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

“Of course, I do not mean this at once, but after some months of plan, plot, and perhaps a visit to the Land of Bog as a refresher. Now say, would it not do you good? – as I feel it would do me, I believe I have one more effort in me, and I don’t think I have two; but I’d like to give myself the chance of finishing creditably, and I own to you your monthly criticism and comments are a stimulus and a guide that, in my remoteness from life and the world, are of great value to me. However, make your decision on this or other grounds. If it would be of service to the Mag., you know and I do not.

“I am flattered by your repetition of the offer about Kinglake, just as I should feel flattered if a man asked me to ride a thoroughbred that had thrown the last three or four that tried him. I believe if I went to London I should say ‘yes,’ because I could there have books and men, and K. himself, whom I know sufficiently to speak with in all freedom. I can always have a month’s leave, but there are difficulties of various kinds. However, the prospect of the review forms now a strong element in my wish to go over. If you had been at the Burlington I’d decide on going at once.

“The attack of Gladstone is on a false issue. He assails the Church on the ground of its anomalies, which no one desires to leave unredressed, and is about as logical in advising extinction as a doctor would be that recommended poisoning a patient because he had a sore leg. If the Church is to be abolished for expediency sake, nothing should be said about its internal discrepancies, since these could easily be remedied, and no one desires to uphold them. I attach far more weight to the adverse tone of the press (‘Times’ and ‘P. Mall’) than to all that has been said in Parliament. People in England get their newspapers by heart, and then fancy that they have written the leaders themselves; but they never think this way about the speeches in Parliament. My hand is so shaky with gout that I scarcely believe you will be able to read me: poco male if you can’t, for my head is little better than my fingers.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, May 5,1868.

“Let me assure you that, however glad I was to write in the Magazine – that had been an old boyish love of mine (I bought ‘Maga’ when half crowns were gold guineas to me), – what I prized even higher was the immense advantage I derived from your frank and cordial and clever comments, which, whether you praise or blame, always served me.

“This intercourse to a man like myself was of great value, removed as I was from the opinions of the moving world of clubs and society: it was of immense advantage to have the concentrated budget of the world in the words of a friend who feels interested also in the success I could obtain. For years and years Mortimer O’Sullivan continued to criticise me month by month, and when he died the blank so discouraged and depressed me that I felt like one writing without a public – till you replaced him; and that same renewal of energy which some critics ascribed to me in ‘Tony’ and ‘Sir B.’ was in reality the result of that renewed vigour imparted by your healthful and able advice.

“Now do not be angry at my selfishness if I try to exalt my wares. I tell you candidly I do it in the way of trade: it is a mere expedient to keep my duns off, for – an honest truth – I think hardly enough of what I have done and of myself for doing it.

“I shall not be able to open till the latter end of the year, as I want a mass of material I must get by correspondence. I can’t leave my wife: she grew so anxious after the assassination of M’Gee, that she owned she thought I’d never return to England alive. For this she has, of course, no reason beyond mere terror, aided by the fact that some Fenian friend always sends us the worst specimens of Fenian denunciation in the press, with all the minatory passages underlined.

“I have a month’s leave at my disposal (and suppose I could easily extend it) whenever I like to take it; and if all should go well in autumn, we might do worse than take a flying ramble through the south and west of Ireland.

“I am going now to look at some of the islands in the Adriatic: they are as little known as the Fijis, and about as civilised.

“When you print my story, ‘Fred Thornton,’ you’ll see it will look better than you think it. I hope you’ll put it in your next.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, June 15, 1868.

“One would have thought that you had a vision of the devil dancing in my breeches pocket when you sent me a cheque in advance. Sooth to say, my ‘sooty friend’ does perform many a pas seul there; but as I seldom put my hand in, I don’t disturb him.

“I take your hint and send you an O’D. for the House, and I suppose the one on ‘Labouchere’ will reach me to-morrow or next day.

“I don’t know what is the matter with me. Hitherto I have divided my life pretty equally between whist and sleep; now, as I get no whist here, I have fallen back on my other resource, but with such a will that I rarely awake at all. I’ll back myself against anything but a white bear, and give odds.

