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

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Aug. 4, 1870.

“I was conning over the enclosed O’D. when your letter came this morning, – and of late the post misses three days in five, – and I believe I should have detained my MS. for further revision, but I cannot delay my deepest thanks for your munificent remittance. I have not now to be told so to feel how much more you were thinking of me than of Greece when you advised this journey. Be assured that in the interest you felt for me in my great sorrow I grew to have a care for life and a desire to taste its friendships that I didn’t think my heart was capable of. I know well, too well, that I could not have written anything that could justify such a mission – least of all with a breaking heart and an aching head, – but I was sure that in showing you how willing I was to accept a benefit at your hands I should best prove what a value I attached to your friendship, and how ready I was to owe you what brought me round to life and labour again. I do fervently hope the Greek article may be a success; but nothing that it could do, nor anything that I might yet write, could in any way repay what I am well content should be my great debt to your sterling affection for me, – never to be acquitted – never forgotten.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Aug. 7, 1870.

“I am full sure that nothing but war will now be talked, and so I send another bellicose ‘O’Dowd’ to make up the paper. I hope there may be time for a proof; but if not, my hand is so well known to you now, and you are so well aware of what I intended where I blotch or break down, it is of less consequence.

“This Wissembourg battle was really a great success; and I don’t care a rush that the Prussians were in overwhelming numbers. May they always be so, and may those rascally French get so palpably, unmistakably licked that all their lying press will be unable to gloss over the disgrace.

“If L. Nap. gets one victory he’ll go in for peace and he’ll have England to back him; and I pray, therefore, that Prussia may have the first innings, and I think Paris will do the rest by sending the Bonapartes to the devil.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Aug. 14.

“An idea has just occurred to me, and on telling it to my daughters they wish me to consult with you on it. It is of a series of papers, the rationale of which is this: —

“All newspaper correspondence from the war being interdicted, or so much restricted as to be of little value, I have thought that a mock narrative following events closely, but with all the licence that an unblushing liar might give himself, either as to the facts or the persons with whom he is affecting intimacy, and this being done by Major M’Caskey, would be rather good fun. I would set out by explaining how he is at present at large and unemployed, making the whole as a personal narrative, and showing that in the dearth of real news he offers himself as a military correspondent, whose qualifications include not only special knowledge of war, but a universal acquaintance with all modern languages, and the personal intimacy of every one from the King of Prussia to Mr Cook the excursionist. This is enough for a mere glimpse of the intention, which, possibly, is worth consideration. Turn it over in your mind and say has it enough in it to recommend it? I know all will depend on how it is done, and I have no sanguine trust in myself now, either for nerve or ‘go,’ and still less for rattling adventures, but yet the actual events would be a great stimulant, and perhaps they might supply some of the missing spirit I am deploring.

“I don’t know that I should have written about this now, but the girls have given me no peace since I first talked of it, and are eternally asking have I begun Major M’Caskey’s adventures. Your opinion shall decide if it be worth trial.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Aug. 29,1870.

“A post that takes seven days (and travels, I believe, over Berlin and part of Pomerania) before it reaches Vienna, warns me to be early, and so I despatch these two O’Ds. to see if you like them as part of next month’s envoy.

“Of course, people will admit of no other topic than the war or the causes of it. As the month goes on new interests may arise, and we shall be on the watch for them.

“Be assured ‘The Standard’ is making a grave blunder by its anti-Germanism, and English opinion has just now a value in Germany which, if the nation be once disgusted with us, will be lost for ever.

“Even Mr Whitehurst of ‘The Daily Telegraph’ gives the Emperor up, and how he defers his abdication after such a withdrawal of confidence is not easy to say.

“I don’t suspect that the supremacy of Prussia will be unmitigated gain to us – far from it; but we shall not be immediate sufferers, and we shall at least have the classic comfort of being the ‘last devoured.’

“I hope you gave Lord Lytton and myself the credit (that is due to us) of prophesying this war.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Sept. 1, 1870.

