2 WHITEHALL GARDENS, S.W., _December 28, 1876_. MY DEAREST ORFORD—A little line to thank you for remembering me. One likes to be remembered by those whom one never forgets. I am here alone, at this dreary season, in consequence of the confusion in those waters where we once passed happy hours. I was going to pass my Xmas at Weston with our friends the Bradfords, and then to Trentham for a few days, when my Sovereign Lady appealed to me not to leave her at this moment, and declared it an act of high imprudence for myself and Derby to leave town at this conjuncture. Our friends, the Turks, are better diplomatists than Europeans in general, and the affair will probably be longer than the common mind imagines. It requires one’s wits about one. I feel as if sailing on a sea full of torpedoes. My profound conviction is, that the Russians dread war, and never contemplated it except with a crowd of allies. When the pinch comes they find themselves quite isolated, and Mephistopheles Bismarck scarcely suppresses his laughter when he beholds that gentle Faust, the Emperor of Russia, struggling in his toils. But to get them out of the scrape with honour, _Hic labor, hoc opus est_. There must be a golden bridge, and if necessary, it must even be gilt: every possible facility—perfume on the violet. I hope you are well and tolerably happy.—Remember sometimes, your affectionate BEACONSFIELD. Lord Beaconsfield in his early political days, it must be remembered, had many difficulties of a widely different sort with which to contend. In addition to the disadvantage of not being favourably looked upon by many, some did not scruple to call him a mere dandy who should not be taken too seriously. Later on he had to educate his party, being obliged, as was once rather wittily said, “to drag an omnibus full of country gentlemen uphill.”