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

“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.’

“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.