“This infernal place is slowly wearing me out. I have not one man to talk to. I don’t care for indigo, – my own prospects are blue enough. As for rags, my small clothes suffice. But why bore you? I’d like to go and see you, but as that is not exactly practicable, I’ll pay you a visit in imagination, and in reality send my warmest regards to Mrs Blackwood.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Monday, June 15.

“I have deferred these a day, thinking that the ‘Labouchere’ O’D. might arrive; but I delay no longer now, as the post is in without it.

“I have got a long letter from Grant from Suez, interesting because from him, but in other respects tame, and with no novelty that the papers have not told us.

“I am informed to-day that the Mediterranean Squadron are to be here next week, and I am not overjoyed at the news. My wife is sick; myself, poor, out of spirits, and dissatisfied, and by no means in the vein to distribute outdoor relief in cigars and bitter beer to a set of noisy devils who, for the most part, reckon uproar as the synonym for jollity.

“That little heathen, as you called him, – , is raising a No Popery cry in a course of lectures through the country, and means to help himself into Parliament. If the Irish Church be doomed, her fate will be owing to her defenders: the rottenness and black dishonesty of the men who rally round her would disgrace any cause.”

To Mr William Blackwood.

“Trieste, June 25, 1868.

“I was glad to see your autograph again, even though it brings to me shady tidings. I posted the ‘Lab.’ O’D. on the 4th of June, myself.

“It was spicy and ‘saucy,’ and I’m sorry it has miscarried. I never could re-write anything. I was once called on by F. O. to state more fully some points I had written in my ‘Despatch No. so-and-so,’ and I had no copy, of course, and was obliged to say I’d write another if they liked, but had lost all memory of that referred to.

“I see little chance of getting out of this except to be buried, and if habit will do something, I’ll not mind that ceremony after some years at Trieste. I’d say, Why don’t you come and see me? – if I was worth seeing. But why don’t you come and see Venice, which is only four hours from me, and then come over to me? Men who hunt seldom fish – a rod spoils a nice light hand; so that what could you do better in your long vacation than come out here, fully see Venice, Vienna, the Styrian Alps, and I’ll brush myself up and try and be as pleasant as my creditors will permit me?

“I am delighted with Kinglake, but I want the two first volumes. If I had been in town, where I could have seen books and men (men especially), I’d have been delighted to review him.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, July 6, 1868.

“My ‘Lab.’ O’D. was, I believe, niched out of the post here: no loss, perhaps, for it was terribly wicked and personal. This is milder, and cuts two ways. Let me see a proof, and if I have a third in the meantime, I will send it.

“Do print my story, like a good fellow. You’ll see it is a hit.

“I have just received news that the fleet will be here on Friday, and then – the deluge!

“I have ordered such a supply of bitter ale and cigars that the authorities are curious to know if I am about to open a Biergarten, which I secretly suspect I am – minus the ready-money profits.

“Tegeloff comes down to meet the admiral, and if anything turns up you shall have it.”

To Mr William Blackwood.

“Trieste, July 16, 1868.

“Oh, B. B., what a humbug you are! affecting to be hard-worked, and galley-slaved, and the rest of it. Telling this to me too. Dives lecturing Lazarus on the score of dyspepsia is a mild case compared to a publisher asking compassion from a poor devil of an author on the score of his fatigue. I picture you to myself as a careless dog, hunting, flirting, cricket-playing, and picnic-ing, with no severer labour than reading an amusing proof over a mild cheroot and a sherry cobbler. I tell you that on every ground – morally, aesthetically, and geographically – you ought to come and see me, and if you won’t, I’ll be shot but I’ll make an O’Dowd on you.

“So now it seems there is not one ‘Labouchere’ O’D. but two ‘Labouchere’ O’Ds., and I see nothing better to do than take your choice. I believe the last the best.

