CANNES, _December 30, 1864_.
DEAR FRIEND: I wish you a happy New Year. I have written to Madrid about
the unlucky handkerchiefs, and, as I have received no response, I take
it for granted that my commissioner is in Paris, and that you have the
handkerchiefs, or will have them soon. I sent them by a Spaniard who was
to leave Madrid the same time as I, in consequence of which you would
receive them more promptly. One should never have too high expectations.
What I now desire is that you should be satisfied with those
handkerchiefs, which are awfully ugly.
What think you of the Pope’s Encyclical? We have a bishop here, a man of
intelligence and good sense, who hides his face. Indeed, it is
humiliating to belong to an army whose general exposes you to defeat.
I have no news from my editor. When I left he was printing my _Cossacks
of the Past_, which I think must have appeared. As you know the story I
hope you will wait until I return to procure a volume.
Do you know that from all sides have arrived congratulations on my
successorship to M. Mocquard? I thought nothing of the matter; but after
seeing my name in the _Belgian Independence_, in the _London Times_, and
in the _Augsburg Gazette_, I had come to be a little uneasy. Knowing my
temperament as you do, you may imagine how the place suited me, and how
I suited the place. I have breathed more easily, however, for several
days.
Are there any new novels for Christmas? English novels, I mean, for this
is the period for them to bloom! I have almost no books here, and I am
anxious to send for some. When at night I have an attack of coughing,
and can not sleep, I am as wretched as it is possible to be. Only fancy,
I have read Lamartine’s _Meditations_. I have come across a Life of
Aristotle, in which it is said that the retreat of the Ten Thousand took
place after the death of Alexander. Really, would it not be preferable
to peddle steel pens at the door of the Tuileries than to say such
enormities?
Good-bye, dear friend. I have thirty-five letters to write, and I wanted
to begin with you. I wish you all the prosperity in the world.