Charles Lever, His Life in His Letters, Vol. II

“I am, as you may believe, very down in the mouth about my move. I feel as might a vicar leaving a snug parsonage to become bishop in the Cannibal Islands.”

To Mr Alexander Spencer.

“Villa Morelli, Florence, May 7,1867.

“I suspect my Trieste appointment is a bit of a white elephant. There will be a great deal to do, a large staff necessary, and the place is generally costly to live in. In fact, I believe it would have been fully as well for me to have retained my humble post at Spezzia, where, if I received little, I did less. But I was tired of being a country mouse, and began to fancy that I had a right to some more generous diet than hard peas.

“My poor wife has gone back sorely in health. I have many causes for uneasiness, but this is the worst of all.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Villa Morelli, June 18,1867.

“I enclose you the proof and a few pages to wind up ‘The Adieu.’

“You will see ere long that I am right about L. Nap. He means to play us a slippery trick about the East. He bamboozled us into the Crimean War, and he is now going to juggle us out of its small benefits.

“My wife is at last a little better. I got to bed last night after twelve nights of half-sleep on the sofa. I am fairly knocked up, and for this and other reasons do look to the proof, and don’t trust me.

“You have heard that Elliott has been appointed Ambassador to Constantinople. He is about the greatest ass in diplomacy, – a big word when one remembers Loftus at Berlin and Howard at Munich. Here is an epigram I made on his appointment: —

“F.O. is much puzzled, we all have heard recently,To find proper Envoys to send to each Court;And while Lyons at Paris may get along decently,We rejoice to hear Elliott est mis à la Porte.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“British Consulate, Trieste, July 2,1867.

“Though my cry, like the starling’s, is still ‘I can’t get out,’ I exist in the hope that I am not to be left to die here.

“I send you a short bit on Miramar that I hope you may like. I’ll follow it with something lighter, but I send this now to acknowledge your note and its eighteen-pounder (a shot in my locker that told with considerable effect). I see you will not pity me for being sentenced to this d – d place, but if you only saw the faces of the Shylocks you’d be more compassionate. If nothing else offer, I’ll try and negotiate an exchange with Flynn. I’ll be shot if there must not be something amongst the convicts more companionable than here.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Villa Morelli, Florence, Sept. 5,1867.

“I am passing my last few days at the Villa Morelli, and mean to leave for good – if that be the phrase for it – on Monday next. My wife is still very ill, and very unfit for the fatigue of a journey; but short of giving up my post, I have no alternative. I hoped to have heard from you before I wrote, but as I have a quiet half hour – not a very frequent thing with me of late – I sit down to inflict it on you. I wish, besides, to ask and learn from you – shall you want me seriously next year, – that is, do you care to have a novel from me any time about April or May next? I am driven to ask this because I have had a proposal which, if you want me, I shall certainly not accept, nor am I sure I shall even in the other alternative.

“I am always hoping that each book I write will be my last; and if it were not that I have taken (mentally) as many farewells as Grey, I’d say this new and not-a-bit-the-less-on-that-account-much-to-be-thought-over story would be my final curtsey to an indulgent public.

“It seems to me you won’t believe in a war in England. It is part of the national hypocrisy to cry peace while our neighbours are whetting their knives and polishing their breechloaders. War is certain, nevertheless – as sure as the devil is in hell and I am a consul! – two facts so apparently alike, it seems tantalising to mention them.

“We are in for a little war of our own, meanwhile, with the African savage, – perhaps to serve as an excuse for not taking part in the bigger fight near home. This policy reminds me of an old Irish squire who, being a bad horseman, always excused himself when the hounds met near him by saying ‘he was off for a rat-hunt.’

“The next Glasgow steamer that leaves Trieste will bring you a few bottles of Maraschino, which, as Cattaro is one of my dependencies, will be real. I wish I could think I’d see you sip a glass with me one of these days beside the blue Adriatic.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Oct. 18.

“It is not now I need tell you what a miserable hand I am at correcting a proof. The man who has never been able, after fifty odd years’ experience of his own nature, to correct one of his own faults, can scarcely have much success in dealing with his printers’. Look, therefore, to this for me, and let me come decently before the public. I have added a bit to Garibaldi’s which is certainly true, whatever men may think of it in England.

