Volume Ii Part 32 (1/2)
_To Mr John Blackwood._
”Trieste, _July_ 6, 1868.
”My 'Lab.' O'D. was, I believe, niched out of the post here: no loss, perhaps, for it was terribly wicked and personal. This is milder, and cuts _two_ ways. Let me see a proof, and if I have a third in the meantime, I will send it.
”Do print my story, like a good fellow. You'll see it is a hit.
”I have just received news that the fleet will be here on Friday, and then--the deluge!
”I have ordered such a supply of bitter ale and cigars that the authorities are curious to know if I am about to open a _Biergarten_, which I secretly suspect I am--minus the ready-money profits.
”Tegeloff comes down to meet the admiral, and if anything turns up you shall have it.”
_To Mr William Blackwood._
”Trieste, _July_ 16, 1868.
”Oh, B. B., what a humbug you are! affecting to be hard-worked, and galley-slaved, and the rest of it. Telling this to _me_ too. Dives lecturing Lazarus on the score of dyspepsia is a mild case compared to a publisher asking compa.s.sion from a poor devil of an author on the score of his fatigue. I picture you to myself as a careless dog, hunting, flirting, cricket-playing, and picnic-ing, with no severer labour than reading an amusing proof over a mild cheroot and a sherry cobbler.
I tell you that on every ground--morally, aesthetically, and geographically--you _ought_ to come and see me, and if you won't, I'll be shot but I'll make an O'Dowd on you.
”So now it seems there is not one 'Labouchere' O'D. but two 'Labouchere'
O'Ds., and I see nothing better to do than take your choice. I believe the last the best.
”As the Government are good Christians, and chasten those they love, they have made Hannay a consul! Less vindictive countries give four or five years' hard labour and have an end of it; but there is a rare malice in sending some poor devil of a literary man who loves the Garrick, and lobster salad, and small whist, and small flattery, to eke out existence in a dreary Continental town, without society or sympathy, playing patron all the while and saying, 'We are not neglecting our men of letters.' I'd rather be a dog and bark at the door of the Wyndham or the Alfred than spend this weariful life of exile I am sentenced to.
”I hope you'll like Bob Considine's story, and let it be a warning and a lesson to you how you worry your wife when you have one, and how unsuspectingly a husband should walk all the days of his life. I don't think the world sees it yet, but I am a great moralist, terribly undervalued and much misunderstood.
”Kinglake is admirable; he has but one fault,--and perhaps it would be none to less impatient men than myself,--he does not _get on_ fast enough. It is splendidly written, and with a rare courage too.
”What a fuss you are all making over Abyssinia I Hech, sirs, but ye are gratefu' for sma' mercies! I wish to Heaven the press would moderate its raptures, or we'll get a rare set down from the foreign journals.
”Did I tell you that there is a great rifle-match, open to all nations (even Scotch and Irish), at Vienna this month? There's another reason for coming out. You could make your bull's-eye on your way to me. You had better accede, or you may read of yourself as 'The man who wouldn't come when he was axed.'”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
”Trieste, _August_ 16, 1868.
”I am worn out with fatigue and anxiety: for five nights I have not been to bed. My poor wife is again dangerously ill, and as yet no sign of any favourable kind has appeared. G.o.d help me in this great trouble!
”I wanted to see those things in print, but it is late now to correct them. I believe I wrote 'Mincio' in the 'La Marmora' paper when it should be 'Oglio.' Look to this for me.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._