.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Hôtel de Milan, Spezzià, Sept. 2,1865.