“I am afraid I am not equal to a notice (a worthy notice) of Aytoun. I never knew [him] personally, and I suspect it should be one who did should now recall his fine traits of heart as well as of intellect. All I know of him I liked sincerely.

“I abhor Cockneydom as much as you do! Without being a Fenian, I have an Irishman’s hate of the Londoner.

“Only think of what a lucky dog I am! All our clothes, &c, coming from Florence have been shipwrecked in the Adriatic. They were sent from Ravenna, and the craft was wrecked off Pola. I must make an O’D. of it!”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Consulate, Trieste, Nov. 16,1867.

“Thanks for your note and its enclosure.

“You are mistaken if you think I invented the Nobility Association, or that it is a hoax. It is bona fide, every bit of it; and I have added a note which you can insert if you suspect that your own incredulity may be felt by others.

“I have added a page also to ‘Garibaldi.’ It is, to my mind, so essential to a right reading of the present position of Italy to place briefly the whole incident before the reader, that I think it now will display events as they have been, as they might have been, and as they are.

“To comply with your wish to return proof by post, I have, I fear, corrected laxly; but you will, I know, look to my ‘shortcomings.’

“I suspect Serjeant Brownlow’s reminiscences would make an amusing review. If you think so, send it to me, and I’ll try.

“My wife is again very ill, a relapsed [] of the lung, and I am dreary – dreary.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Dec. 2.

“I send you for your New Year No. the best magazine story I think I ever wrote.

“I only hope you may agree with me, – at all events you will tell me what you think of it, and let me have early proof.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“British Consulate, Trieste, Dec 6, 1867.

“I return you ‘Bob Considine,’ hurriedly, but I hope effectually, corrected. I sincerely hope it may appear New Year’s Day: I have a superstition of a good start on that day.

“Your note contained no cheque, and I suppose you may have found it on your table since, but you can annex it to ‘Bob’ when you write.

“We are going to have a mournful spectacle here – the funeral reception of the poor Mexican Emperor’s remains. It will be, they say, very solemn and imposing.

“I find I could not improve the wind-up, and left it unchanged. As to how mad Bob turned out afterwards is nothing to either of us, though I own I think the case hazardous.

“A happy Xmas to you and your wife. Give her all my best wishes and warm regards; as for me, —

“The time of mince-pies, mistletoe, and buns,The time that tells of all that bright and neat is,Only brings thoughts of Xmas bills and duns,Confounded chilblains and my old bronchitis.

“This short month drives me close to time, or I should have liked to add something to the Persano sketch. I find it is a subject immensely talked of by our people (sailors) at home, and that opinion is more favourable to him in England than in Italy. There is no time, however, for this now.

“I suspect Dizzy’s plurality of votes scheme is utter failure. A Bill of Reform must be simple, even at the cost of some efficiency in details. It is a weapon to be used by coarse hands – and every day of the week besides.

“I have heard nothing more about myself since I wrote. I suppose it is all right, but I know nothing.

“Did I tell you that I met Gladstone here? I don’t think I ever saw a more consummate actor, – what the French call poseur, – with all the outward semblance of perfect indifference to display and complete forgetfulness of self. Even Disraeli himself is less artificial.”

To Dr Burbidge.

“Trieste, Dec. 20, 1867.

“I have been planning I don’t know how many letters to you, as I wanted, imprimis, to have a consultation with you about literaries, books to be written, &c., but so many pros and cons got into the controversy I saw it must be talked, not written. Then came on a severe cold, lumbago, &c, and so time slipped over, and I half fancied that I had written and was awaiting your answer. This was stupid enough; but remember where I am living, and with what.

“Of all the dreary places it has been my fate to sojourn in, this is the very worst. There are not three people to be known; for myself, I do not know one. English are, of course, out of the question. Even as a novelist I could make nothing out of the stoker and engineer class. Then as for all the others, they are the men of oakum, hides, tallow, and tobacco, who are, so far as I can guess, about on a par with fourth-rate shopkeepers in an English provincial town. The place is duller, the tone lower, the whole social atmosphere crasser and heavier than I could have believed possible in a town where the intelligence to make money exists so palpably.

