I am sorry to hear of the death of poor Lady M----, who was a good woman notwithstanding her opinions on people and things. Is it a fact that she has written a book, a volume of travels, or a novel? I do not know which, but I heard it well spoken of in England. My Glenquoich friend, Mr. Ellice, is to be my neighbour this winter. He has just bought for one hundred and twenty thousand pounds sterling, an estate in Scotland adjoining his own, or, rather, it consists of leagues of lakes, rocks, and heaths. I can not imagine what he expects to gain by the purchase, except grouse and deer in the hunting season. It seems to me, if I had three millions to put in land, I should prefer to spend them in the south rather than the north. I am bringing with me a new edition of Pushkin’s works, of which I have promised to write a review. I have begun to read his lyric poems, and find in them many superb things, quite after my own heart--that is to say, in their sincerity and simplicity they are modelled after the Greek. Several of them are deeply passionate, and I should like to translate them, for in these, as in many others, in precision and clearness, the work seems to me of a very high order. Something in the style of Sappho’s ode, Δἑδυχε μἑυ ἁ σελἁνα, reminds me that I am writing at night, in an inn chamber, and my mind is full of reminiscences of the good old days. Of all the petty miseries of the present, the worst for me is insomnia. All my thoughts grow pessimistic, and I become absolutely disgusted with myself. Good-bye, dear friend. Try to keep well and to sleep. You have much finer weather than we, and much more cheerful companions. Do you eat any bananas in Algiers? To my mind, it is the best fruit in the world, but I should like to eat it with you. With this thought, dear friend, I bid you good-night. I shall reach Cannes about the 25th of this month. CCXXX CANNES, _December 13, 1860_. You write with a conciseness quite Lacedemonian, and you use, moreover, a paper manufactured, doubtless, expressly for you. At the same time, there are many interesting things, for you to tell me. You are living among barbarians, where there is always something worth observing; and you have the best kind of a chance to see them, because of the woman’s skirts you wear, which are a valuable passport. In spite of this, you have told me but one thing in detail, and that I had already suspected, but you have not said what you thought of it and whether you considered it worthy of imitation. You must have seen in the bazaars a tremendous number of trinkets, and you might have examined them and have given me some idea of what you thought would suit me. In fact, you are not acquitting yourself at all well in your rôle of traveller.