Volume Ii Part 2 (2/2)
”I have thought of some of these as subjects: Good Talkers--_Le Sport_ Abroad--Diplomacy--Demi-monde Influences--Whist--Irish Justice--Home as the Bon Marche of Europe--Travelled Americans--Plan of a new Cookery Book (with a quiz on Charters, your book), showing what to eat every month of the year. These I scratch down at random, for I can't write just yet: I have got gout _vice_ ague retired, and my knuckle is as big as a walnut.
”I hope you have received T. B. before this. I am very sorry the conspirator chapter of T. B. does not appear this month, when the question of Stanfield is before the public, but I think O'Dowd might well touch on the question of the politicians of the knife. Give me your counsel about all these. B. L.'s remark that Maitland belonged to twenty or thirty years ago is perfectly just, and very acute too; but, unfortunately, so do I too. Do you remember old Lord Sefton's reply when the Bishop of Lincoln tried to repress him one day at dinner from entering upon old college recollections by saying, 'Oh, my lord, the devil was strong in us in those days'? 'I wish he was strong in me now, my Lord Bishop!' I am afraid I am something of his mind.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
”Casa Capponi, Florence, _March_ 20, 1864.
”As it is likely I shall start to-morrow for Spezzia to give them a touch of my 'consular quality,' I send you a line to thank you for your kind note, and with it a portion (all I have yet done) of the next 'O'Dowd.' I shall, however, meditate as I go, and perhaps the Providence who supplies oddities to penny-a-liners may help me to one in the train.
”I thank you heartily for the offer of a mount, but I have grown marvellously heavy, in more ways than one, this last year or two; and the phrase of my daughter when ordering my horse to be saddled may ill.u.s.trate the fact, as she said, 'Put the howdah on papa's elephant.'
”Don't fancy the Italians are not athletes. All the great performers of feats of strength come from Italy. Belzoni the traveller was one. They have a game here called _Paettone_, played with a ball as large as a child's head and flung to an incredible distance, which combines strength, skill, and agility. Then as to swimming, I can only say that I and my two eldest daughters can cross Spezzia--the width is three miles,--and yet we are beaten hollow every season by Italians. They swim in a peculiar way, turning from side to side and using the arms alternately; and when there is anything of a sea they never top the waves, but shoot through them, which gives immense speed, but it is a process I never could master. We had a swim last year with old General Menegaldo, who swam the Lido with Byron: he is now eighty-four years old, and he swam a good mile along with us. I intend, if I can throw off my gout, to have a day or two in the blue water next week, though I suspect in your regions the idea would suggest a s.h.i.+ver. The weather is fine here now--in fact, too hot for many people.”
_To Dr Burbidge._
”Casa Capponi, Florence, _March_ 30, 1864.
”I was sorry to find last night that my proofs had not reached you, and as I want your opinion greatly, I send you mine, which I have not looked over yet.
”If it had not been for this detestable weather (and I can fancy how Spezzia looks in it, for even Florence is dismal) I'd have gone down to-day, for my wife has been a shade better since Sunday, and I want to have a good conscience and be a.s.sured that I cannot possibly find a house at Spezzia before I close for a little nook of a villa here--a small crib enough, but, like everything else, very dear.
”I have my misgivings, my more than misgivings, about the Derbys coming in. It is evident Lord D. does not wish power, and he is rather impatient at the hungry eagerness of poorer men, and so I suspect my own chances, if not to be tried now, will not be likely to survive for another occasion. I therefore resign myself, as people call what they cannot do more than grumble over, and 'make my book' to scribble on for a subsistence to the end.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
”Croce di Malta, Spezzia, _April_ 6, 1864.
”Here I am visiting the authorities and being visited by them, playing off--and quite seriously too--the farce that we are all dignitaries, and of essential consequence to the States we severally serve. 'How we apples swim!' My only consolation is that there is no public to laugh at us--all the company are on the stage.
”I mean to get back to Florence by the end of the week. You shall have an instalment of T. B. immediately.
”If Lord D. gets his congress for Denmark it will be hard to dislodge the Government--the more with a two-million-and-a-half surplus. In fact, a good harvest is the Providence of the Whigs, and they are invariably pulled out of their sc.r.a.pes by sheer luck. At the same time, if Lord Derby comes in, where could he find a Foreign Minister?”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
”Croce di Malta, Spezzia, _April_ 6, 1864
”The post has just brought me O'D. on 'Whist,' but no proof of 'The Woman in Diplomacy.' Perhaps I blundered and never sent it, or perhaps you got but did not like it. At all events, I return the 'Whist' by this post corrected. If there had been time I'd have dashed off an O'D. on French Justice in Criminal Cases, apropos to that late infamy of M.
Pellier, but I fancied you had got enough of O'D. for this coming month, and probably you are of the same mind.
”I have done my consulars here--that is, I have called on the authorities and had them all to dinner, the bishop included; and we have fraternised very cordially and drank all manner of violent deaths to Mazzini, and to-morrow I go back into the obscurity of private life, and forget if I can that I have been a great man. Wasn't it a Glasgow dignitary who resented being called a man on a trial, and exclaimed, 'I'm not a man, I'm a bailie'?
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