Volume Ii Part 32 (2/2)
”Aug. 18, 1868
”You will, I know, be glad to hear my wife has had a favourable change.
One of the doctors of the fleet has been fortunate enough to hit on a lucky treatment, and the admiral most kindly allows him to remain behind and continue the treatment. The fleet sails to-day.
”I send you a few lines which, I believe, would be well liked and opportune: they are true, at all events.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
”Trieste, _Sept_. 3, 1868.
”I thank you heartily for your kind words about my wife. Thank G.o.d, she is now improving daily, and my anxiety has at last got some peace.
”I was greatly pressed to join Lord Clarence Paget down amongst the islands of Dalmatia, and nothing but my anxiety for my wife prevented me. It would have been a rare opportunity to pick up much odd material, and a pleasant ramble besides. Sir H. Holland has spent a few days with me, and wished me much to join his tour,--and _his_ companions.h.i.+p would have been delightful,--but I was obliged to refuse. It is weeks since I wrote anything but a few pa.s.sing lines, and I have not yet come round to the pleasant feeling that in settling down to my work I have got back to a little world where no cares can come in save those necessary to my hero and heroine. But I hope this will come yet.
”I'd have waited to send you another O'D. or two, but I wanted to thank you for your hearty note, and acknowledge its enclosure. Just as a little money goes far with a poor man, a few words of sympathy are marvellous sweetness in the cup of a lonely hermit like myself, for you have no idea of the dreary desolation of this place as regards one who does not sweat guineas nor has any to sweat. The Party, I fear, will go out before _I_ can, and for all I see I shall die here; and certainly if they're not pleasanter company after death than before it, the cemetery will be poor fun with Triestono.
”I don't think Trollope _pleasant_, though he has a certain hard common-sense about him and coa.r.s.e shrewdness that prevents him being dull or tiresome. His books are not of a high order, but still I am always surprised that he could write them. He is a good fellow, I believe, _au fond_, and has few jealousies and no rancours; and for a writer, is not that saying much?
”What I feel about Kinglake's book is this. The great problem to be solved is, first, Was Sebastopol a.s.sailable by the north side? Second, Were the French really desirous of a short war? I suspect K. knows far more than, with all his courage, he could say on the score of our Allies' loyalty; and any one who has not access to particular sources of knowledge would be totally unable to be his reviewer, for in reality the critic ought, though not able to write the book he reviews, to be in possession of such acquaintance with the subject as to be in a position to say what other versions the facts recorded would bear, and to weigh the evidence for and against the author's. Another difficulty remains: what a bathos would it be--the original matter of almost any writer--among or after the extracted bits of the book itself. Kinglake's style is, with all its glitter, so intensely powerful, and his descriptive parts so perfectly picture-like, that the reviewer must needs take the humble part of the guide and limit himself to directing attention to the beauties in view, and make himself as little seen or felt as need be. Not that this would deter me, for I like the man much, and think great things of his book; but I feel I am not in a position to do him the justice his grand book deserves. If I were a week with you in Scotland, and sufficiently able to withdraw from the pleasures of your house, I believe I could do the review; but you see my bonds, and know how I am tied.
”You will see by the divided sheet of this note that I started with the good intention of brevity; but this habit of writing by the sheet, I suppose, has corrupted me, and perhaps I'll not be able now to make my will without 'padding.'
”I have the Bishop of Gibraltar on a visit with me: about the most brilliant talker I ever met.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
”Trieste, _Sept_. 14, 1868.
”I send you a very spicy bit of wickedness on the Whig-Radicals--but, for the love of the Virgin, let the proof be carefully looked to! I am as uncertain about the errors of the press as I am about my personal shortcomings; but I rely on your reader with the faith of a drowning man on a lifebuoy.
”My wife is a shade better, but my anxiety is great, and I (who habitually sleep eighteen hours out of twenty-four) have not had a night's rest for ten days.
”We are suffering greatly here from drought. No rain has fallen for three months, and my well is as completely drained as my account at my bankers, or anything else you can fancy of utter exhaustion.
”Who writes 'M. Aurelia'? He or she certainly knows nothing of Italian nature or temperament. Not but that the story opens well and is cleverly written, but I demur to the Italian. _I_ know the rascals well; but, like short whist, it cost me twenty years and some tin to do it. Keep my opinion, however, to yourself, for I hate to disparage a contemporary, and indeed this slipped out of me because my daughter has been talking to me of the story while I write.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
”Trieste, _Sept_. 16, 1868.
”I have just had a round of clerical visitors, beginning with the Bishop of Gibraltar and ending with the Dean of Exeter. Very pleasant talking and humorous men, and only agreeably dashed with the priest element, which is sufficiently feminine to temper down the rougher natures of lay humanities.
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