“If I can tone down M’Caskey, I will; but Skeffs courage is, I fear, incorrigible. Oh, Blackwood, it is ‘not _I_ that have made him, but _he_ himself.’ Not but he is a good creature, as good as any can be that has no _bone_ in his _back_--the same malady that all the Bulwers have, for instance,--and, _take my word for it_, there is a large section of humanity that are not verte-brated animals. Ask Aytoun if he don’t agree with me, and show _him_ all this if you like; for though I never saw him, my instinct tells me I _know_ him, and I feel we should hit it off together if we met.” _To Mr John Blackwood._ “Villa Morelli, _Nov_. 11, 1864. “I have taken two days to think over Skeff’s scene with M’C[askey], and do not think it overdrawn. M’C. is a ruffian, and I don’t think you object to his being one; but you wish Skeff to show pluck. Now I remember (and it is only one instance out of many I could give you) Geo. Brotherton, one of the most dashing cavalry officers in the service, coming to me to say that he had listened to such insolence about England from a Belgian sous-lieutenant that nearly killed him with rage. ‘I had,’ said he, ‘the alternative of going out’ (and probably with the sword too) ‘with, not impossibly, the son of a costermonger--and who, _de facto_, was a complete _canaille_--or bear it,--and bear it I did, though it half choked me.’ “Skeff would have fought, time and place befitting; but he would not agree to _couper la gorge_ at the prompt bidding of a professional throat-cutter, and I cannot impute cowardice to a man for that. Bear in mind, too (I have witnessed it more than once), the initiative in insult always overpowers a man that is opposed to it, if he be not by temperament and habit one of those ready-witted fellows who can at once see their way out of such a difficulty, as Col. O’Kelly, for instance, at the Prince’s table------ You know the story; if not, I’ll tell it to you. “Still I am not wedded to my own judgment, and if I saw how to do it I’d change the tone of the scene; for when the thing strikes you so forcibly, and needs all this defence on _my_ part, the presumption is it cannot be altogether right. I’ll tell you, however, how I can show the reader that Skeff’s mortification was properly felt by a subsequent admission--one line will do it--to Tony that he had gone through agonies on that same journey, and did not know if he should ever feel quite reconciled to his own endurance of M’Caskey’s outrages. “Will this do? If not, I’ll rewrite it all for the volume. “The floods have carried away the railroads here,--I wish to God they had swept off my creditors! That new way to pay old debts would have reconciled me to a month’s rain. The idea of being washed clear of one’s difficulties is ecstasy. Write to me--write to me!” _To Mr John Blackwood._ “Villa Morelli, _Nov_. 12, 1864.