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

I wrote this story in the Tyrol.[19 - As a matter of fact – though the fact in itself is of little importance, – Lever composed about one-half of ‘The Knight’ at Carlsruhe. The novel began to appear in monthly parts early in the year 1846. – E. D.] The accident of my residence there was in this wise: I had travelled about the Continent for a considerable time, in company with my family, and with my own horses. Our carriage was a large and comfortable calèche, and our team four horses, the leaders of which, well-bred and thriving-looking, served as saddle-horses when needed. There was something very gipsy-like in this roving uncertain existence (that had no positive bent or limit, and left every choice of place an open question) which gave me intense enjoyment. It opened to me views of Continental life, scenery, people, and habits which I should certainly never have attained by other modes of travel.

Not only were our journeys necessarily short each day, but we frequently sojourned in little villages and out-of-the-way spots where, if pleased by the place itself and the accommodation afforded, we would linger on for days, the total liberty of our time at our disposal, and all our nearest belongings around us. In the course of these rambles we had arrived at the town of Bregenz, on the Lake of Constance, where the inn-keeper, to whom I was known, accosted me with all the easy freedom of his calling, and half-jestingly alluded to my mode of travelling as a most unsatisfactory and wasteful way of life, which could never turn out profitably to me or mine. From the window where we were standing as we talked I could descry the tall summit of an ancient castle or schloss, about two miles away; and, rather to divert my antagonist from his argument than with any more serious purpose, I laughingly told my host, if he could secure me such a fine old chateau as that I then looked at, I should stable my nags and rest where I was. On the following day, thinking of nothing less than my late conversation, the host entered my room to assure me that he had been over to the castle, had seen the baron, and learned that he would have no objection to lease me his chateau, provided I took it for a fixed term, and with all its accessories, not only of furniture but cows and farm-requisites. One of my horses, accidentally pricked in shoeing, had obliged me at the moment to delay a day or two at the inn, and for want of better to do, though without the most remote intention of becoming a tenant of the castle, I yielded so far to my host’s solicitation as to walk over and see it. If the building itself was far from faultless it was spacious and convenient, and its position on a low hill in the middle of a lawn finer than anything I can convey, the four sides of the schloss commanding four distinct and perfectly dissimilar views. By the north it looked over a wooded plain, on which stood the Convent of Mehreran, and beyond this, the broad expanse of the Lake of Constance. The south opened on a view towards the Upper Rhine and the valley that led to the Via Mala. On the east you saw the Gebhardsberg and its chapel, and the lovely orchards that bordered Bregenz; while to the west rose the magnificent Lenten and the range of the Swiss Alps – their summits lost in the clouds. I was so enchanted by the glorious panorama around me, and so carried away by the thought of a life of quiet labour and rest in such a spot, that, after hearing a very specious account of the varied economies I should secure by this choice of a residence, and the resources I should have in excursions on all sides, I actually contracted to take the chateau, and became the master of the Bieder Schloss from that day.[20 - Dr Fitzpatrick, in his ‘Life of Lever,’ furnishes a more prosaic account of the annexing of the Tyrolean castle, – Mr Stephen Pearce being given as the authority for the unromantic statement that the schloss was advertised “to let,” and that while the Levers were sojourning in Carlsruhe negotiations were opened with Baron Pôllnitz, and Mr Pearce was despatched to Bregenz, where he entered into an agreement for a short lease of “the premises.” This, of course, spoils the story which Charles Lever tells; but I have in my possession a letter written by Mr Pearce at Riedenburg on May 26,1846, quoted at p. 210 of vol i., which would seem to bear out the tale told by the author of ‘The Knight of Gwynne’ in 1872. – E. D.]