“As the Government are good Christians, and chasten those they love, they have made Hannay a consul! Less vindictive countries give four or five years’ hard labour and have an end of it; but there is a rare malice in sending some poor devil of a literary man who loves the Garrick, and lobster salad, and small whist, and small flattery, to eke out existence in a dreary Continental town, without society or sympathy, playing patron all the while and saying, ‘We are not neglecting our men of letters.’ I’d rather be a dog and bark at the door of the Wyndham or the Alfred than spend this weariful life of exile I am sentenced to.

“I hope you’ll like Bob Considine’s story, and let it be a warning and a lesson to you how you worry your wife when you have one, and how unsuspectingly a husband should walk all the days of his life. I don’t think the world sees it yet, but I am a great moralist, terribly undervalued and much misunderstood.

“Kinglake is admirable; he has but one fault, – and perhaps it would be none to less impatient men than myself, – he does not get on fast enough. It is splendidly written, and with a rare courage too.

“What a fuss you are all making over Abyssinia I Hech, sirs, but ye are gratefu’ for sma’ mercies! I wish to Heaven the press would moderate its raptures, or we’ll get a rare set down from the foreign journals.

“Did I tell you that there is a great rifle-match, open to all nations (even Scotch and Irish), at Vienna this month? There’s another reason for coming out. You could make your bull’s-eye on your way to me. You had better accede, or you may read of yourself as ‘The man who wouldn’t come when he was axed.’”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, August 16, 1868.

“I am worn out with fatigue and anxiety: for five nights I have not been to bed. My poor wife is again dangerously ill, and as yet no sign of any favourable kind has appeared. God help me in this great trouble!

“I wanted to see those things in print, but it is late now to correct them. I believe I wrote ‘Mincio’ in the ‘La Marmora’ paper when it should be ‘Oglio.’ Look to this for me.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Aug. 18, 1868

“You will, I know, be glad to hear my wife has had a favourable change. One of the doctors of the fleet has been fortunate enough to hit on a lucky treatment, and the admiral most kindly allows him to remain behind and continue the treatment. The fleet sails to-day.

“I send you a few lines which, I believe, would be well liked and opportune: they are true, at all events.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Sept. 3, 1868.

“I thank you heartily for your kind words about my wife. Thank God, she is now improving daily, and my anxiety has at last got some peace.

“I was greatly pressed to join Lord Clarence Paget down amongst the islands of Dalmatia, and nothing but my anxiety for my wife prevented me. It would have been a rare opportunity to pick up much odd material, and a pleasant ramble besides. Sir H. Holland has spent a few days with me, and wished me much to join his tour, – and his companionship would have been delightful, – but I was obliged to refuse. It is weeks since I wrote anything but a few passing lines, and I have not yet come round to the pleasant feeling that in settling down to my work I have got back to a little world where no cares can come in save those necessary to my hero and heroine. But I hope this will come yet.

“I’d have waited to send you another O’D. or two, but I wanted to thank you for your hearty note, and acknowledge its enclosure. Just as a little money goes far with a poor man, a few words of sympathy are marvellous sweetness in the cup of a lonely hermit like myself, for you have no idea of the dreary desolation of this place as regards one who does not sweat guineas nor has any to sweat. The Party, I fear, will go out before I can, and for all I see I shall die here; and certainly if they’re not pleasanter company after death than before it, the cemetery will be poor fun with Triestono.

“I don’t think Trollope pleasant, though he has a certain hard common-sense about him and coarse shrewdness that prevents him being dull or tiresome. His books are not of a high order, but still I am always surprised that he could write them. He is a good fellow, I believe, au fond, and has few jealousies and no rancours; and for a writer, is not that saying much?

