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

“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 - Sidney Lever (Mrs Crafton Smith) was the author of a volume of verses entitled ‘Fireflies,’ which was published in 1883. She also wrote a story entitled ‘Years Ago,’ which appeared in 1884. She died in London in 1887. – E. D.]

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.