My Dear Miss Clerke,—It gives me very sincere pleasure to have contributed to introduce you to your first literary success. I hope it may be the prelude to many more. I can hardly venture to recommend to you the course in which you should steer your bark. On scientific subjects I am very ignorant, but there has been an article in the 'Review' on Spectrum Analysis, by Professor Roscoe, and another on the Transit of Venus last year. You have the advantage of seeing before your eyes the intellectual renaissance of Italy, and it has already supplied you with two very good subjects.
It is probable that before October something else may turn up. If not, I will send you a book from England to review—for instance, Miss Wynne's Letters and Journals, which are being printed, and will come out in October. Miss Wynne was a delightful person, who lived in the society of Paris, when it was most agreeable. M. de Circourt is the last survivor of it—unless I may be reckoned a survivor too. I am glad you appreciate him. He was private secretary to M. de Polignac in 1830, and married in 1832 an incomparable Russian—Mlle. de Klustine. They used to say that she knew seventeen languages and he eighteen. She died some years ago from a burn, and Circourt now passes his life chiefly with Mme. d'Affry and her daughter, the Duchess Colonna.
I have another cousin (besides Mrs. Ross) who passes her winters in Florence, or near it—Mrs. James Whittle. She is a great invalid, and never goes out. But she is now returning to a Schloss (Syrgenstein) they have in Bavaria. … You are right. I have left my hill, which overlooks the great seaway between the Needles and Hengistbury Head, and come to London for the next three months; but I had much rather stay in my hermitage. London is as disagreeable as an east wind can make it. Believe me,
Yours faithfully,
H. REEVE.
The Journal here notes:—
April 25th—Lord Derby gave a great dinner at the F.O. I sat between Stirling-Maxwell and Pender.
May 9th—Lord Derby presided at the Literary Fund dinner. I proposed the health of the Chinese Ambassador. I retired this year from the council of the Literary Fund.
18th—Went to Paris alone. 20th, long interview with the Duc Decazes. Dined at the Embassy. Thiers in the evening.
May 22nd—Dinner at Laugel's. [Footnote: The Duc d'Aumale's secretary.] Duc de Broglie, Duc Decazes, Chabaud-Latour and the Haussonvilles. The 'coup d'état of the Marshal,' as it was called, when Macmahon turned out Jules Simon and the Radicals, took place on May 16th, just before I reached Paris. Hence the agitation was extreme; and at this dinner at Laugel's I had to encounter the dukes, who wanted to know why we disapproved their measure.