Having thus explained by what chance I came to pitch my home in this little-visited spot, I have no mind to dwell further on these Tyrol experiences than so far as they concern the story I wrote there. If the scene in which I was living, the dress of the peasants, the daily wants and interests, had been my prompters, I could not have addressed myself to an Irish theme; but long before I had come to settle at Riedenburg, when wandering among the Rhine villages, on the vine-clad slopes of the Bergstrasse, I had been turning over in my mind the Union period of Ireland as the era for a story. It was a time essentially rich in the men we are proud of as a people, and peculiarly abounding in traits of self-denial and devotion which, in the corruption of a few, have been totally lost sight of, the very patriotism of the time having been stigmatised as factious opposition or unreasoning resistance to wiser counsels. That nearly every man of ability in the land was against the Minister; that not only all the intellect of Ireland but all the high spirit of its squirearchy and the generous impulses of the people were opposed to the Union, – there is no denying. If eloquent appeal and powerful argument could have saved a nation, Henry Grattan or Plunkett would not have spoken in vain; but the measure was decreed before it was debated, and the annexation of Ireland was made a Cabinet decision before it came to Irishmen to discuss it. I had no presumption to imagine I could throw any new light on the history of the period, or illustrate the story of the measure by any novel details; but I thought it would not be uninteresting to sketch the era itself; what aspect society presented; how the country gentleman of the time bore himself in the midst of solicitations and temptings the most urgent and insidious, – what, in fact, was the character of that man whom no national misfortunes could subdue, no ministerial blandishments corrupt; of him, in short, that an authority with little bias to the land of his birth has called – The First Gentleman in Europe. I know well, I feel too acutely, how inadequately I have pictured what I desired to paint; but even, after the interval of years, I look back on my poor attempt with the satisfaction of one whose aim was not ignoble. A long and deep experience of life permits me to say that in no land nor amongst any people have I ever found the type of what we love to emblematise by the word gentleman so distinctly marked out as in the educated and travelled Irishman of that period. The same unswerving fidelity of friendship, the same courageous devotion to a cause, the same haughty contempt for all that was mean or unworthy: these, with the lighter accessories of a genial temperament, joyous disposition, and a chivalrous respect for women, made up what, at least, I had in my mind when I tried to present to my reader my Knight of Gwynne. That my character of him was not altogether ideal, I can give no better proof than the fact that during the course of publication I received several letters from persons unknown to me, asking whether I had not drawn my portrait from this or that original, – many concurring in the belief that I had taken as my model The Knight of Kerry, whose qualities, I am well assured, fully warranted the suspicion. For my attempt to depict the social habits of the period I had but to draw on my memory. In my boyish days I had heard much of the period, and was familiar with most of the names of its distinguished men. Anecdotes of Henry Grattan, Flood, Parsons, Ponsonby, and Curran jostled in my mind with stories of their immediate successors, the Burkes and the Plunketts, whose fame has come down to the very day we live in. As a boy it was my fortune to listen to the narratives of the men who had been actors in the events of that exciting era, and who could even show me in modern Dublin the scenes where memorable events occurred, and not infrequently the very houses where celebrated convivialities had taken place. Thus, from Drogheda Street, the modern Sackville Street, where the beaux of the day lounged in all their bravery, to the Circular Road, where a long file of carriages, six-in-hand, evidenced the luxury and tone of display of the capital, I was deeply imbued with the features of the time, and I ransacked the old newspapers and magazines with a zest which only great familiarity with the names of the leading characters could have inspired. Though I have many regrets on the same score, there is no period of my life in which I have the same sorrow for not having kept some sort of notebook, instead of trusting to a memory most fatally unretentive and uncertain. Through this omission I have lost traces of innumerable epigrams jeux-d’esprit; and even where my memory has occasionally relieved the effort, I have forgotten the author. To give an instance: the witty lines —

“With, a name that is borrowed, a title that’s bought,
Sir William would fain be a gentleman thought:
His wit is but cunning, his courage but vapour,
His pride is but money, his money but paper.”

These lines, wrongfully attributed to a political leader in the Irish House, were in reality written by Lovell Edgeworth on the well-known Sir William Gladdowes, who became Lord Newcomen; and the verse was not only poetry but prophecy, for on his bankruptcy, some years afterwards, the sarcasm became fact – his money was but paper. The circumstance of the authorship of the lines was communicated to me by Miss Edgeworth, whose letter was my first step in acquaintance with her, and gave me a pleasure and a pride which long years have not been able to obliterate. I remember in that letter she told me that she was in the habit of reading my story aloud to the audience of her nephews and nieces, – a simple announcement that imparted such a glow of proud delight to me that I can yet recall the courage with which I resumed the writing of my tale, and the hope it suggested of my being able one day to win a place of honour amongst those who, like herself, had selected Irish traits as the characteristics to adorn fiction. For Con Heffernan I had an original. For Bagenal Daly, too, I was not without a model. His sister is purely imaginary, but that she is not unreal I am bold enough to hope, since several have assured me that they know where I found my type. In my brief sketch of Lord Castlereagh I was not, I need scarcely say, much aided by the journals and pamphlets of the time, where his character and conduct were ruthlessly and most falsely assailed. It was my fortune to have possessed the close intimacy of one who had acted as his private secretary, and whose abilities have since raised him to a high station and great employment; and from him I came to know the real nature of one of the ablest statesmen of his age, as he was one of the most attractive companions and most accomplished gentlemen. I have no vain pretence to believe that by my weak and unfinished sketch I have in any way vindicated the Minister who carried the Union, but I have at least tried to represent him as he was in the society of his intimates: his gay and cheerful temperament, his frank nature, and – what least the world is disposed to concede to him – his sincere belief in the honesty of men whose convictions were adverse to him, and who could not be won over to his opinions. I have not endeavoured to conceal the gross corruption of an era which remains to us a national shame, but I would wish to lay stress on the fact that not a few resisted offers and temptations which, to men struggling with humble fortune and linked for life with the fate of the weaker country, must redound to their high credit. All the nobler their conduct, as around them on every side were the great names of the land trafficking for title and place, and shamelessly demanding office for their friends and relatives as the price of their own adhesion. For that degree of intimacy which I have represented as existing between Bagenal Daly and Freney the Robber, I have been once or twice reprehended for conveying a false and unreal view of the relations of the time; but the knowledge I myself had of Freney, of his habits and his exploits, was given to me by a well-known and highly connected Irish gentleman who represented a county in the Irish parliament, and who was a man of unblemished honour, and conspicuous alike in station and ability. And there is still – and once the trait existed more markedly in Ireland – a wonderful sympathy between all classes and conditions of people, so that the old stories and traditions that amuse the crouching listener round the hearth of the cottage find their way into luxurious drawing-rooms; and by their means a brotherhood of sentiment was maintained between the highest class in the land and the humblest peasant who laboured for his daily bread. I tried to display the effect of this strange teaching on the mind of a cultivated gentleman when I was describing The Knight of Gwynne. I endeavoured to show the “Irishry” of his nature was no other than the play of those qualities by which he appreciated his countrymen and was appreciated by them. So powerful is this sympathy and so strong the sense of national humour through all classes of the people, that each is able to entertain a topic from the same point of view as his neighbour, and the subtle equivoque in the polished witticism which amuses the gentleman is never lost on the untutored ear of the peasant. Is there any other land of which one can say so much? If this great feature of attractiveness pertains to the country and adds to its adaptiveness as the subject of fiction, I cannot but feel that to un-Irish ears it is necessary to make an explanation which will serve to show that what would elsewhere imply a certain blending of station and condition is here but a proof of that widespread understanding by which, however divided by race, tradition, and religion, Irishmen are always able to appeal to certain sympathies and dispositions held in common, and to feel the tie of a common country. At the period in which I placed my story the rivalry between the two nations was, with all its violence, by no means ungenerous. No contemptuous estimate of Irishmen formed the theme of English journalism; and between the educated men of both countries there was scarcely a jealousy. The character which political strife subsequently assumed changed much of this spirit, and dyed nationalities with an amount of virulence which, with all its faults and all its shortcomings, we do not find in the times of “The Knight of Gwynne.”

