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

“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.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Wednesday, Dec. 1868.

“I have been very ill – so ill that I thought these few lines of notice of my old schoolfellow should have been my last. I hope you will think I have done him well. I am getting round again – that is, if this ‘runaway knock’ should not be repeated; but Death has occasionally the postman’s trick of knocking at several doors together when he is pressed for time, and I believe he is busy with a neighbour of mine this moment. But this is a grim theme, and let us quit it.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Dec. 17,1868.

“I get up out of my bed to write to you. I have been – still am – very ill, and not well sure if I am to rub through. My sufferings have been great, and I have had nights of torture I cannot bear to think of.

“I hope Bradlaugh will not give you any trouble, but I feel sure I said nothing that could be called libellous. Would it be reparation to say that, after seeing the published list of the new Government, I beg to assure Mr B. that there is no reason whatever he might not figure amongst them?

“It is great aggravation to dying to feel that I must be buried here. I never hated a place or people so much, and it is a hard measure to lay me down amongst them where I have no chance of getting away till that grand new deal of the pack before distributing the stakes.

“I wish I could write one more O’D. – ‘the last O’Dowd.’ I have a number of little valueless legacies to leave the world, and could put them into codicil form and direct their destination. My ink is as sluggish as my blood, indeed it has been my blood for many a day, and I must wind up. I don’t think I have strength to go over the longer proof: perhaps you would kindly do it for me.

“The cheque came all right, but I was not able to thank you at the time. Give my love to Mrs Blackwood, and say that it was always fleeting across me, in moments of relief, I was to meet you both again and be very jolly and light-hearted. Who knows! I have moments still that seem to promise a rally; but there must be a long spell of absence from pain and anxiety – not so easy things to accomplish.

“I’ll write to you very soon again if strong enough.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, the day before Xmas 1868

“I promised to report if I was alive, and I do so, though, without any captiousness or Gladstonianism, the matter of my vitality might be well open to contention.

“I am barely able to move from a sofa to a chair, very weak, intensely nervous, and not at all reconciled to the fast-and-loose way death is treating me. Though there is every reason why I ought not to wish to go just now, I will put a bold face on it and say Ecco mi pronto! But the grinning humbug sends away the coach with orders to come back to-morrow at the same hour.