“Have you any weekly (‘Saturday Review,’ ‘Examiner,’ Spectator,’ or other) that has literary news, reviews, &c. disposable? if so, and perfectly convenient, send it to me occasionally, for I get too much ‘bent’ in politics,—malgré moi.
“I really would rather be porter to the House than a lord-in-waiting.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, March 14, 1866.
“A patchwork quilt is cakes and gingerbread compared to this blessed proof, but I’m in and out a Georges Dandin! You said, and said truly, that the sketch of the House was meagre, and I have dilated—I hope not diluted—it; but my writing is open to that rendering.
“I have made the ‘Fenian Pest’ also a little fatter. Will you try and see that the slips come on at their proper places.
“I am not well. It may be gout, it may be fifty things, but it feels d———ly like breaking up. I ought to be at Spezzia, but I am so out of sorts that I don’t like leaving home. After all, I have no right to complain. I have been a good many years in commission, and never docked yet for repairs!
“Dizzy is going to let Gladstone have a walk over for the first racing, but I suspect that the real jockeyship will be to make the first and last heats the race.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, March 26, 1866.