“My ‘leap in the dark’ has cost me dearly, for, as Paddy says, I have only gained a loss by coming here. Even as it is, if my wife’s health admitted of moving I’d pitch it up to-morrow and run away – anywhere – ere softening of the brain came on as the sequela of hardening of the heart.

“I write with great difficulty, or, rather, with a daily increasing repugnance to writing. ‘Bramleighs’ you recognise, I suppose: I’ll own the paternity when it is full grown. And I am scribbling odd papers, O’Dowderies, and others, but all without zest or pleasure. They are waifs that I never look after when they leave me; and this has Trieste done for me!

“What are you doing yourself? and how is Malta? There must surely be some congenial people in it.

“How miserably the Italians lost their opportunity in not backing up Garibaldi and making Rome their own at once! and now the great question – Will the country wait? will the Constitutional party be able to move with half steam on, and still steer the ship? I firmly believe in war, but all my friends in England disagree with me: they talk of bankruptcy, as if the length of the bill ever baulked any man’s appetite.

“I don’t think I understood you aright in your last. Is it that I ought to wind up the O’Dowd and start a new shaft, or do you encourage going on? I am equal to either fortune. Of the two, it is always easier for me to lay a new foundation than put a roof on an old building. Give me your advice, and as freely as may be, for I hold much to it.”

XVIII. TRIESTE 1868

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, jan 3, 1868.

“Immense preparations are being made here for the reception of the remains of the Emperor of Mexico, to arrive on the 15th. It will be a very grand and solemn affair.

“I think the squib I enclose will please you. It is in the form of a letter from M. M’Caskey to a Fenian colonel, showing what ought and ought not to be the Fenian strategy. The main point is, however, to lay stress on the necessity of ascribing all brutalities to the Government.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Jan. 6, 1868.

“Your note and enclosure, though delayed by the snow in Styria, reached me all safely yesterday. Your hearty words of good cheer dallied me out of a blue-devilism that is more often my companion nowadays than some fifteen or twenty years ago.

“I am sincerely glad you liked ‘B. C.’ I sent it to you because I really thought it good – I mean, for the sort of thing it pretends to be.

“I hope you will like ‘M’Caske ‘: it may need a little retouching, but not much. I send you some O’Ds., and if I live and do well I’ll try a story for March No. I have a sort of glimmering notion of one flitting across me now.

“We are here in the midst of crêpe and black cloth, and for poor Maximilian, whose body is to arrive this week. What a blunder of our people not to send a ship to the convoy, as the French have done. We have no tact of this kind, and lose more than you would believe by the want of it.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

[Undated.]

“The Russians, people think here, will open the ball next spring by pushing the Montenegrins to a rupture with the Turks, and thus opening an opportunity for themselves to come in. Prussia is then to cross the Maine, and the rest to follow.

“Then of course the programme of those who, like myself, are ‘Know-nothings’ – But it is, at least, vraisemblable.

“I am convinced we ought to resort to conscription, and the time is fit for it. Now that you have given the masses privileges, let them assume duties. So long as you denied them the suffrage, you pretended to govern them and for them. Now the system is changed: they have taken the responsible charge of the State, and its first duty is defence.

“What hatfuls of money Dickens is making in America! I am half persuaded I could do the ‘trick’ too, but in another way.

“Give my warmest and best regards to your wife, and all my good wishes for the ‘year time’ (if the word be English).

“Have you seen Patton’s book – the ugly side of human nature? My youngest daughter made a very clever review of it, and, I believe, burnt it after.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Jan. 16,1868.

“Though I did not fully concur in your view of M’C.‘s letter, I have made such emendations and additions as will make the sarcasm thin enough to appeal to you.

“I still think it is the best squib I have done.

“Trusting that you will now be of my mind, and that my codicils, &c., may come in aright.