“I have so full a conviction of your judgment and such a thorough distrust of my own, that I send you a brief bit of M’Caskey for your opinion. If you like it, if you think it is what it ought to be and the sort of thing to take, just send me one line by telegraph to say ‘Go on.’ I shall continue the narrative in time to reach you by the 18th at farthest, and enough for a paper. Remember this – the real war narrative is already given and will continue to be given by the newspapers, and it is only by a mock personal narrative, with the pretentious opinions of this impudent blackguard upon all he sees, hears, or meets with, that I could hope for any originality.

“My eldest daughter is very eager that I should take your opinion at once, and I am sure you will not think anything of the trouble I am giving you for both our sakes.”

To Mr William Blackwood.

“Trieste, Sep. 2, 1870.

“What a kind thought it was to send me the slip with Corkhardt’s paper! It is excellent fun, and I send it to-day to the Levant to a poor banished friend on a Greek island.

“I regard the nation that thrashes France with the same sort of gratitude I feel for the man who shoots a jaguar. It is so much done in the interests of all humanity, even though it be only a blackguard or a Bismarck who does it.

“I send you an O’D. to make enough for a short paper with the other sent on Monday last.

“I sent your uncle a specimen page of M’Caskey, but by bad luck I despatched it on my birthday, the 31st August,[12 - The statement here as to his birthday is sufficiently explicit See vol. i p. 2. – E. D. the credit of reviewing ‘Lothair,’ I am determined to say that these papers were written by Colonel Humbug!] and, of course, it will come to no good. It was Dean Swift’s custom to read a certain chapter of Job on his birthday, wherein the day is cursed that a man-child was born. I don’t go that far, but I have a very clear memory of a number of mishaps (to give them a mild name) which have taken this occasion to date from. It would be very grateful news to me to learn I was not to see ‘another return of the happy event,’ but impatience will serve me little, and I must wait till I’m asked for.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Sept 11,1870.

“Since I got your ‘go on’ I have never ceased writing about M’Caskey. Upon you I throw all the responsibility, the more as it has very nearly turned my own brain with its intrinsic insanity.

“I suppose I have sent you folly enough for the present month; and if you will write me one line to say you wish it, I will set to work at once at the next part and to the extent you dictate.

“Pray look fully to the corrections, and believe me [to be] not very sane or collected.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Sept. 13, 1870.

“The post, which failed completely yesterday, brought me your three proofs to-day. I now send a short, but not sweet, O’Dowd on ‘Irish Sympathy’ (whose correction you must look to for me), but which is certainly the best of the batch.

“I had hoped to have heard you mention the receipt of M’Caskey, whose revelations on the war will only be of value if given at once. I also sent off some additional matter for M’C. on Sunday last, and hope they have arrived safely.

“I wish you would send me ‘John’ as a whole. If you should do so, send it to F. O., to the care of F. Alston, Esq., to be forwarded to me. I do not know of any novel-writer I like so well as Mrs. O., and if I could get her to write her name in any of her books for me I’d treasure it highly. She is the most womanly writer of the age, and has all the delicacy and decency one desires in a woman.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Sept. 14, 1870.

“My sincere thanks for your note and its enclosure. It seems to me that I do nothing but get money from you. I suspect, however, that you will soon be freed from your pensioner. I am breaking fast, and as really the wish to live on has left me, my friends will not grudge me going to my rest.

“I am indeed glad that you like the O’Ds. I tear at least three for one I send you, being more than ever fearful of that ‘brain-breakdown’ than I am of a gorged lung or a dropsical heart.

“From your telegram about M’Caskey, I was disposed to think you wished the contribution for the October No., and set to work at once to send another batch. I do not now understand whether this is your intention. Of course (if possible) it were all the better it were begun immediately, because in the next part I could bring him up to recent events, and make his impatient comments on actual occurrences more outrageously pretentious and extravagant. You will tell me what you intend when you write.

“Some Hungarians – great swells in their own land – have been here, and are pressing the girls and myself to go to them a bit. It would be a great boon to my poor daughters, and for them I would try it if I could, but I have no heart for it. There was a time a month on the Danube would have been a great temptation to me.

“I will tell Syd to write to you, and you’re lucky if she does not do so with an MS.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Trieste, Sept. 16,1870.