‘ROLAND CASHEL.’

I first thought of this story – I should say I planned it, if the expression were not misleading – when living at the Lake of Como. There, in a lovely little villa – the Cima – on the border of the lake, with that glorious blending of Alpine scenery and garden-like luxuriance around me, and little or none of interruption and intercourse, I had abundant time to make acquaintance with my characters, and follow them into innumerable situations and through adventures far more extraordinary and exciting than I dared afterwards to recount. I do not know how it may be with other storytellers, but I have to own for myself that the personages of a novel gain over me at times a degree of interest very little inferior to that inspired by living and real people, and that this is especially the case when I have found myself in some secluded spot and seeing little of the world. To such an ascendancy has this deception attained, that more than once I have found myself trying to explain why this person should have done that, and by what impulse that other was led into something else. In fact, I have found that there are conditions of the mind in which purely imaginary creations assume the characters of actual people, and act positively as though they were independent of the will that invented them. Of the strange manner in which imagination can thus assume the mastery, and for a while, at least, have command over the mind, I cannot give a stronger instance within my own experience than the mode in which ‘Roland Cashel’ was first conceived. When I began I intended that the action should be carried on in the land where the story opened. The scene on every side of me had shed its influence; the air was weighty with the perfume of the lime and the orange. To days of dazzling brilliancy there succeeded nights of tropical splendour, with stars of almost preternatural magnitude streaking the calm lake with long lines of light. To people a scene like this with the sort of characters that might befit it, was rather a matter of necessity with me than of choice, and it was then that Maritana revealed herself to me with a charm of loveliness I have never been able to repicture. It was there I bethought me of those passionate natures in which climate, and soil, and vegetation reproduce themselves, glowing, ardent, and voluptuous as they are. It was there my fancy loved to stray among the changeful incidents of lives of wild adventure and wilder passion; and to imagine strange discords that could be evoked between the traits of a land that recalled Paradise and the natures that were only angelic in the fall. I cannot trust to my memory to remind me of the sort of tale I meant to write. I know there was to have been a perfect avalanche of adventure on land and on sea. I know that through a stormy period of daily peril and excitement the traits of the Northern temperament in Roland himself were to have asserted their superiority over his more impulsive comrades; I know he was to have that girl’s love against a rivalry that set life in the issue; and I have a vague impression of how such a character might come by action and experience to develop such traits as make men the rulers of their fellows. Several of the situations occur to me, but not a single clue to the story. There are even now scenes before me of prairie life and lonely rides in passes of the Pampas, – of homes where the civilised man had never seen a brother nor heard a native tongue. It is in vain I endeavour to recall anything like a connected narrative. All that I can well remember is the great hold the characters had taken in my mind – how they peopled the landscape around me, and followed me wherever I went. This was in autumn. As winter drew nigh we moved into an Italian city,[21 - Florence.] much frequented by foreigners, and especially the resort of our countrymen.