“I have just returned from attending the ex-Emperor’s funeral, – four mortal hours in a uniform on a mule, with a fierce north-easter and a High Mass!”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Jan. 28,1868,

“‘God only knows who has the ace of diamonds!’ I once heard a pious whist-player exclaim at the last trick of the game. In the same devotional spirit I am tempted to say, ‘God only knows what has become of certain O’Ds. that I sent you on the 6th of the month!’ Never mind. Herewith goes a story which, if not as rattling, is, I think, better reading than the last. May you think so!

“Did you read in ‘The Times’ – an extract from ‘The Globe’ – an account of Maximilian’s funeral? It was written by my youngest daughter, aged eighteen, and I think very creditably done. I wish I may see her hand in ‘Maga’ before I die.”7

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Feb. 8, 1868.

“I suppose I wrote ‘oats’ as Sir Boyle did ‘gout’ – because he could not spell ‘rheumatism.’ I only saw the blunder myself a couple of days ago. As to ‘M’Caskey,’ I am not often wedded to my own opinion of my own things, but I declare I still think it a telling squib, and that no earthly man could avoid seeing that it meant sarcasm, not seriousness. Your first impression, I am sure, has affected your judgment of the ‘revised code’; but at all events I am determined not to lose it, so if you say no, don’t let me lose the opportunity of giving it to the world while the subject is the uppermost one in men’s thoughts.

“I firmly believe it would be a great success. Bowes, the correspondent of ‘The Standard,’ to whom I read it, said he thought it better fun than any in O’Dowd.

“Strangely enough, the same post that brings me your discounted view of O’Dowd brings me a note from Dr Burbidge, the head of the Malta College, in which he says – But I will just send you his note, and not garble it by quoting, so I send it in its integrity.

“The Irish Church is doomed. The only question is not who is to use the crowbar, but how to get out of the way when the edifice is falling. It will certainly crush more than the parsons.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Feb. 28, 1868.

“The enclosed portrait will show you that the gentleman who took Ninco Nanco for Victor Emanuel, as recorded by C. O’Dowd, did not make an unpardonable mistake. I saw it in a shop this morning, and was so amused by what I feel to be a corroboration of my story that I could not help sending it to you. The king makes a far better brigand than a sovereign, and looks every inch a highwayman.

“I have been wondering at your long silence, and fearing all sorts of disasters to a story I sent you a full month ago; but I take it you have been dining out, and talking Scotch reform, and distribution, and education, and Ireland, and Abyssinia, and forgetting me and all about me, – and very natural, all things considered. I do envy you a bit of London life – as a refresher: not that I crave to live there always, but to go occasionally. To go and be treated as they do treat a stranger who does not bore them too often is very agreeable indeed.

“The world is in a strange lull just now, but the wise people say that France is making immense preparations, and certainly her agents are buying up not only all the corn in Egypt, but all the horses in Hungary. Here they are disarming lazily and honestly. B[eust] avows that he has no thought of attempting to reconquer the lost position of Austria, accepts defeat fairly, and will try to make profit out of disaster by turning the nation to internal questions – to wise reforms and prudent economies. It sounds very sensible, and people seem to believe it too.

“The position of Italy is very critical, – so much so that, if L. Nap. were to die now, it would be an even chance that the whole edifice would come down with a run, and the old Bourbons and priests be as they were. It was by the public opinion of Europe the United Italy was made, and the Italians have exerted themselves manfully to disgust the world of all the good impressions in their favour, and show how little they deserved their luck. All security in Europe is gone. No man dares to prophesy what’s coming; but that great events are brewing, and great changes, none can doubt. As to alliances, too, everything is uncertain. It is like the cotillion, where any one may walk off with his neighbour’s partner; and one wouldn’t be surprised to see France dancing with Russia ere the ball breaks up.

“I am far from easy about the state of our relations with America, for though a great majority of the educated men there like England, and would abhor a rupture, the masses have a furious desire to wound our national honour, and would do anything to inflict a stain upon us. We ought to have sent them a duke, or at least a marquis, as Minister.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, March 3, 1868.

