“What! is it because ye are bluejackets there shall be no more ‘O’Dowds’? Ay, marry, and very hot ones too—and sharp in the mouth.
“All right as to the new tariff. It is a great [? nuisance] to me that the public does not like its devilled kidneys in wholesale, but perhaps we may make the palate yet: I’ll try a little longer, at all events. But if the Tories come in and make me a tide-waiter, I’ll forswear pen-and-ink and only write for ‘The Hue and Cry.’”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Dec. 11,1865.
“Your first objection to Cave’s ‘spoonyness’ * I answer thus. Cave was heartily ashamed of himself for having played at stakes far above his means, and, like a man so overwhelmed, was ready to do, say, or approve of anything in his confusion. I was drawing from life in this sketch.
* In ‘Sir Brook Fossbrooke.’ of doctrine by the opposite
poles—Exeter and Cashel, Colenso and Carlisle; but you
will see that I never instanced these men, or any other
individuals, as likely to offer their pulpits.
“2nd, Sewell’s addressing the men in his town so carelessly. He never saw them before; they came, hundreds, to see a race, and his acquaintances and the public were so mingled. He addressed them with an insolence not infrequent in Englishmen towards ‘mere Irish,’ and only corrected himself when pulled up.
“I am deep in thinking over the story; and though I have not written a line, I am at it night and day.” To Mr John Blackwood.
“Florence, Dec. 12,1865.
“I have just got your note. I need not say it has not given me pleasure, for I really thought—so little are men judges of their own work—that there were some of these O’Ds. equal to any I ever wrote. The paper that requires either explanation or defence can’t be good, and so I accept the adverse verdict. I make no defence, but I must make explanation.