Volume I Part 35 (1/2)
_To Mr John Blackwood._
”Hotel d'Odessa, Spezzia, _Aug_. 3, 1863.
”I send you herewith a short paper on Italian affairs. Call it 'Italian Letters' or 'Glances at Italy.' or anything you like better.
”The adventure with De Langier was my own. I accepted the mission at the request of Sir G. Hamilton, and very narrowly escaped the cross of Saint Joseph from the Grand Duke.
”I hope you will like the paper, but I reckon implicitly on your frankness. I have got what, if I wasn't so poor, I'd own to be gout in one knuckle, and cannot hold a pen without trembling. I'm off to sea to-night, but send me an early proof.”
_To Dr Burbidge_.*
”Casa Capponi, Florence, _Aug_. 13, 1863
* English chaplain at Spezzia.
”I have been looking for a quiet ten minutes to write to you, but it has not come yet, and so I send this off _in petto_.
”We got up here safely, and met my wife suffering far less than I apprehended, and not materially the worse for all the fatigue.
”It reconciled her, besides, to much that she could reach her own quiet old house here, which has for fifteen years been our home, so that though I proposed remaining a day to rest at Pisa, she would not hear of it, but pushed on bravely to the end.
”It is a wonderful relief to us all to have escaped from the Bagni di Ba.s.seti, the coa.r.s.e food, coa.r.s.e linen, and coa.r.s.er language of its vile occupants. Sixteen months of such servitude at the cost of above a thousand pounds have eaten deep into me, and it will require almost as many more to blow off the steam of my indignation.
”I have cast my eye over the latter part of 'Tony,' and for the life of me I cannot see what some of the crosses refer to. If I send a proof down will you make the corrections bodily for me?
”Blackwood has written a most kind letter, and incidentally tells me 'Tony' is liked and well spoken of.”
_To Mr Alexander Spencer._
”Spezzia, Sept. 10, 1863.
”It is not very easy to write amidst the anxieties which money occasions--I mean the want of money; but probably I ought to be grateful that my occupation, being one which only employs imagination, necessarily withdraws me, whether I will or no, from the daily thought of difficulties which certainly reflecting over never diminishes.
”I am writing a new story--'Luttrell of Arran'--as sad-coloured as my own reveries; but how is a man to paint a good picture who has nothing but blacks or browns on his palette?
”As to work generally, I have, thank G.o.d, health and strength for it. I never was better, nor ever found it easier to apply myself. It is in the precariousness of a life of literature is its real deterrent; but for that defect it is unquestionably the pleasantest possible. At all events it has kept us. .h.i.therto, and, I trust, will do so to the end.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
”Hotel d'Odessa, Spezzia, _Sept_. 19, 1863.
”By my last short note you will have seen how eagerly I accepted the opportunity of idleness and threw the blame of it on you,--though I say not altogether idle, having to look over again the story I have been writing for Chapman called 'Luttrell,' and which he has been desiring to publish some months back.