The new life of this place and the interest they excited, so totally unlike all that I had left at my little villa, effected a complete revolution in my thoughts, utterly routing the belief I had indulged in as to the characters of my story, and the incidents in which they displayed themselves. Up to this all my efforts had been, as it were, to refresh my mind as to a variety of events and people I had once known, and to try if I could not recall certain situations which had interested me. Now the spell was broken, all the charm of illusion gone, and I woke to the dreary consciousness of my creatures being mere shadows, and their actions as unreal as themselves. There is a sort of intellectual bankruptcy in such awakenings; and I know of few things so discouraging as this sudden revulsion from dreamland to the cold terra firma of unadorned fact. There was little in the city we now lived in to harmonise with “romance.” It was, in fact, all that realism could accomplish with the aids of every taste and passion of modern society. That this life of present-day dissipation should be enacted in scenes where every palace, and every street, every monument, and, indeed, every name, recalled a glorious past, may not impossibly have heightened the enjoyment of the drama, but most unquestionably it vulgarised the actors. Instead of the Orinoco and its lands of feathery palms, I had before me the Arno and its gay crowds of loungers, the endless tide of equipages, and the strong pulse-beat of an existence that even, in the highways of life, denotes pleasure and emotion. What I had of a plan was lost to me from that hour. I was again in the whirlpool of active existence, and the world around me was deep – triple deep – in all cases of loving and hating, and plotting and gambling, of intriguing, countermining, and betraying, as very polite people would know how to do, – occupations to watch which inspire an intensity of interest unknown in any other condition of existence. Out of these impressions thus enforced came all the characters of my story. Not one was a portrait, though in each and all were traits taken from life. If I suffered myself on one single occasion to amass too many of the characteristics of an individual into a sketch, it was in the picture of the Dean of Drumcondra; but there I was drawing from recollection, and not able to correct, as I should otherwise have done, what might seem too close adherence to a model. I have been told that in the character of Linton I have exaggerated wickedness beyond all belief. I am sorry to reply that I made but a faint copy of him who suggested that personage, and who lives and walks the stage of life as I write. One or two persons – not more – who know him whose traits furnished the picture, are well aware that I have neither overdrawn my sketch nor exaggerated my drawing. The Kennyfeck young ladies, I am anxious to say, are not from life; nor is Lady Kilgoff, though I have heard surmises to the contrary. These are all the explanations and excuses that occur to me I have to make of this story. Its graver faults are not within the pale of apology, and for these I only ask indulgence – the same indulgence that has never been denied me.

‘CON CREGAN.’

An eminent apothecary of my acquaintance once told me that to each increase of his family he added ten per cent to the price of his drugs; and as his quiver was full of daughters, a “black-draught,” when I knew him, was a more costly cordial than curaçoa. To apply this: I may mention that I had a daughter born to me about the time that ‘Con Cregan’ dates from, and not having at my command the same resources as my friend the chemist, I adopted the alternative of writing another story, to be published contemporaneously with ‘The Daltons’; and in order not to incur the reproach – so natural in criticism – of over-writing myself, I took care that the work should come out without a name. I am not sure that I made any attempt to disguise my style. I was conscious of scores of blemishes – I decline to call them mannerisms – that would betray me; but I believe I trusted most of all to the fact that I was making my monthly appearance in another story and with another publisher,[22 - ‘Con Cregan’ was published by W. S. Orr & Co., Paternoster Bow. ‘The Daltons’ was published by Chapman & HalL – E. D.] and I hoped my small duplicity would escape undetected. I was aware that there was a certain amount of peril in running an opposition coach on the line I had, in some degree, made my own; not to say that it might be questionable policy to glut the public with a kind of writing more remarkable for peculiarity than for perfection. I remember that excellent Irishman, Bianconi[23 - Charles Bianconi, an Italian who revolutionised road traffic in Ireland. – E. D. I passed her on the long hill when she was blown, and I bruk her heart before she reached the top.”] – not the less Irish that he was born at Lucca (which was simply a “bull”) – once telling me that in order to popularise a road on which few people were then travelling, and on which his daily two-horse car was accustomed to go its journey with two (or at most three) passengers, the idea occurred to him of starting an opposition conveyance – of course in perfect secrecy and with every outward show of its being a genuine rival. He effected his object with such success that his own agents were completely “taken in,” and never wearied of reporting, for his gratification, all the shortcomings and disasters of the rival company. At length, when the struggle between the competitors was crucial, one of Bianconi’s drivers rushed frantically into his office one day crying out, “Give me a crown piece to drink your honour’s health for what I have done to-day.”

“What was it, Larry?”

“I killed the yallow mare of the opposition car.