“What I feel about Kinglake’s book is this. The great problem to be solved is, first, Was Sebastopol assailable by the north side? Second, Were the French really desirous of a short war? I suspect K. knows far more than, with all his courage, he could say on the score of our Allies’ loyalty; and any one who has not access to particular sources of knowledge would be totally unable to be his reviewer, for in reality the critic ought, though not able to write the book he reviews, to be in possession of such acquaintance with the subject as to be in a position to say what other versions the facts recorded would bear, and to weigh the evidence for and against the author’s. Another difficulty remains: what a bathos would it be – the original matter of almost any writer – among or after the extracted bits of the book itself. Kinglake’s style is, with all its glitter, so intensely powerful, and his descriptive parts so perfectly picture-like, that the reviewer must needs take the humble part of the guide and limit himself to directing attention to the beauties in view, and make himself as little seen or felt as need be. Not that this would deter me, for I like the man much, and think great things of his book; but I feel I am not in a position to do him the justice his grand book deserves. If I were a week with you in Scotland, and sufficiently able to withdraw from the pleasures of your house, I believe I could do the review; but you see my bonds, and know how I am tied.

“You will see by the divided sheet of this note that I started with the good intention of brevity; but this habit of writing by the sheet, I suppose, has corrupted me, and perhaps I’ll not be able now to make my will without ‘padding.’

“I have the Bishop of Gibraltar on a visit with me: about the most brilliant talker I ever met.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Sept. 14, 1868.

“I send you a very spicy bit of wickedness on the Whig-Radicals – but, for the love of the Virgin, let the proof be carefully looked to! I am as uncertain about the errors of the press as I am about my personal shortcomings; but I rely on your reader with the faith of a drowning man on a lifebuoy.

“My wife is a shade better, but my anxiety is great, and I (who habitually sleep eighteen hours out of twenty-four) have not had a night’s rest for ten days.

“We are suffering greatly here from drought. No rain has fallen for three months, and my well is as completely drained as my account at my bankers, or anything else you can fancy of utter exhaustion.

“Who writes ‘M. Aurelia’? He or she certainly knows nothing of Italian nature or temperament. Not but that the story opens well and is cleverly written, but I demur to the Italian. I know the rascals well; but, like short whist, it cost me twenty years and some tin to do it. Keep my opinion, however, to yourself, for I hate to disparage a contemporary, and indeed this slipped out of me because my daughter has been talking to me of the story while I write.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Sept. 16, 1868.

“I have just had a round of clerical visitors, beginning with the Bishop of Gibraltar and ending with the Dean of Exeter. Very pleasant talking and humorous men, and only agreeably dashed with the priest element, which is sufficiently feminine to temper down the rougher natures of lay humanities.

“I’d like much to be with you and Story. There is a mine of the pleasantest sort of stuff in him. Pray commend me to him heartily.

“I am sentenced, however, to pass my life with Greeks, Jews, and Ethiopians and people below Jordan, – and I don’t take to it, that’s a fact! I hear that Gladstone will give up Disendowment and be satisfied with Disestablishment, – not because he wants to let the Church down easier, but that he neither knows how to rob nor what to do with the booty.

“If they only come to a long fight over the question, it will end by Dizzy dealing with the parsons as he did with the franchise. He’d bowl over Gladstone first and then carry the whole question, and not leave a curate nor even a grave-digger of the Establishment.

“I must positively manage a run over to town in spring – and Ireland too. This is essential.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Oct. 5, 1868.

“I thank you heartily for the note and the enclosure: both were very welcome to me. Old as I am, I still need tin and tenderness.

“I have done a few lines, as you suggested, on Walewsky, whom I knew well. He was a good fellow, but with immense vanity and overruling self-conceit.

“I have determined to go to Ireland in the beginning of the year, and seek out in a part of Donegal not known to me nor, I believe, many others, the locale of a new story. I want to do something with a strong local colour, and feel that I must freshen myself up for the effort. My poor wife gains very slowly, but I hope and trust she may be well enough to let me leave her by February.

“If you saw my surroundings here – my Jews and Greeks and Armenians, and, worse than these, my Christian friends! – you would really credit me with resources that I honestly own I never believed in. How I do anything amongst them puzzles me.

“It is a good thought about the Election addresses. I’ll think over it.

“Who wrote ‘Aurelia,’ and how long will it run?”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Oct. 17, 1868.

“Of course I only spoke of O’Dowding Trollope in jest. I never had the slightest idea of attacking a friend, and a good fellow to boot. I thought, and shall think it great presumption for him to stand in any rivalry with Lord Stanley, who, though immensely over-rated, is still far and away above we poor devils in action, though we can caper and kick like the devil.

