“I am in misery. Here I am, dining and being dined, eating, drinking, singing, sailing, swimming, pic-nicing, bedevilling,—everything, in short, but writing. I have made incredible attempts to work. I have taken a room on the house-top; I have insulted the ward-room and d———d the cockpit; I have even sneered at the admiral. The evil, however, is—I have done but a few pages, and I send them to get printed, leaving you to determine whether we shall skip a month, or whether, completing the unfinished chapter, an instalment of about 12 pp. will be better than nothing. I am more disposed to this than leaving a gap, and I am still very wretched that my work should be ill done. Direct and counsel me.
“This miserable place has cost me a year’s pay to keep, and now I hear that Elliott is sure to report me if I am found living in Florence,—another illustration of thrift, if I add a P.S. to the ‘O’Dowd.’
“I am very sick of the row and racket I live in. I want my home and my quiet, and even my ink-bottle.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, Florence, Sept. 17, 1866.
“I got back here two days ago, after more real fatigue and exhaustion than I would again face for double my miserable place at Spezzia. These bluejackets have not only drunk me out of champagne and Allsopp, but so tapped myself that I am perfectly dry. The constant intercourse with creatures of mere action—with creatures of muscles, nerves, and mucous membranes, and no brains—becomes one of the most wearing and weakening things you can imagine. Nor is it only the nine weeks lost, but God knows how many more it will take before I can get the machinery of my mind to work again: all is rusted and out of gear, and I now feel, what I only suspected, that it is in this quiet humdrum life I am able to work, and that I keep fresh by keeping to myself. An occasional burst (to London for instance) would be of immense value to me, but that even then should only be brief, and not too frequent.
“Is it necessary to say I could not write at Spezzia? I tried over and over again, and for both our sakes it is as well I did not persevere. I send, therefore, these two chapters, and a short bit to round off the last one. If you opine (as I do) that even a short link is better than a break, insert them next No., taking especial care to correct the new portion, and, indeed, to look well to all.
“To-morrow I set to work,—I hope vigorously, at least so far as intention goes,—and you shall have, if I’m able, a strong Sir B.’ and an ‘O’Dowd’ for next month. I never for thirty years of monthly labour broke down before, and I am heartily ashamed of my shortcoming; but I repeat it is better to give short measure than poison the company.
“I like the tribute to poor Aytoun very much, and I condole heartily with you on the loss of one who walked so much of life at your side. I am sure the habit of writing turns out more of a man’s nature to his friends than happens to those who never commit themselves to print, and I am certain that his friends have their own reading of an author that is totally denied to his outer public. You knew Aytoun well enough to know if my theory does not apply to him.
“Don’t be as chary of your letters as you have been. I’ll so pepper you now with correspondence that you must reply.”