“After this I gave up the opposition,” said my friend. “Mocking was catching, as the old proverb says, and I thought that one might carry a joke a little too far.” I had this experience before me, and I will not say that it did not impress me. I imagined, however, that I did not care on which horse I stood to win: in other words, I persuaded myself it was a matter of perfect indifference to me which book took best with the public – whether the reader thought better of ‘The Daltons’ or ‘Con Cregan.’ That I totally misunderstood myself, or misconceived the case before me, I am now quite ready to own. For one notice of ‘The Daltons’ by the press there were at least three or four of ‘Con Cregan’; and while the former was dismissed with a few polite and measured phrases, the latter was largely praised and freely quoted. Nor was this all. The critics discovered in ‘Con Cregan’ a freshness and a vigour which were so sadly deficient in ‘The Daltons.’ It was, they averred, the work of a less practised writer, but of one whose humour was more subtle, and whose portraits, roughly sketched as they were, indicated a far higher intellect than that of the well-known author of ‘Harry Lorrequer.’ The unknown – for there was no attempt made to guess who the writer was – was pronounced not to be an imitator of Mr Lever, – though there were certain small points of resemblance. He was clearly original in his conception of character, in his conduct of his story, and in his dialogue; and there was displayed a knowledge of life in certain scenes and under certain conditions to which Mr Lever could lay no claim. One critic, who had discovered some features of resemblance between the two writers, uttered a friendly caution to Mr Lever to look to his laurels, for there was a rival in the field possessing many of the characteristics by which he first won public favour, but the unknown author possessed a racy drollery in description and a quaintness in his humour all his own. It was the amusement of one of my children at the time to collect these sage comments and to torment me with them; and I remember a droll little note-book in which they were pasted, and from which quotations were read from time to time with no small display of merriment. It may sound very absurd to confess it, but I was excessively amazed at the superior success of the unacknowledged book, and I felt the rivalry as painfully as though I had never written a line of ‘Con Cregan.’ Was it that I thought well of one story and meanly of the other, and in consequence was angry with my critics? I suspect not. I imagine that I was hurt at discovering how little hold I had, in my acknowledged name, on a public with whom I fancied I was on such good terms, and that it pained me to see with what ease a new and a nameless man could push me from the place I had believed to be my own.

‘THE DALTONS’

I always wrote, after my habit, in the morning. I never turned to ‘Con Cregan’ until nigh midnight; and I can still remember the widely different feelings with which I addressed myself to the task I liked – to a story which, in the absurd fashion I have mentioned, was associated with wounded self-love. It is scarcely necessary for me to say that there was no plan whatever in ‘Con Cregan.’ My notion was that the hero, once created, would not fail to find adventures. The vicissitudes of daily poverty would beget shifts and contrivances: with his successes would come ambition and daring. Meanwhile a growing knowledge of life would develop his character, and I should soon see whether he would win the silver spoon or spoil the horn. I ask pardon in the most humble manner for presuming for a moment to associate my hero with the great original of Le Sage.[24 - This refers to the sub-title of ‘The Confessions of Con Cregan’ – The Irish Gil Bias.’ – E. D.]

But I used the word Irish adjectively and with the same amount of qualification that one employs to a diamond, and indeed, as I have read it in a London paper, to a lord. An American officer, of whom I saw much at the time, was my guide to the interior of Mexico: he had been in the Santa Fé expedition, was a man of most adventurous disposition, with a love for stirring incident and peril which even broken health and a failing constitution could not subdue. It was often very difficult for me to tear myself away from his Texan and Mexican experiences, – his wild scenes of prairie life, or his sojourn amongst Indian tribes – and to keep to the more commonplace events of my own story. Nor could all my entreaties confine him to descriptions of those places and scenes which I needed for my own characters. The saunter after tea-time with this companion, generally along that little river that tumbles through the valley of the Bagni di Lucca, was the usual preparation for my night’s work; and I came to it as intensely possessed by Mexico – dress, manner, and landscape – as though I had been drawing on the recollections of a former journey. So completely separated in my mind by the different parts of the day were the two tales, that no character of ‘The Daltons’ ever crossed my mind after nightfall, nor was there a trace of ‘Con Cregan’ in my head at breakfast next morning. None of the characters of ‘Con Cregan’ has been taken from life. The one bit of reality is in the sketch of Anticosti, where I myself suffered once a very small shipwreck, of which I retain a very vivid recollection to this hour. I have already owned that I bore a grudge to the story; nor have I outlived the memory of the chagrin it cost me, though it is many a year since I acknowledged that ‘Con Cregan’ was written by the author of ‘Harry Lorrequer.’

‘THE MARTINS OF CRO-MARTIN.’

