Volume Ii Part 33 (1/2)
”I'd like much to be with you and Story. There is a mine of the pleasantest sort of stuff in him. Pray commend me to him heartily.
”I am sentenced, however, to pa.s.s my life with Greeks, Jews, and Ethiopians and people below Jordan,--and I don't take to it, that's a fact! I hear that Gladstone will give up Disendowment and be satisfied with Disestablishment,--not because he wants to let the Church down easier, but that he neither knows how to rob nor what to do with the booty.
”If they only come to a _long_ fight over the question, it will end by Dizzy dealing with the parsons as he did with the franchise. He'd bowl over Gladstone first and then carry the whole question, and not leave a curate nor even a grave-digger of the Establishment.
”I must positively manage a run over to town in spring--and Ireland too.
This is essential.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
”Trieste, _Oct_. 5, 1868.
”I thank you heartily for the note and the enclosure: both were very welcome to me. Old as I am, I still need tin and tenderness.
”I have done a few lines, as you suggested, on Walewsky, whom I knew well. He was a good fellow, but with immense vanity and overruling self-conceit.
”I have determined to go to Ireland in the beginning of the year, and seek out in a part of Donegal not known to me nor, I believe, many others, the _locale_ of a new story. I want to do something with a strong local colour, and feel that I must freshen myself up for the effort. My poor wife gains very slowly, but I hope and trust she may be well enough to let me leave her by February.
”If you saw my surroundings here--my Jews and Greeks and Armenians, and, worse than these, my Christian friends!--you would really credit me with resources that I honestly own I never believed in. How I do anything amongst them puzzles me.
”It is a good thought about the Election addresses. I'll think over it.
”Who wrote 'Aurelia,' and how long will it run?”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
”Trieste, _Oct_. 17, 1868.
”Of course I only spoke of O'Dowding Trollope in jest. I never had the slightest idea of attacking a friend, and a good fellow to boot. I thought, and shall think it great presumption for him to stand in any rivalry with Lord Stanley, who, though immensely over-rated, is still far and away above we poor devils in action, though we can caper and kick like the devil.
”I have just this moment arrived at home from a short tour in Dalmatia, where I amused myself much, and would have liked to have stayed longer and seen more. I send you the proofs at once, but, as usual, begging you will have them closely looked to by an 'older and a better soldier.'
”I suppose I must set to work now at my yearly consular return, for up to this the Government have never seen my handwriting save in an appeal for my pay!
”I hope I may live to shake hands with you all in spring.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
”Trieste, _Oct_. 19, 1868.
”I am so glad to get your long and pleasant letter that I return your fire at once. First of all for explanations. I never seriously thought of O'Dowding Trollope--he is far too good a fellow; and, besides, he is one of us--I mean scripturally, for in politics he is a vile unbeliever.
”You will be glad to hear that our notice of the sailors in the last O'D. was received with 'Cheers for Blackwood' in the wardroom of the fleet--and by Jack himself, who read it. Lord Clarence wrote to me from Naples saying he was never more gratified in his life, and that the great effect of it on his men is beyond belief.