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

“Robert Lytton is now Secretary at Vienna,

“You don’t agree with me about the proximity of war, but I know it has been twice, within the last three weeks, on the very brink of beginning. Louis Napoleon has fallen into a state of silent despondency, in which he will give no orders, offer nothing, nor agree to anything, and R[ouher] is often left days without any instructions to guide him.

“As for Austria, she is in a terrible funk, el du raison. Her army is but half drilled, and the new weapon is a puzzle to the raw recruits; besides this, she has nothing that could be called a general, – nothing above the Codrington class, which, after all, can only pull through by the pluck and bravery of British troops.

“The hatred of Prussia is so inveterate here that anything like a candid opinion as to the chances of the campaign against France is not to be looked for, but so far as I can see men would generally back the French. How would the Whigs conduct a great war, I wonder? Certainly Cardwell and his economics would cut a sorry figure if he were called on for a big effort.

“I hope the mode in which Gladstone proposes to endow Maynooth (while affecting mere compensation) will give the Tories a strong ground of attack. The Bill is a palpable project to buy every one at the expense of the Irish Church. The landlord, the tenant, the priest, the Presbyterian, even the Consolidated Fund, are to be relieved of part of their charge for Irish charities; and yet it will pass, if for no other reason than that the nation sees one party to be as dishonest as the other, and that if Gladstone were beaten by Dizzy, Dizzy would carry the measure afterwards.

“If the ‘Ballot’ O’D. be late to send back in proof, you will deal with it yourself. It is well to take the themes that are before men’s eyes, and say our say while there are ears to hear us.

“The Emperor of Austria arrives here on Friday, and I am bidden to a great banquet, to be eaten in a tight uniform and epaulettes ‘with what appetite I may.’ I wish I could O’Dowd them all, and take my vengeance ‘in kind.’”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, April 13, 1869.

“The piece of autobiography is fact. I was a young college man when I did the trick, and can to this day remember one sentence of Boyton’s own words, which I gave in the report verbatim. The peer was the late Marquis of Downshire, the greatest ass of the Conservative party, et c’est beaucoup dire. Boyton’s death was commemorated by a beautiful article in ‘Blackwood,’ – I believe written by O’Sullivan, but I’m not sure. As for the ‘Speech-Makers’ Manual,’ it was published by Koutledge & Co. I got it out before I wrote my papers. It is incredibly absurd. The inscrutable man I refer to was Villiers – Fred Villiers, – a great friend of all the Bulwers, and formerly M.P. for Canterbury. He was no Villiers, had nothing, nor belonged to any one; but he was at the top of London society and knew every duke in England, and made a brilliant career of it for at least ten years or more.

“I am very full of my trip to London, and mean to take my youngest daughter over – she has never been in England – to visit some friends and pass the summer in Devonshire. My leave is a very short one; and as they stop my pay, I can’t afford to prolong it. It will be a great delight to me to see you and Mrs Blackwood again, and I feel this is to be my farewell visit to England, my possibly last appearance before retiring from the boards for ever.

“I have just found the reference to Boyton. It is taken from ‘The Dublin Evening Mail’ (the paper in which I gave Downshire his speech) for August 1833, but my impression is that there is another and longer notice of him in some other magazine later on.

“It is very rarely that I wish for my youth back again; but now that I have begun to think of those days, and all the fine-hearted fellows I knew in them, I cannot repress the wish that I was once more what I was thirty-five years ago, and take my chance for doing something other and better than I have done.

“The Austrians and Italians are doing now what they ought to have done fifteen years ago, making an alliance against France – that is, to maintain a united neutrality if pressed by France to join her. How strange it is that nations, no more than individuals, do not see that it is not enough to do the right thing, but that it ought to be done at the right time also.

“For ever since I have known Italy I have said her natural ally was Austria, her natural enemy France.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Hôtel du Louvre, Paris, May 4,1869.

“‘Thus far into the bowels of the land have we marched’ without other impediment than the Custom House officers, and mean to be in London by Thursday next. Will you drop me a line to Jr. Carlton to say when we may hope to see you?

“I’d not have delayed in Paris, but Lyons has been exceedingly kind and hospitable, and I am glad to have a long gossip with him over things past and present and to come.

“I have done nothing but rencontre with old schoolfellows – white-headed rascals that terrify me with their tiresome stories and half-remembered remembrances. Good God, am I like these Pharisees? is my constant question, and I have never the pluck to answer it.

“We travelled a whole day with Lewes and his wife (Adam Bede), and were delighted with her talk. Her voice alone has an indescribable charm.

“I write in the buzz of a room with 250 travellers and fifty or more particular acquaintances who are telling me what they fancy are good stories, though if I tried to palm them on you as such, you’d soon let me know your mind.

“Tanti saluti a la Signera”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“33 Brook Street, London, May 12,1869.

“I cannot tell you how I feel the disappointment of not seeing you here, and my regret is all the deeper for the cause of your absence. I thoroughly know besides how you yourself regard a position which, while you are powerless for all good, leaves you still unable to quit it. I fervently hope that your poor brother may rally, and that I may soon hear better tidings of him. In the turmoil and movement around me I always feel like a man the day after a hard drinking-bout, my head aching, my senses confused, my memory shaken, and through all a sort of shame that this is not my place at all, and that I am wastefully squandering my hard-got half-crowns to the detriment of my family. On the other side of the picture I find great kindness and great courtesy, a number of agreeable people to talk to, and the only women I have seen for a long while who, to be pleasant, do not need to be made love to. We have been greatly asked out, and some of my old friends have vied with each other in kindness to my daughters.

