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

“I am very sick of the row and racket I live in. I want my home and my quiet, and even my ink-bottle.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Villa Morelli, Florence, Sept. 17, 1866.

“I got back here two days ago, after more real fatigue and exhaustion than I would again face for double my miserable place at Spezzia. These bluejackets have not only drunk me out of champagne and Allsopp, but so tapped myself that I am perfectly dry. The constant intercourse with creatures of mere action – with creatures of muscles, nerves, and mucous membranes, and no brains – becomes one of the most wearing and weakening things you can imagine. Nor is it only the nine weeks lost, but God knows how many more it will take before I can get the machinery of my mind to work again: all is rusted and out of gear, and I now feel, what I only suspected, that it is in this quiet humdrum life I am able to work, and that I keep fresh by keeping to myself. An occasional burst (to London for instance) would be of immense value to me, but that even then should only be brief, and not too frequent.

“Is it necessary to say I could not write at Spezzia? I tried over and over again, and for both our sakes it is as well I did not persevere. I send, therefore, these two chapters, and a short bit to round off the last one. If you opine (as I do) that even a short link is better than a break, insert them next No., taking especial care to correct the new portion, and, indeed, to look well to all.

“To-morrow I set to work, – I hope vigorously, at least so far as intention goes, – and you shall have, if I’m able, a strong Sir B.’ and an ‘O’Dowd’ for next month. I never for thirty years of monthly labour broke down before, and I am heartily ashamed of my shortcoming; but I repeat it is better to give short measure than poison the company.

“I like the tribute to poor Aytoun very much, and I condole heartily with you on the loss of one who walked so much of life at your side. I am sure the habit of writing turns out more of a man’s nature to his friends than happens to those who never commit themselves to print, and I am certain that his friends have their own reading of an author that is totally denied to his outer public. You knew Aytoun well enough to know if my theory does not apply to him.

“Don’t be as chary of your letters as you have been. I’ll so pepper you now with correspondence that you must reply.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Villa Morelli, Sept. 24,1865.

“You have herewith three chapters of ‘Sir B.’ for Nov. No., and if so be that you need a fourth, there will be time to write it when I see these in proof; but I thought it as well to keep the reader in suspense about the interview, all the more because I know no more of what is coming than he does! My impression is that these chapters will do: my womankind like them, and only complain that there are no female scenes in the No. But there shall be crinolines to the fore hereafter.

“I shall now set to work to write an ‘O’Dowd’ on my late Spezzia life and experiences.

“What a fuss they are making about the Fenians, as if rebellion was anything new in Ireland! It is only an acute attack of the old chronic com-plaint, and wants nothing but bleeding to cure it.

“Some vile sailor, I suspect, has walked off with my May No. Magazine, and I have not the beginning of the ‘Sir B.’ Will you send it to me?

“My wife is very poorly again, but this month coming round renews so much sorrow to her that I suspect the cause may be there.

“I have just this moment heard that the new squadron is coming back to Spezzia. If so, it will be the ruin of me – that is, if I go there; and indeed I am seriously thinking of pitching my consular dignity to the devil, and becoming a gentleman again, if only, as my coachman says, ‘for an alternative.’”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Villa Morelli, Oct. 1,1865.

“The squib I enclose will, I think, be well-timed. It is a letter supposed to be found on a Fenian prisoner, a Col. Denis Donovan, Assistant Adjutant-General, Fenian army, from Major-General M’Caskey, who has been asked to take command of the National Forces. It can be introduced to the reader thus.

“My wife says I have written nothing to equal this.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Villa Morelli, Florence, Oct. 8,1866.

“You will have received before this the Fenian squib. I have little courage to ask how you like it. Of course it would be easy enough to make a long and strong paper out of the condensed materials of M’Caskey, but I don’t water my milk, though my experiences with the public might have taught me that it would suit us both best.

