requires no other mode to express its most subtle conceits or its most unreasonable demands than this slight, delicate organ. But remember, while you read, that here, as in England, it is not confined to your delightful sex. I also have my fan, which makes my cane extremely jealous. If you think I have grown extraordinarily effeminate, learn that in this scorching clime the soldier will not mount guard without one. Night wears on, we sit, we take a _panal_, which is as quick work as snapdragon, and far more elegant; again we stroll. Midnight clears the public walks, but few Spanish families retire till two. A solitary bachelor like myself still wanders, or still lounges on a bench in the _warm_ moonlight. The last guitar dies away, the cathedral clock wakes up your reverie, you too seek your couch, and amid a gentle, sweet flow of loveliness, and light, and music, and fresh air, thus dies a day in Spain. Adieu, my dearest mother. A thousand loves to all. A MALTESE SENSATION [Sidenote: _Disraeli to his Father (1830)_] I had no need of letters of introduction here, and have already "troops of friends." The fact is, in our original steam-packet there were some agreeable fellows, officers, whom I believe I never mentioned to you. They have been long expecting your worship's offspring, and have gained great fame in repeating his third-rate stories at second hand; so in consequence of these messengers I am received with branches of palm. Here the younkers do nothing but play rackets, billiards, and cards, race and smoke. To govern men, you must either excel them in their accomplishments, or despise them. Clay does one, I do the other, and we are both equally popular. Affectation tells here even better than wit. Yesterday, at the racket court, sitting in the gallery among strangers, the ball entered, and lightly struck me and fell at my feet. I picked it up, and observing a young rifleman excessively stiff, I humbly requested him to forward its passage into the court, as I really had never thrown a ball in my life. This incident has been the general subject of conversation at all the messes to-day! HIS FUTURE WIFE [Sidenote: _Disraeli to his Sister (1832)_] The soirée last night at Bulwer's was really brilliant, much more so than the first. There were a great many dames of distinction, and no blues. I should, perhaps, except Sappho, who was quite changed; she had thrown off Greco-Bromptonian costume and was perfectly _à la Française_ and really looked pretty. At the end of the evening I addressed a few words to her, of the value of which she seemed sensible. I was introduced, "by particular desire," to Mrs. Wyndham Lewis, a pretty little woman, a flirt and a rattle; indeed, gifted with a volubility I should think unequalled, and of which I can convey no idea. She told me that she liked "silent, melancholy men." I answered that "I had no doubt of it." KNOWSLEY OR THE PARTHENON [Sidenote: _Disraeli to Mrs. Brydges Willyams (1862)_]