When I had made my arrangements with my publishers for this new story, I was not sorry, for many reasons, to place the scene of it in Ireland. One of my late critics, in noticing ‘Roland Cashel’ and ‘The Daltons,’ mildly rebuked me for having fallen into doubtful company, and half-censured – in Bohemian – several of the characters in these novels. I was not then, still less am I now, disposed to argue the point with my censor, and show that there is a very wide difference between the people who move in the polite world, with a very questionable morality, and those patented adventurers whose daily existence is the product of daily address. The more one sees of life, the more he is struck by the fact that the mass of mankind is rarely very good or very bad, that the business of life is carried on with mixed motives, the best people being those who are least selfish, and the worst being little other than those who seek their own objects with slight regard for the consequences to others, and even less scruple as to the means. Any uniformity in good or evil would be the death-blow to that genteel comedy which goes on around us, and whose highest interest very often centres in the surprises we give ourselves by unexpected lines of action and unlooked-for impulses. As this strange drama unfolded itself before me, it had become a passion with me to watch the actors, and speculate on what they might do. For this Florence offered an admirable stage. It was eminently cosmopolitan, and, in consequence, less under the influence of any distinct code of public opinion than any section of the several nationalities I might have found at home. There was a universal toleration abroad: and the Spaniard conceded to the German, and the Russian to the Englishman, much on the score of nationality, and did not question too closely a morality which, after all, might have been little more than a conventional habit. Exactly in the same way, however, that one hurries away from the life of a city and its dissipations to breathe the fresh air and taste the delicious quiet of the country, did I turn from the scenes of splendour, from the crush of wealth, and the conflict of emotion, to that Green Island where so many of my sympathies were intertwined, and where the great problem of human happiness was on its trial on issues that differed wonderfully little from those that were being tried in gilded salons, and by people whose names were blazoned in history. Ireland, at the time I speak of, was beginning to feel that sense of distrust and jealousy between the owner and the tiller of the soil which, later on, was to develop itself into open feud. The old ties that have bound the humble to the rich man, and which were hallowed by reciprocal acts of goodwill and benevolence, were being loosened. Benefits were canvassed with suspicion, ungracious or unholy acts were treasured up as cruel wrongs. The political agitator had so far gained the ear of the people that he could persuade them that there was not a hardship or a grievance of their lot that could not be laid at the door of the landlord. He was taught to regard the old relation of love and affection to the owner of the soil as the remnants of a barbarism that had had its day; and he was led to believe that whether the tyranny that crushed him was the Established Church or the landlord, there was a great Liberal party ready to aid him in resisting either or both when he could summon courage for the effort. By what prompting the poor man was brought to imagine that a reign of terror would suffice to establish him in an undisputed possession of the soil, and that the best lease was a loaded musket, it is neither my wish nor my duty to here narrate; I only desire to call my reader’s attention to the time itself as a transition period when the peasant had begun to unclasp some of the ties that had bound him to his landlord, and had not yet conceived the idea of that formidable conspiracy which issues its death-warrants, and never is at a loss for agents to enforce them. There were at the time some who, seeing the precarious condition of the period, had their grave forebodings of what was to come when further estrangement between the two classes was accomplished, and when the poor man should come to see in the rich only an oppressor and a tyrant. There was not at that time the armed resistance to rents, nor the threatening letter system to which we were afterwards to become accustomed, still less was there the thought that the Legislature would interfere to legalise the demands by which the tenant was able to coerce his landlord; and for a brief interval there did seem a possibility of reuniting once again, by the ties of benefit and gratitude, the two classes whose welfare depends on concord and harmony. I have not the shadow of a pretext to be thought didactic, but I did believe that if I recalled in fiction some of the traits which once had bound up the relations of rich and poor, and given to our social system many of the characteristics of a family, I should be reviving pleasant memories if not doing something more. To this end I sketched the character of Mary Martin. By making the opening of my story date from the time of the Relief Bill, I intended to picture the state of the country at one of the most memorable eras in its history, and when an act of the Legislature assumed to redress inequalities, compose differences, and allay jealousies of centuries’ growth, and make two widely different races one contented people. I had not, I own, any implicit faith in Acts of Parliament, and I had a fervent belief in what kindness – when combined with knowledge of Ireland – could do with Irishmen. I have never heard of a people with whom sympathy could do so much, nor the want of it be so fatal. I have never heard of any other people to whom the actual amount of benefit was of less moment than the mode in which it was bestowed. I have never read of a race who, in great poverty and many privations, attach a higher value to the consideration that is bestowed on them than to the actual material boons, and feel such a seemingly disproportioned gratitude for kind words and generous actions. What might not be anticipated from a revulsion of sentiment in a people like this? To what violence might not this passion for vengeance be carried if the notion possessed them that they, whom she called her betters, only traded on the weakness of their poverty and the imbecility of their good faith? It was in a fruitful soil of this kind that the agitator now sowed the seeds of distrust and disorder, and with what fatal rapidity the poison reproduced itself and spread, the history of late years is the testimony… I have said already, and I repeat it here, that this character of Mary Martin is purely fictitious; and there is the more need I should say it since there was once a young lady of this very name, many traits of whose affection for the people and their wellbeing might be supposed to be my original. To my great regret I have never had the happiness to meet her; however, I have heard much of her devotion and goodness. I am not sure that some of my subordinate characters were not drawn from life. Mrs Nelligan, I remember, had her type in a little Galway town I once stopped at; and Dan Nelligan had much in common with one who has since held a distinguished place on the Bench. Of the terrible epidemic which devastated Ireland, there was much for which I drew on my own experience. Of its fearful ravages in the West, in the wilds of Clare, and that lonely promontory which stretches at the mouth of the Shannon into the Atlantic, I had been the daily witness; and even to recall some of the incidents passingly was an effort of great pain. Of one of the features of the people at this disastrous time I could not say enough; nor could any words of mine do justice to the splendid heroism with which they bore up, and the noble generosity they showed to each other in misfortune. It is but too often remarked how selfish men are made by misery, and how fatal is a common affliction to that charity that cares for others. There was none of this here: I never in any condition or class recognised more traits of thoughtful kindness and self-denial than I did amongst these poor, famished, and forgotten people. I never witnessed, in the same perfection, how a widespread affliction could call up a humanity great as itself, and make very commonplace natures something actually heroic and glorious. Nothing short of the fatal tendency I have to digression, and the watchful care I am bound to bestow against this fault, prevented me from narrating several incidents with which my own experience had made me acquainted. Foreign as these were to the burden of my tale, it was only by an effort I overcame the temptation to recall them. If a nation is to be judged by her bearing under calamity, Ireland – and she has had some experiences – comes well through the ordeal. That we may yet see how she will sustain her part in happier circumstances is my hope and prayer, and that the time be not too far off!

