“I looked forward eagerly to your promised letter about O’Dowd. No one could do an imaginary portrait of a foreignised Irishman--all drollery about the eyes, and bearded like a pard--better than Hablot Browne (Phiz), and I think he could also do _all_ that we need for illustration, which would be little occasional bits on the page and tailpieces. If he would take the trouble to _read_ the book (which he is not much given to), and if he would really interest himself in it (not so unlikely now, as he is threatened with a rival in Marcus Stone), he could fully answer all our requirements. I would not advise any regular ‘plates,’ mere woodcuts in the page, and an occasional rambling one _crawling over the page_. What do _you_ think?” _To Mr John Blackwood_. “Villa Morelli, _June_ 16,1864. “I am delighted with all your plans about ‘O’Dowd,’ and though I do not believe there will be much to alter, I will go carefully over the sheets when I get them. My notion always was that it would take some time to make a public for a kind of writing more really French in its character than English, but that if we could only once get ‘our hook in,’ we’d have good fishing for many a day. “If my reader will only stand it, I’ll promise to go on as long as he likes, since it is simply putting on paper what goes on in my head all day long, even (and unluckily for me) when I am at work on other things. “Don’t give _me_ any share in the book, or you’ll never get rid of ten copies of it, my luck being like that of my countryman who said, ‘If I have to turn hatter, I’d find to-morrow that God Almighty would make people without heads.’ Seriously, if by any turn of fortune I should have a hundred pounds in the ‘threes,’ the nation would be in imminent risk of a national bankruptcy. Give me whatever you like, and be guided by the fact that I am not a bit too sanguine about these things en masse. It is all the difference in the world to read a paper or a vol.; it is whether you are asked to taste a devilled kidney or to make your dinner of ten of them. At all events, the venture will be some test of public taste.” _To Mr John Blackwood._ “Florence, Villa Morelli, _June_ 24, 1864. “The devil take my high office! I am obliged to go down to Spezzia on Monday, and shall probably lose a week, when I am sore pressed for time too. “What you say of buying up the disputed bit of Denmark reminds me of an incident that occurred in my house in Ireland. There were two whist-parties playing one night in the same room. One was playing pound points and twenty on the rubber (of which I was one); the others were disputing about half-crowns, and made such a row once over the score that Lord Ely, who was at our table, cried out, ‘Only be quiet and we’ll pay the difference.’ D., the artillery colonel, was so offended that it was hard to prevent him calling Ely out. Now perhaps the Danes might be as touchy as the soldier.