Volume Ii Part 38 (2/2)
”This Dalmatian revolt must sleep during the winter, but it will be a serious mischief yet, especially if this Franco-Russian alliance takes place. Our policy now ought to be to reconcile Austria and Prussia at once, and prepare for the big struggle that is coming to undo the results of the Crimean War. I wish, if it be decided to represent England abroad by old _women_, that at least they would send us old _ladies_.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
”Trieste, _Dec_. 14, 1860.
”I hope for both our sakes you are not quite just about the 'Pope' O'D.
I think it has a smack of Swift--a very faint one it may be, but still enough to recall the flavour. The anecdote of the Yankee was not made for the occasion, only it occurred to Sir J. Hudson, and not to O'Dowd.
Take them all in all, I have done better and worse; but I think with those you have already on hand, they will make a fair batch.
”I hope you will like the 'Dr Temple' O'D. It, at least, is worked out.
”I am very poorly, and very low in spirits; my wife grows weaker every day, and our anxieties are great. For the first time in my life I find it a 'grind' to write a few lines. _Le commencement du fin_, maybe--who knows?”
XX. TRIESTE 1870
_To Mr John Blackwood_.
”Trieste, _Jan_. 4,1870.
”When I saw 'Maga' without me I began to feel as if I had died (hitherto at Trieste I only believed I had been buried), and when your cheque reached me this morning I pictured myself as my own executor! You are most kind to bethink you of the necessities of this pleasant season,--indeed I scarcely know anything of Christmas but its bills I Still, I should be well content to have nothing heavier on my heart than money cares, and I believe that is about as dreary a confession as a man can well make.
”I am sorry to hear you have not been well, but I trust it is a thing of the past already: I don't think either of us would be what is called a good patient. I like the Homer Odyssey (?) greatly. I suspect I guess the writer--that is, from a mere accident. 'Suez' is excellent, and Stanley's opinion is that of the best German engineers also. Aren't you flattering to my Lord of Knebworth? It was not, however, a 'good fairy'
gave him a wife.
”Sydney sends her love. She is going over to England in spring (at least she says so, and I suppose I am bound to believe it) to pay that Devons.h.i.+re visit I interrupted last year.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
”Trieste, _Feb_. 3,1870.
”In Stanley's clever article on 'Suez' for January there is a sketch of an Italian travelling companion so like a portrait that we all here fancy we recognise the man. It is the same who addresses the Empress Eugenie so brusquely. If we be right, he is an old acquaintance of ours called 'Campereo.' Pray, if occasion serve, ask if this be the man. It is wonderfully like him at all events, and I could almost bet on it.
”I have been hoping to hear from you, and delaying to tell you--what for me is a rare event--a piece of pleasant news. Sydney is about to be married. The _sposo_, an Englishman, young, well educated, well-mannered, and well off; he is the great millowner, paper manufacturer, and s.h.i.+pbuilder of Austria, and has about 7000 a-year.
”I need not say it is a great match for a poor 'tocherless la.s.s,' but I can say that the man's character and reputation would make him acceptable if he had only 500 a-year.
”To myself, overborne and distressed by the thought of how little I had done for my children, and how wastefully and foolishly I had lived,--spending my means pretty much as I did my brains, in bursts of spendthrift extravagance, and leaving myself in both cases with nothing to fall back on,--it is a relief unspeakable that one of my poor girls at least is beyond the straits of penury.
”I know that you and Mrs Blackwood have a warm and kindly feeling towards us, and you will be glad to hear of such good fortune. I do not know that the excitement has been very favourable to my poor wife, who can only look as yet to the one feature--that is, that she loses a child's companions.h.i.+p; but I trust that in time she will see with me that the event is one to be truly thankful for.
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