“I have just this moment arrived at home from a short tour in Dalmatia, where I amused myself much, and would have liked to have stayed longer and seen more. I send you the proofs at once, but, as usual, begging you will have them closely looked to by an ‘older and a better soldier.’

“I suppose I must set to work now at my yearly consular return, for up to this the Government have never seen my handwriting save in an appeal for my pay!

“I hope I may live to shake hands with you all in spring.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Oct. 19, 1868.

“I am so glad to get your long and pleasant letter that I return your fire at once. First of all for explanations. I never seriously thought of O’Dowding Trollope – he is far too good a fellow; and, besides, he is one of us – I mean scripturally, for in politics he is a vile unbeliever.

“You will be glad to hear that our notice of the sailors in the last O’D. was received with ‘Cheers for Blackwood’ in the wardroom of the fleet – and by Jack himself, who read it. Lord Clarence wrote to me from Naples saying he was never more gratified in his life, and that the great effect of it on his men is beyond belief.

“I have just come back from a short ramble in Dalmatia with my youngest daughter. It was very pleasant, and we enjoyed ourselves much and saw a good deal. She desires me to send you her best regards for your kind message. I have my doubts if she will not one day figure in ‘Maga.’ She has just played me a clever trick. She reviewed ‘The Bramleighs,’ sent it to an Irish paper, the ‘D. E. Mail.’ without my knowledge, and cut me up for her own amusement. I never guessed the authorship when I read it.

“I assure you that I live in the mere hope of a visit to you. I want to see Scotland, and with you.

“Things are going precious badly here. Beust has gone too fast, and the privileges accorded to the Hungarians here stimulated the other nationalities to a like importunity.

“I think Austria will fall to pieces. It is like the Chinese plum-pudding where they forgot to tie the bag. Spain has deferred the war. No one can venture to fight till he sees how the ‘Reds’ mean to behave.

“We had Farragut here, and I dined him and fêted his officers to the best of my wits. I am convinced it is our best and honestest policy to treat Yankees with [? cordiality]. Their soreness towards us was not causeless, and we had really not been as generous towards them as we were towards other foreigners. I have openly recanted my opinion of them, and I am proud to say that the first suggestion of paying off the Alabama claim was an O’Dowd. I wish these d – d Tories, before they go out for ever (as it will be), would give me something near or in England. This banishment is scarcely fair.

“I got such a nice note from Kinglake in return for a dedication of the book to him. I only wish I could acknowledge it by the way that would please me best, by telling the world what I think her great book is.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Oct 30, 1868

“Lord Sheffield was here and spent a day with me, and, strange to say, he does not take a glowing view of the Party. He distrusts Dizzy, as all old Tories do; but, in the name of Heaven, what else have we?

“When Mdlle. Laffarges’ sentence was pronounced avec ses circonstances atténuantes, Alphonse Karr said it was because she mixed gum always with the arsenic; and may not this be the Disraeli secret? At least, he’d give us gum if he could, and when he can’t, he saves torture by administering his poison in strong doses. When the Russian traveller cut up his child and flung him piecemeal to the wolves, he forgot what a zest he imparted to pursuit by the mere thought that there was always something coming. Don’t you think Pat and the wolf have some resemblance? At least, it will be as hard to persuade that there is no more ‘baby’ to be eaten.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Nov. 17, 1868.

“Have you seen Labouchere’s row with his colleague? What a talent he has for shindies! I got a letter from him a few days ago, and he is quite pleased with the O’D. upon him. There is no accounting for tastes, but most men would have thought it the reverse of complimentary.

“We are threatened with the passage of the Prince of Wales through the place. God grant it be only a threat! If there’s anything I abhor, it’s playing flunkey in a cocked hat and a policeman’s uniform.

“I think our O’Ds. this month will make a noise, – some of them, at least.

“Strange climate this: the roses are coming out first and the oleanders are again blossoming, and all the mountains of Styria around us are covered with snow.”