Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 1.djvu/243

 tranquillity he sought. Poor forlorn man of genius, there were friends who loved him better than he loved himself.

"9,, 7 o'clock, Saturday Morning. ",—You know well that your right to the 'Echoes' is indisputable. If I fancied you did not, I could demonstrate your error by a few figures, arranged 'according to Cocker.'

"But I also know your generosity. It amazes me: by my soul, it does! If you can derive any satisfaction from knowing that it has given a new impetus to my determination to devote myself almost exclusively to the interests of my country in future, I shall feel the less remorse for having so monstrously trespassed on you.

"'Something too much of this, but now 'tis past.'

"Did it ever occur to you that Maturin's 'Milesian Chief,' the most intensely Irish story I know of might be brought out in a cheap form to advantage? Did you ever hear of Gamble, the author of 'Northern Irish Tales'? He made a powerful impression on me when I luxuriated (a la Werter) in my teens. His narratives are all domestic and exceedingly melancholy. Something might be done with him, too.

"I told you that I had written a tale for Martin Keene's Magazine. I have translated a small ballad from one of Müller's 'Greek Melodies,' and have thrown it into several stanzas. It is, however, 'all one in the Greek.'

"There is a poem of mine in Bull's printing office these twelve months—about three hundred lines or so. Only think of M'Glashan's neither printing that nor giving it back to me! It was set up—for I had a proof—and yet —— But no matter!

"I would express to you, my dear friend, my sincere regret that you are compelled to devote such a large proportion of your journal to 'frothy speeches' (I quote the words of your own paper). Believe me, that until you remedy this defect the great mass of earnest readers will peruse even the Nation with some degree of apathy and indifference.—Ever yours faithfully, "."