ties, and his tastes be merely dissipations, just as
play or wine is to coarser natures.

If you really press the question of his coming to me, I will not refuse,
seeing that I can take my own time to consider what steps subsequently
should be adopted. How is it that you know nothing of Glencore,--can he
not be traced?

Lord Selby, whom you may remember in the Blues formerly, dined here
yesterday, and mentioned a communication he had received from his lawyer
with regard to some property entail, which, if Glencore should leave
no heir male, devolved upon him. I tried to find out the whereabouts and
the amount of this heritage; but, with the admirable indifference that
characterizes him, he did not know or care.

As to my Lady, I can give you no information whatever. Her house at
Florence is uninhabited, the furniture is sold off; but no one seems
even to guess whither she has betaken herself. The fast and loose
of that pleasant city are, as I hear, actually houseless since her
departure. No asylum opens there with fire and cigars. A number of
the destitute have come down here in half despair, amongst the rest
Scaresby,--Major Scaresby, an insupportable nuisance of flat stories
and stale gossip; one of those fellows who cannot make even malevolence
amusing, and who speak ill of their neighbors without a single spark
of wit. He has left three cards upon me, each duly returned; but I am
resolved that our inter-change of courtesies shall proceed no farther.

I trust I have omitted nothing in reply to your last despatch, except
it be to say that I look for you here about September, or earlier, if as
convenient to you; you will, of course, write to me, however, meanwhile.

Do not mention having heard from me, at the clubs or in society. I am,
as I have the right to be, on the sick list, and it is as well my rest
should remain undisturbed.

I wish you had any means of making it known that the article in the
"Quarterly," on our Foreign relations, is not mine. The newspapers have
coolly assumed me to be the author, and of course I am not going to give
them the _eclat_ of a personal denial. The fellow who wrote it must be
an ass; since had he known what he pretends, he had never revealed it.
He who wants to bag his bird, Colonel, never bangs away at nothing. I
have now completed a longer despatch to you than I intend to address to
the Noble Secretary at F. O., and am yours, very faithfully,

Horace Upton.

Whose Magnesia