“Lord L.[9 - A story is told of this visit. The Consul, on his arrival in England, called upon Lord Lytton. The two novelists chatted for some time, and at length Lytton said, “I’m so glad for many reasons to see you here. You will have an opportunity presently of meeting your chief, Clarendon. I expect him every moment.” Lever was aghast. He recollected that he had left Trieste without obtaining formal “leave.” He endeavoured to excuse himself to Lytton (who was now very deaf): he had to be off to meet his daughters. While he was apologising for his hurried decision to say good-bye, the Minister for Foreign Affairs was announced. “Ah, Mr Lever,” said Lord Clarendon, “I didn’t know that you had left Trieste.” “No, my lord,” stammered Lever, unable for the moment to see how he was going to get out of the difficulty. “The fact is, I thought it would be more respectful if I came and asked your lordship personally for leave.”Possibly this anecdote is of the “ben trovato” order. – E. D.] proposes our passing next week at Knebworth, and the idea has something tempting, but I suspect if you are not likely to come up, I shall scarcely delay here, but make a straight run home, from which my last accounts are far from reassuring.

“My old friend Seymour is with us every day with plans for amusement.

“To turn to other matters, I have a couple of half finished O’Ds. which, if you like to print, I shall have time to lick into shape. I went yesterday to the ‘House’ to see if my countryman the Mayor of Cork might not furnish matter for an O’Dowd, but the whole was flat and wearisome.”

To Mr William Blackwood.

“Knebworth, May 18, 1869.

“Half stupid with a cold, and shaken by the worst cough I ever had in my life, I send you an O’D., part of which I read to your uncle, and indeed wrote after a conversation with him. I hope it has more go in it than the man who wrote it.

“I am told you are likely to come up to town, and I cannot tell you how I would like to meet you. It may be, most probably is, my last appearance on these boards, for it is most unlikely I shall ever cross the Alps again, so that I entreat you let us have a shake hands, if only that we may recognise each other when on t’other side of the Styx.

“I shall be back in town to-morrow or the day after, and hope to hear news of you.

“I am afraid to write more, I am so overwhelmed by wheezing and nose-blowing.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, June 25, 1869.

“I have been coughing unceasingly since I saw you last, and with difficulty secured intervals to write these O’Ds. We made only a day’s delay at Paris, and came on here without resting at all.

“Of my wife I can only say she is not worse, but I dare not say she is better. The excessive heat here is very debilitating, especially coming after a somewhat rough spring.

“Sydney is pressing me to join her in a visit to a chateau in Croatia, where she is about to stay for a couple of months, but I can’t afford the time, though in one way it might repay me.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, July 9, 1869.

“I have just got your note and am glad you like the O’Ds., but the best of the batch are not here, as I am sure you will think, – ‘Forfeited Pledges’ and ‘What to do with it’ especially. I cannot throw off my cough, and as I don’t sleep at night I do nothing but sleep all day, and this disposition of my time is little favourable to habits of industry.

“I suppose you are right. Syd’s energy would have carried me off to Croatia if possible. Do you remember the story of the Irish priest telling the peasant that whenever he – the peasant aforesaid – went into a ‘shebeen’ to drink, his guardian angel stood weeping at the door. ‘Begorra,’ said Pat, ‘I don’t wonder but if he had sixpence he’d be in too.’ It is really the want of the sixpence makes me a guardian angel.

“The weather is intensely hot here just now, and all out-of-door life impossible till evening, and for my own part I never wander beyond the walls of my own garden, which, fortunately for me, is very pretty and shady too. Very little companionship would reconcile me to the place, but there’s positively none. It was this sort of solitude, begetting a species of brooding, that broke down my poor brother in an Irish parish; and sometimes I dread the depression for myself. It costs me such an effort to do anything.”

To Mr John Blackwood

“Trieste, July 10, 1869.

“You have read of some ships having crossed the Atlantic with eight feet of water in the hold, bulwarks staved in, sails in tatters, the whole only kept afloat by the incessant labour of crew and passengers at the pumps; and such is pretty much my condition, and must, I believe, continue to be for the rest of my voyage here, and what is perhaps worst of all is, in this same lamentable state I must still solicit freight and cargo, ask to be ‘chartered,’ and pledge myself to be seaworthy and insurable.

“Well, I can only say, ‘I’ll not humbug you.’ You shall see the craft in all its rottenness, and not embark a bale on board of me without knowing how frail is the hope you trust to. Having said this much of warning (not that you need warning, for no man better knows the value of what he takes or rejects), I have now another confession to make. I have begun my new story, which I call ‘Lord Kilgobbin,’ which will be essentially Irish, and for which, if I live and thrive, I mean to take a look at Ireland about May next.

“I have made such an opening – such as all here are delighted with, and I myself think not so bad. I shall be ready if you like to begin in April, and shall be able to send you No. 1 before the present month is out.