give it up, or at least to put it off...

An unfortunate engagement which I have just renewed, and which
will keep me in England till the end of January, makes it
impossible for me to say to you the one word which I wish to say,
"Come!"--

England is not like any other country; the expenses are enormous.
I really dare not ask you to travel with me here, for it would
almost ruin us. Moreover we should hardly be able to be together,
for I have three or four compulsory companions, from whom it is
impossible for me to separate. I hoped to have done with all that
by the beginning of October, but now I have to begin again in the
middle of November. If I have time to make my journey to Russia
this year it will be the utmost I can do, but it is a journey
that I am in a way obliged to make after the gracious invitation
of Her Majesty the Empress at Ems. On the 15th of next May I
return again to London, probably by the steamer coming direct
from St. Petersburg.

Where shall I find you in a year--fifteen months? It is very
possible that I shall come and look for you in Vienna, but then I
shall assuredly not leave without taking you with me.

I have some thoughts of spending the following winter at
Constantinople. I am tired of the West; I want to breathe
perfumes, to bask in the sun, to exchange the smoke of coal for
the sweet smoke of the narghileh [Turkish pipe]. In short, I am
pining for the East! O my morning land! O my Aborniko!--