XXIV. THE END

‘Lord Kilgobbin’ was published in three volumes early in 1872. “In finishing it,” its author said, “I have also finished my own career as a story-writer. Time was when the end of a journey only heralded the preparation for another. Now the next must be a longer road… I do so long for rest – rest.” The novel was dedicated “to the memory of one whose companionship made the happiness of a long life… The task that was once my joy and pride I have lived to find associated with my sorrow. It is not then without a cause I say – I hope this may be my last.” In May Mr and Mrs Blackwood, accompanied by Miss Blackwood (afterwards Mrs Porter), set out from Edinburgh. They visited Vienna, and here a rumour reached them that Charles Lever was dangerously ill. A few days later, while the Blackwoods were visiting Robert Lytton (“Owen Meredith “) at his country seat near Vienna, they heard that Lever was better. Mrs Porter (in ‘The House of Blackwood’) gives her impressions of the visit to Lever’s home, and her memories of the novelist’s last days, vividly and with genuine feeling: —

“We set off to Trieste,” writes Mrs Porter, “to see him, but not to stay in his house. Early the morning after our arrival Miss Lever called with the welcome news that Mr Lever was much better, and she took my father back with her to see him. When he returned to us he said it was arranged we should all dine with the Levers, and shortly before four we set off to drive to their villa, which was at the top of a hill and near some public gardens – so near that we could hear the German waltzes the band played as we sat out in the Levers’ own garden, which was remarkably pretty, and full of shady trees. When we arrived Lever was sitting in a bright cheerful room with a large window, and a balcony opening off it covered with roses and creepers. He looked better and stronger than we had expected to see him, and the sight of his friend seemed to bring back a flicker of the old spirit, and he talked and laughed gaily during the dinner, which was at four o’clock. Lever’s appearance did not give the impression of ill-health any more than it suggested the hardworking man of letters or denizen of the Consulate, but rather one would have imagined him to be a big, jolly, country gentleman, with his stalwart frame and ruddy face – his air of hearty hospitality and welcome still further strengthening the impression. The rest of the party were, besides his two daughters, Mr Monson and Mr Smart.

“After dinner we adjourned to the garden for coffee and cigarettes, and Mr Lever sat up till very late. The second evening the same pleasant party, with the addition of the clergyman, Mr Callaghan; the same amount of laughing and talking, perhaps rather more. Many were the jokes about their neighbours, the society being mainly composed of wealthy Jewish merchants and their families; but the impression was that the jokes were all kindly, the wit without sting, and that the Jews had been made the best of in that cheery happy-go-lucky household. Indeed he mentioned that on some festive occasion Lord Dalling, in an amiable whisper, had remarked at last, ‘Lever, I like your Jews,’ and this, of course, made everybody feel quite happy. My father had a great wish to see Miramar, the home of the ill-fated Archduke Maximilian, and Lever was as anxious to show it to him; but though we put it off till the last day of our visit, he was unequal to the exertion of driving so far, so Miss Lever drove with us to the house.

“And now comes the sad part, our last evening at the Villa Gasteiger. My father had dreaded this parting: he knew his friend was not really better – that the heart complaint he suffered from might prove fatal at any time; but he put the thought away from him when they were meeting every day. It was only now, as we approached his house for the last time, that we felt weighed down by something impending. Mr Lever was in the garden when we arrived, but soon dinner T was announced, and we went into the house, the same party as the first evening. The laughter and chaff at dinner had been as usual, and Mr Lever had been most delightful and amusing – the life and soul of the party. Afterwards we sat out in the garden under the trees, the band over the way playing as usual. Mr Lever said he was very proud of it. He asked for tea to be brought out there, and when told it was coming said, half to himself, ‘So is Christmas,’ with a smile to us. They were all smoking, and he sat in the middle of the group in an arm-chair, wearing his big shady hat, my father and mother on each side of him. He would not have the lamp they usually had in the garden, so it was nearly dark when the other guests sauntered away, leaving him alone with the friends who were soon to bid him farewell. He spoke very despairingly of himself, as though he should not recover, and said that always about that time after dinner he had a ‘false feeling of health,’ which he knew could not last. A great sadness came over us as we sat on, not talking much, listening to the band, which was playing all the time, giving an unreality to the scene, as though we were taking part in a drama. Our carriage meanwhile had come up, and had gone round to the back of the house. We heard it, but did not know how to get up and say good-bye. At last my father rose, and there was the usual stir and looking for cloaks and wraps, which seemed to help off our departure, poor Lever joking and laughing as he helped to wrap us up, and escorted us to the carriage. We shook hands with him, and said good-bye to the others there. As we drove away we looked back and saw him standing with his daughters watching us and waving farewell. We knew it was really good-bye, and our drive was a silent one.

