“I was conning over the enclosed O’D. when your letter came this morning,--and of late the post misses three days in five,--and I believe I should have detained my MS. for further revision, but I cannot delay my deepest thanks for your munificent remittance. I have not now to be told so to feel how much more you were thinking of me than of Greece when you advised this journey. Be assured that in the interest you felt for me in my great sorrow I grew to have a care for life and a desire to taste its friendships that I didn’t think my heart was capable of. I know well, too well, that I could not have written anything that could justify such a mission--least of all with a breaking heart and an aching head,--but I was sure that in showing you how willing I was to accept a benefit at your hands I should best prove what a value I attached to your friendship, and how ready I was to owe you what brought me round to life and labour again. I do fervently hope the Greek article may be a success; but nothing that it could do, nor anything that I might yet write, could in any way repay what I am well content should be my great debt to your sterling affection for me,--never to be acquitted--never forgotten.” _To Mr John Blackwood._ “Trieste, _Aug_. 7, 1870. “I am full sure that nothing but war will now be talked, and so I send another bellicose ‘O’Dowd’ to make up the paper. I hope there may be time for a proof; but if not, my hand is so well known to you now, and you are so well aware of what I intended where I blotch or break down, it is of less consequence. “This Wissembourg battle was really a great success; and I don’t care a rush that the Prussians were in overwhelming numbers. May they always be so, and may those rascally French get so palpably, unmistakably licked that all their lying press will be unable to gloss over the disgrace. “If L. Nap. gets _one_ victory he’ll go in for peace and he’ll have England to back him; and I pray, therefore, that Prussia may have the first innings, and I think _Paris_ will do the rest by sending the Bonapartes to the devil.” _To Mr John Blackwood._ “Trieste, _Aug_. 14. “An idea has just occurred to me, and on telling it to my daughters they wish me to consult with you on it. It is of a series of papers, the _rationale_ of which is this:--