“I am going on fairly: my malady is there, and must stay there; but I am going to tide over this time, and will not fret myself for the future. “I’m glad you like my talk. How I’d like to read you my opening of ‘Kilgobbin.’ They like it much here, but I don’t know how much may have been said to cheer me. I’m not able to write beyond a very short time, but I must do something or my head will run clean away with me. “My wife’s state keeps me in intense anxiety, but on the whole she is better than heretofore. “Is there anything out worth reviewing? I’d like to have something would take me off myself for a while. “That poor fellow Baker, who was shot, was a cousin of my wife,--a good, amiable, soft-hearted fellow, I hear, and incapable of a severe thing.” _To Mr John Blackwood._ “Trieste, _July_ 16, 1869. “I kept over the O’Ds., at your nephew’s suggestion, till I heard from you, but am glad now to see that you have no change to advise, for I don’t think I could make them better, especially by dictation. Any value these things have is as a sort of ‘schnaps,’ and nobody likes water with his glass of curaçoa. “The heat is so overpowering here that I can do nothing, and I am afraid, in my wife’s critical state, to leave home for the Styrian mountains, where some hospitable invitations are tempting me. From all I can learn, there is a fine field for story-writing in those unvisited lands on the Hungarian frontier, and I may one of these days perhaps be able to profit by it. “I am glad the chestnut turns out so well, but I was sure she would improve every day she was ridden. If I were Mrs B. I’d strongly demur to putting a collar on her, at least till she was thoroughly made for the saddle; for it is a curious fact that you may harness your saddle-horse but you can’t ride your harness-horse. Mrs B. will understand me, and I am sure agree with me. Whether she does or not, give her my kindest regards.” _To Mr William Blackwood._ “_July_ 16, 1869. “You are a bad boy not to have come up to town and let us have a shake hands together. I’ll forgive you, however, if you make some pretext for seeing Venice, and come over here for a few days to me. There must surely be some dead time of the year, when magazines, like their writers, grow drowsy and dozy; at all events make time and take a short run abroad, and it will do you a world of good.” _To Mr John Blackwood._ “Trieste, _Aug_. 4,1869. “I send you two O’Ds. which I have just done, and hope you will think them good. I imagine you will insert the small benefaction--which I think well enough--in next batch.