“Villa Morelli, Florence, Dec. 4, 1866.
“I have just read the note you enclosed me calling my attention to my having said that an admiral was a sort of ‘human rhinoceros.’ I beg to recant the opinion, and when opportunity serves I will do so publicly, and declare that I believe them to be the most thin-skinned of mortals, otherwise there was nothing in the paragraph referred to which could give the slightest offence.
“To impute a personality to it would be for the reader to attach the passage to some one to whom he thought it applicable, if there be such.
“When they mentioned vice or bribe,
It’s so pat to all the tribe,
Each cried that was levelled at me.
“Now I had not the vaguest idea of a personality; I was simply chronicling a sort of professional gruffness and mysteriousness,—both admirable in the way of discipline, doubtless, but not so agreeable socially as the gifts of younger and less responsible men.
“Omit the whole passage, however, when you republish the papers; and accept my assurance that if ever I mention an admiral again, I will insert the word ‘bishop’ in my MS., and only correct it with the proof.
“It is not easy to be serious in replying to such a charge of ‘doing something prejudicial to the service.’ There is no accounting, however, for phraseology, as Mr Carter called the loss of his right eye ‘a domestic calamity.’
“Once more, I never meant offence. I never went within a thousand miles of a personality; and if ever I mention the sea-service again, I hope I may be in it.
“P.S.—Make the fullest disclaimer on my part, if you can, to the quarter whence came the letter, as to either offence or personality,—but more particularly the latter. I am only sorry that the letter, not being addressed to myself, does not enable me to reply to the writer with this assurance.”
To Mr John Blackwood.