“Our apprehensions about Lever’s health were only too well founded, for on our reaching Venice at five o’clock the following afternoon we were met by a telegram saying he had died during the day [1st June]. My father immediately returned to Trieste by a steamer which was just starting, to be of what use he might to his friend’s daughters. The journey by sea occupied twelve hours, and he wrote the next morning as follows: ‘I got here about seven this morning, after a not unpleasant voyage, considering the company and the circumstances. After bath and breakfast I went to Smart’s room and found him and Monson. They said at once how pleased the daughters would be. They had not liked to ask me to come in the telegram, but hoped and expected I would come. I went up and sat for more than an hour with the two mourners. Poor souls! it was most affecting to hear them pouring forth about all their father’s goodness and kindness. Poor Lever had sat talking about us after we left until about his usual hour, twelve. He had the usual restless night until about five, when he fell asleep. He awoke at the usual time for his letters, and after reading them and chatting he lay down to rest. They looked in from time to time as they were in the habit of doing, and found him sleeping quietly, until Miss Lever, going in towards three, found he had apparently passed away without struggle or pain… It is most melancholy to think of our fine bright friend. Sitting in that drawing-room to-day looking out on the garden, I could hardly help bursting out crying. It seemed hardly realisable. However, his last evening was a bright one, and it was an end such as he had wished. He had a perfect horror of living on weakened in and mind, a weariness to himself and others.’” At six o’clock on the evening of June 3, 1872, all that was mortal of Charles Lever was laid in the British Cemetery at Trieste, alongside the remains of her “whose companionship made the happiness of a long life.”

notes

1

Mr Blackwood had written: “Observe that in the garden scene you make it a fine night, and from the morning showing before they separated, apparently the night was short; whereas when Tony started in the cold and snow for Burnside it was clearly winter.”

2

The Major, amongst the many reminiscences of his friend confided to Dr Fitzpatrick, tells a tale of this period which shows that Lever, with all his tact, could occasionally allow temper to master discretion. A personage holding a high diplomatic post (which he had obtained notoriously through influence) said to Lever at some social gathering: “Your appointment is a sinecure, is it not?”

“Not altogether,” answered the consul. “But you are consul at Spezzia, and you live altogether at Florence,” persisted the personage. “You got the post, I suppose, on account of your novels.” “Yes, sir,” replied Lever tartly, “I got the post in compliment to my brains: you got yours in compliment to your relatives.” – E. D.

3

Lever must have intended to recast and to rewrite the adventures of “Gerald Fitzgerald, the Chevalier,” the story which appeared as a serial in ‘The Dublin University’ in 1869. – E. D.

4

Baron Lendrick (in ‘Sir Brook Fossbrooke’) was one of Lever’s favourite characters. The old judge was a sketch for which he had to depend upon a memory of a journey made more than twenty years before ‘Sir Brook’ was written. Lever had travelled to London in the ‘Forties with a distinguished party – Isaac Butt, Frederick Shaw (the member for Dublin University), Henry West (afterwards a judge), and Sergeant Lefroy (afterwards – Lord Chief-Justice of Ireland). Baron Lendrick was a study of Lefroy. It was said that Lever was the only man who had ever succeeded in making Lefroy laugh.

Lever declared that his Baron Lendrick was a portrait upon which he had expended “a good deal of time and paint” – E. D.

5

In ‘Sir Brook Fossbrooke.’ of doctrine by the opposite poles – Exeter and Cashel, Colenso and Carlisle; but you will see that I never instanced these men, or any other individuals, as likely to offer their pulpits.

6

Dr Fitzpatrick (on the authority of Mr Whiteside – afterwards Lord Chief-Justice) makes the statement that Lord Derby exclaimed, “We must do something for Harry Lorrequer.” Also, that in offering him the appointment, Lord Derby said, “Here is £600 a-year for doing nothing; and you, Lever, are the very man to do it” It does not seem probable that Lever would have considered the somewhat cynical observations attributed to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs as being exceptionally polite or exceptionally courteous. – E. D.

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.

8

“That Boy of Norcott’s,” which was just finishing its serial course in “The Cornhill Magazine.’ and is coming to see me. He and ‘his’n’ are living with the Bloomfields, who have most hospitably taken them in till they can house themselves, which (you know) can only be done in Austria on the 24th August.

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.

10

Mr Blackwood proposed that Lever should pay a visit to Greece, for the purpose of making investigations about an act of brigandage which had shocked the civilised world. A party of English tourists, which included Lord and Lady Muncaster, had been seized by brigands at Oropos, near Marathon. During the course of the negotiations for the ransom of the tourists, some members of the British Legation at Athens had been murdered. Many influential Greeks were conniving at the act of brigandage, and matters were at this time in a very disturbed condition in high quarters. – E. D.