“I was glad to get your note. I could not imagine what had become of you, and was searching the papers to see had the Queen sent for you, and then speculating whether you’d offer me a bishopric, or, like Sancho, the governorship of an island. God help me, I believe I am fit for nothing better!

“I’d do Dizzy, but it would be flunkeyism in me just now. It would be such a palpable bid for a place; and though I’d like to be ‘in Lunacy,’ – I mean a Commissioner of that ilk, – I’d not like to ‘compass it.’

“I’d far rather review Kinglake; but just because I like both the man and his books, I shrink from it. First of all, I am away from all sources of information here; and though I might gather books about me, I could not command what would be more essential still – the corrective power of personal intercourse. It would grieve me sincerely to do him badly, and I could by no means say that I could do him well. Just in proportion as I hold his opinions about the Emperor, and think that he – Kinglake – alone understands this man and has had the courage to avow his opinion, I am afraid that my very partisanship might damage where I meant to serve, and prejudice what I would rather uphold. It is with great reluctance I decline what has immense attractions for me.

“I cannot forgive you not printing ‘M’Caskey.’ Posterity never will pardon it, and my literary executor shall devote a full page to abuse of you in his behalf.

“By all means give ‘Thornton’ this month, but the O’Ds. I now send I am even more anxious about, especially the Irish one. I know if they give way to the tinkers they’ll spoil the kettle. Of course I can speak without a tinge of prejudice. I feel as judicially important as a Judge in Equity, but I do think the No. of Mag. without me has a want of flavour, even though the flavour be that of lemon-juice.

“I have a half hope of going over to England after Easter. Shall you be there? I’d like a dinner with you at the Burlington. Hech, sirs! it stirs my blood to think how gay I could be – gout, debts, and all ‘in no wise to the contrary, nevertheless, notwithstanding.’

“Why won’t they (by way of young blood in the Administration!) make me Under Secretary, F. O.? I know more of the Continent and foreign questions than the whole lot of them.

“They have a line of character in French theatricals they call ‘grand utilities.’ What a splendid thing it would be to introduce it into political life. I think I’ll make an O’Dowd on it, and recommend Cornelius himself to the Premier’s notice. From Tipperary to Taganrog is a wide sweep, and I’d engage to ‘talk’ anything from Pat to Panslav-isms. If you see Stanley, mention it.

“Did I tell you Russell – I mean ‘The Times’ man – wrote to me in great glorification about ‘Only an Irishman.’

“My very warmest regards to Mrs Blackwood. If I live and do well – that is, get leave and a little cash – I’ll go over and give them myself.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, March 16, 1868.

“It was L. N. who first suggested ironclad gunboats to be employed against the Russian batteries; and as for his courage, you’ll get no one on the Continent to believe it except M. Persigny and Madame Walerothy. He is the Post pump-man par excellence.

“As you and your wife have left town, I have lost much of the wish to go over.

“I quite agree with you that the tone of condescension employed by the press towards Dizzy is disgusting in the extreme; but my hands are tied, by the position I am in, from saying how highly I think of him. I know nothing of his honesty, nothing at all of his nature; but his ability is unquestionably above the other men’s. His great want is a total deficiency in all genial elements. He attaches no one, and he is incapable of understanding the uses of those traits which made Palmerston and Lord Melbourne the idols of their party.

“Thank God, Gladstone has still less of these endearing qualities! But still I think our friends will have a short lease of Whitehall, and (unlike Pat) no claim for their improvements when they are evicted.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, April 6, 1868.

“First of all, I hope you are about to print my short story this month. I’m sure you’ll like it when in type, and I want to see it there.

“Secondly, what would you say to an Irish tale, a serial, a story of modern – that is, recent– Ireland, as opposed to the old Erin, with all its conflicting agencies of Tory and Whig, radical, rebel, and loyalist, dashed with a something of that humour that even poverty and famine have not exhausted, without a bit of sermonising or anything at all ‘doctrinaire’? I think I could put many strong truths forcibly forward, and insinuate much worth consideration and reflection; and if I could also make an amusing story, it would be like Mary Jones’ Alphabet in Gingerbread – ‘Learning to the taste of the Public.’