In another letter of the same year, 25th July, after a page of remarks on editorial matters, he writes:—­

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“If Italy could but achieve some brilliant success in arms!  That she does not, causes, I think, some disappointment here, and makes her sluggish friends more sluggish, and her open enemies more powerful.  I fear too that the Italian ministry have lost an excellent opportunity of repairing the national credit in London city, and have borrowed money in France for the poor consideration of lower interest, which” [sic, but I suspect which must be a slip of the pen for than] “they could have got in England, greatly to the re-establishment of a reputation for public good faith.  As to Louis Napoleon, his position in the whole matter is to me like his position in Europe at all times, simply disheartening and astounding.  Between Prussia and Austria there is, in my mind (but for Italy), not a pin to choose.  If each could smash the other I should be, as to those two Powers, perfectly satisfied.  But I feel for Italy almost as if I were an Italian born.  So here you have in brief my confession of faith.

“Mr. Home” [as he by that time called himself,—­when he was staying in my house his name was Hume], “after trying to come out as an actor, first at Fechter’s (where I had the honour of stopping him short), and then at the St. James’s Theatre under Miss Herbert (where he was twice announced, and each time very mysteriously disappeared from the bills), was announced at the little theatre in Dean Street, Soho, as a ‘great attraction for one night only,’ to play last Monday.  An appropriately dirty little rag of a bill, fluttering in the window of an obscure dairy behind the Strand, gave me this intelligence last Saturday.  It is like enough that even that striking business did not come off, for I believe the public to have found out the scoundrel; in which lively and sustaining hope this leaves me at present.

“Ever faithfully yours,

“CHARLES DICKENS.”

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Here is a letter which, as may be easily imagined, I value much.  It was written on the 2nd of November, 1866, and reached me at Brest.  It was written to congratulate me on my second marriage, and among the great number which I received on that occasion is one of the most warm-hearted:—­

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“MY DEAR TROLLOPE,—­I should have written immediately to congratulate you on your then approaching marriage, and to assure you of my most cordial and affectionate interest in all that nearly concerns you, had I known how best to address you.

“No friend that you have can be more truly attached to you than I am.  I congratulate you with all my heart, and believe that your marriage will stand high upon the list of happy ones.  As to your wife’s winning a high reputation out of your house—­if you care for that; it is not much as an addition to the delights of love and peace and a suitable companion for life—­I have not the least doubt of her power to make herself famous.