“There was a project to give me the direction of the ‘Herald,’ ‘Standard,’ and ‘St James’s Chronicle,’ when purchased and in the hands of the Conservatives, and I believe it was about the sort of thing I could have done, because any good there is in me is for emergencies: I can hit them, and am seldom unprepared for them. Whatever takes the tone of daily _continuous_ work and looks like industry I totally fail in. “The project failed because I refused to accept a council of ‘surveillance’ that Disraeli proposed, and indeed Lytton also recommended. Forgive all this egotistical balderdash; perhaps I think I am going to die, and want to leave my memoirs in a friend’s hands. “Your letters rally me, and I beg you to write often. If I wanted a boon from Fortune it would be to have wherewithal to live on (modestly), and write to my friends the sort of thing I write for the public, and give way to the fancies that I cannot or dare not make the public party to. “I am curious for your critique on ‘Tony.’” _To Mr John Blackwood._ “Villa Morelli, _Nov_. 30,1864. “I think the enclosed few words are needed to round off ‘Tony.’ The characters of a book are to _my_ mind damnably like the tiresome people who keep you wishing them good-night till you wish them at the devil. They won’t go,--the step of the hall door would seem to have bird-lime on it; and I therefore suspect that my constitutional impatience with the bores aforesaid has damaged many a book of mine. “If you do not approve of the added bit, squash it; but it strikes me as useful. “My poor wife laughed at your quiz at my bit of tenderness. She seldom laughs now, though once on a time the ring of merry laughing was heard amongst us from morn till night. “Your cheque came all right; I have just checked my cook with it. We have a system of living here by what they call _Cottino_, which is really comfortable enough. You pay so much a-day to your cook for feeding you and your household, and he stipulates so many _plats, &c.,_ and it’s _your_ business to see that he treats you well. My rascal--a very good _artiste_--is a great politician, and everything that goes hard against the ‘Left’ (he is a great patriot) is revenged upon _me_ in tough beef and raw mutton, but when Garibaldi triumphs, I am fed with pheasants and woodcocks.” _To Mr John Blackwood_. “Villa Morelli, Florence, _Dec_ 9,1864. “Do you see how right I was in my ‘O’Dowd’ about Bismarck, and how now he is bullying the Diet and even Austria, and openly proclaiming how little thought there was of ‘Germany’ in his Danish war? And yet I believe I am the sole proprietor and patentee of the opinion, and I have not yet heard even the faintest rumour of calling me to the Queen’s counsels.