“As I told you once before, I believe I am, or rather was--for there is very little ‘am’ left--better at other things than story-writing, and certainly I _like_ any other pen labour more. But this shall be as you determine.... “Give me some hints as to the grievances of the ‘Limited Liability Schemes.’ What are the weak points? Brief me! “I have a notion that a course of O’Dowd lectures on Men and Women would be a success, orally given. What think you?” _To Mr John Blackwood._ “Villa Morelli, _Sept_. 20. “In my haste of correction in T. B. I believe I left ‘Castel d’Uovo’ ‘Castel Ovo’; _now it should be the former_--pray look to it. God help me! but if I live a little longer I shall find spelling impossible. Till I began to correct the press I never made a mistake; and now I understand what is meant by the tree of knowledge, for when once you begin to see there’s a right and a wrong way to do anything, it’s ‘all up’ with you. In my suspicion that the missing O’Ds. might possibly have come to your hand, I asked you to cancel [the bit] about Pam. _Pray do so_. It was ill-natured and gouty, though true; and, after all, he is a grand old fellow with all his humbug, and if we do make too much of him the fault is ours, not his. “I have just got yours, 16th, and my mind is easy about the O’Ds. which never reached me. It will be easier, however, when I know you have squashed all about Pam. “I am now doubly grieved to have been worrying about your nephew, but I am sincerely glad to know it is no more than a fall. I believe I have not a bone from my head to my heel unmarked by horse accidents, and every man who really rides meets his misadventures. Whenever I hear of a man who never falls, I can tell of one who never knew how to ride. “Now of all my projects and intentions never bore yourself a minute: the fact is--writing to _you_ pretty much as I talk at home, I have said some of the fifty things that pass through my vagabondising brains, just as I have been for the last twenty years plotting the Grand Book that is to make me. “But now that you _know me better_, treat all these as the mere projects of a man whose only dream is hope, and whose case is all the worse that he is a ‘solitary tippler’; and, above all, trust me to do my best--my very best--for ‘Tony,’ which I am disposed to think about the best thing I have done.” _To Mr John Blackwood._ “Villa Morelli, Florence, _Sept_. 26,1864. “Don’t be afraid that I am impatient to close ‘Tony’; if it only ‘suited your book’ I’d go on with him for a twelvemonth. And now tell me, does it make any difference to you if he should go on to the January No.? I mean, does it spoil magazine symmetry that he should appear in a new volume? Not that I opine this will be necessary, only if it should I should like to know. “You must send me ‘Tony’ in sheets, as you did O’D., to revise and reflect over, and I’ll begin at him at once.