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

“I wish I was twenty years younger and I’d make an effort to get into Parliament. Like my friend Corney, my friends always prophesied a success to me in something and somewhere that I have never explored – but so it is.

“Oh! for the books that have never been written,
With all the wise things that nobody has read.
And oh! for the hearts that have never been smitten,
Nor heard the fond things that nobody has said.

“My treasures are, I suspect, safely locked in the same secure obscurity. N’importe! at this moment I’d rather be sure my little girl would have a good night than I’d be Member for Oxford.”

To Mr Alexander Spencer.

“Villa Morelli, Florence, July 23, 1864.

“It would be unfair amidst all your labours to expect you could read through the volume of ‘Corney O’Dowd’ that Blackwood will have already sent – or a few days more will bring – to you. Still, if you will open it, and here and there look through some of those jottings-down, I know they will recall me to your memory. It is so very natural to me to half-reason over things, that an old friend [? like] yourself will recognise me on every page, and for this reason it is that I would like to imagine you reading it. My great critics declare that I have done nothing so good since the ‘Dodds,’ – and now, enough of the whole theme!

“Here we are in a pretty villa on a south slope of the Apennines, with Florence at our feet and a glorious foreground of all that is richest in Italian foliage between us and the city. It is of all places the most perfect to write in, – beauty of view, quiet, silence, and seclusion all perfect, – but somehow I suppose I have grown a little footsore on the road. I do not write with my old facility. I sit and think – or fancy I think – and find very little is done after [all].

“The dreary thought of time lost and talent misapplied – for I ought never to have taken to the class of writing that I did —will invade, and, instead of plodding steadily along the journey, I am like one who sits down to cry over the map of the country to be traversed.

“I go to Spezzia occasionally – the fast mail now makes it but five hours. The Foreign Office is really most indulgent: they ask nothing of me, and in return I give them exactly what they ask.

“My wife is a little better – that is, she can move about unassisted and has less suffering. Her malady, however, is not checked. The others are well. As for myself, I am in great bodily health, – lazy and indolent, as I always was, and more given to depressions, perhaps, but also more patient under them than I used to be.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Florence, Saturday, July 30.

“Yours has just come. O’D. is very handsome. Confound the public if they won’t like them! Nothing could be neater and prettier than the book. How I long to hear some good tidings of it!

“My daughter had a slight relapse, but is now doing all well and safely.

“I think that the Irish papers – ‘The Dub. E. Mail’ and ‘Express’ – would review us if copies were sent, and perhaps an advertisement.

“I know you’ll let me hear, so I don’t importune you for news.

“Your cheque came all safe; my thanks for it. The intense heat is such now that I can only write late at night, and very little then.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Villa Morelli, Aug. 3, 1864.

“Unshaven, dishevelled,

I sit all bedevilled;

Your news has upset me, —

It was meet it should fret me.

What! two hundred and fifty!

Is the public so thrifty?

Or are jokes so redundant,

And funds so abundant

That ‘O’Dowd’ cannot find more admirers than this!

I am sure in the City ‘Punch’ is reckoned more witty,

And Cockneys won’t laugh

Save at Lombard Street chaff;

But of gentlemen, surely there can be no stint,

Who would like dinner drolleries dished up in print,

And to read the same nonsense would gladly be able

That they’d laugh at – if heard – o’er the claret at table

The sort of light folly that sensible men

Are never ashamed of – at least now and then.

For even the gravest are not above chaff,

And I know of a bishop that loves a good laugh.

Then why will they deny me,

And why won’t they buy me?

I know that the world is full of cajolery,

And many a dull dog will trade on my drollery,

Though he’ll never be brought to confess it aloud

That the story you laughed at he stole from O’Dowd;

But the truth is, I feel if my book is unsold,

That my fun, like myself, it must be – has grown old.

And though the confession may come with a damn,