“I have mislaid – perhaps some one has carried off – my ‘Rebel Songs,’ for I heard a threat of the kind in connection with some autograph balderdash. They are, however, no loss either to the cause or the public. The best was one called ‘The Devil may care.’ I add a verse (as it strikes me) for the public —

“You don’t read ‘O’Dowd’ and don’t like its style;
But then to my conscience I swear
You buy things that are worse,
And some not worth a curse,
And for my part – the Devil may care!”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Villa Morelli, Florence, Oct. 12,1865.

“Take care that M’Caskey’s letter is not amongst the ‘O’Dowds.’ Cornelius never heard of him, nor has he any knowledge of ‘Tony Butler.’ Mind this.

“Send me the Horse-book of your Cavalry Officer, and I’ll try and make a short notice of it. I want the book of Villa Architecture too. I was thinking of a paper (I have good bones for it) on the Italian fleet, wood and iron, but I foresee that I should say so many impertinent things, and hurt so many people I know, that I suspect on the whole it is better not to go on with it. What I am to do with my surplus venom when I close ‘O’Dowd’ I don’t see, except I go into the Church and preach on the Athanasian Creed.

“Wolff is in Paris still, scheming in ‘Turks.’

“It will astonish Lyons when he discovers what a heritage Bulwer has left him at Constantinople.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Villa Morelli, Oct. 20, 1866.

“Your note and its ‘padding’ came to my hand a couple of hours ago. I thank you much for both, but more for the encouragement than the cash, though I wanted the last badly.

“I don’t think there is a public for O’D. collectively. I don’t think people will take more than a monthly dose of ‘my bitters,’ and I incline to suspect mawkish twaddle and old Joe Millers would hit the mark better. Shall I try? At all events, make room if you can for the postscript I send you. Now I wrote it at your own suggestion when I read your note, and it seems to me to embody the dispute. I have tried to put in a bit of Swift s tart dryness in the style.

“The telegram just announces Palmerston’s death. Take care that his name does not occur in my last O’D. I don’t remember using it, but look to it for me.

“What will happen now? I hear the Whigs won’t have Russell, and that he won’t serve under Clarendon.

“How I wish I were in England to hear all the talk. It is d – d hard to be chained up here and left only to bark, when I want to bite too.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Villa Morelli, Oct. 23,1865.

“Does it not strike you that a good view of Palmerston’s character might be taken from considering how essentially the man was English, and that in no other assembly than a British House of Commons would his qualities have had the same sway and influence? All that intense vitality and rich geniality would have been totally powerless in Austria, France, Italy, or even America. None would have accepted the glorious nature of the man, or the element of statesmanship, as the House accepted it. None would have seen that the spirit of all he did was the rebound of that public opinion which only a genial man ever feels or knows the value of. If I be right in this, depend upon it Gladstone will make a lame successor to him. God grant it!

“I send you a ‘Sir B.’ for December, as I am about to leave for Carrara for a few days. I hope it is good. It may be that another short chapter may be necessary, and if so there will be time for it when I come back.

“How I would like now if I had the time (but it would take time and labour too) to write an article on the deception which the Whigs have practised in trading on their Italian policy as their true claim to office. It is the most rascally fraud ever practised.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Villa Morelli, Oct. 29, 1865.

“I send you two O’Ds.; that on Gladstone I think tolerably good. The short paper on ‘The Horse,’ being all done in the first person, I think had better be an ‘O’Dowd,’ – indeed I signed it such; but do as you like about this.

“I think there seems a very good prospect of the Tories coming in during the session. Phil Rose was here the other day and gave me good hopes, and said also they would certainly give me something. Heaven grant it! for I am getting very footsore, and would like to fall back upon a do-nothing existence, and never hear more of the public.

“The foreign papers are all – especially the Bonapartist ones – attacking Lord Russell as an ‘Orleanist.’ I never had heard of his leanings in that direction; but it is exactly one of those tendencies we should not hear of in England, but which foreigners would be certain to chance upon.”