Charles Lever, His Life in His Letters Volume I Part 31

XII. FLORENCE AND SPEZZIA 1855-1862

The story of young Charles Lever--such of it as may be evolved from his father's letters and from other sources--is by no means uninteresting in itself, and it is intimately concerned, for a period, with the story of his father, who loved him dearly, and who looked forward to seeing the youth making a distinguished figure in the world. The profession of engineering did not hold him long. He was smitten with the military fever which had smitten his father before he had adopted medicine as a profession; but the novelist's son was trained in a school which differed widely from the school in which the novelist had been trained.

Everything that could conduce to unsettle a high-spirited youth fell to the lot of young Charles Lever. Moreover, he could, and did, imbibe from his father's books a pa.s.sion for military adventure. This in itself would have been nothing to cause uneasiness to a parent, but in addition to his longings for the adventurous career of a soldier, the novelist's son had developed, at an early stage, a thorough contempt for "the simple life." The only son of a father to whom reckless generosity was an easy virtue, who looked upon thrift--or anything resembling it--merely as a subject for ridicule, it would have been wellnigh impossible for young Lever to have regarded money except as a commodity difficult at times to obtain, but imperative to spend as quickly and as lavishly as possible. Early in 1855 the young engineer decided to abandon his civil profession; and seeing that there was no use in trying to keep him out of the army, his father purchased a commission for him, and he was gazetted to a cornetcy in the Royal Wilts Regiment, then stationed at Corfu. "I own to you," Lever writes to Spencer, "I do not fancy the career, but he does not, and will not, settle down to anything else. We must only let him take his chance and try to be a Field Marshal, which in these times ought not to be so very difficult a matter, if one only thought of the compet.i.tors.h.i.+p."

Having had his attention drawn to military affairs, Lever now conceived a literary project in connection with them--a work to be ent.i.tled 'The Battlefields of Europe.' He submitted the idea to M'Glashan, but the publisher was in no condition to offer advice or to enter into speculations off the regular track.

A serious attack of gout in the stomach prostrated the novelist in June, and for weeks he was unable to sit at his desk. He describes himself as being "covered with rugs and leeches, and warm-bathed to half his weight." He was so ill and so depressed that he felt he was going to die. When he was able to hold a pen he wrote to M'Glashan imploring him to send sixty pounds for his life insurance premiums. "I had almost hoped," he said, "that I was going to cheat the company and give them the slip." He had now concluded a bargain--a somewhat loose one--for the new serial for 'The Dublin University.' The novel was ent.i.tled 'The Fortunes of Glencore.' Soon after he had despatched the first instalment, he was disturbed by receiving a letter from Dublin which contained ill news of M'Glashan.

_To Mr Alexander Spencer._

"Florence, Casa Capponi, _July_ 5, 1856.

"This is to thank you for so promptly answering Chapman. The delay was not _his_ fault, but mine,--at least, so far as anything can be culpable which a man cannot help. Two feet of water would suffice to drown a baby; and though it takes a quarter of a million to smash Strahan & Paul, a very few hundreds would do all that mischief to Charles Lever.

"I have just made arrangements for a story to be contributed to 'The Dublin University Magazine,' but at the same instant I have received the most alarming tidings of M'Glashan's health. I am, in fact, informed--and on such authority as I must believe--that disease of the brain has displayed itself, and aberration already become apparent.

Total loss of memory I could collect from his letters to myself,--they were latterly nothing but a repet.i.tion of the same queries, and occasionally almost incoherent.

"It is a great pity, for, without being an original mind or one of high order, it was the rarest intellect I ever met for the gift of identifying others, looking out for the right man, and making him do the thing he was capable of. He overworked to a dreadful extent, and then, by gradual cultivation, he had so elevated his faculties above those of his a.s.sociates, that he left himself companionless. Hence all the mischief.

"I hope--but I scarcely have courage to a.s.sure myself--that you like 'Cro-Martin.' At the same time, I think its more reflective characters will please you, and I own I wrote it with due thought.

"It is just possible that events might bring the Magazine into the market. If so, there is nothing I'd make such an effort to obtain. It would be in my hands a property--a great one.

"Charley is dallying at Corfu, and anxiously hoping to see the Crimea.

I tell him not to hurry: he'll be in good time for the taking of Sebastopol--in '56 or '57."

Early in September Lever received a pitiful letter from M'Glashan: "I am utterly ruined in health and fortune; they have given me a pittance to live on, but taken away the Magazine and all that I care to live for.

You have always treated me generously and never made hard bargains with me. Now I hope you will look to yourself, and not give 'Glencore' away without being well and handsomely paid."

_To Mr Alexander Spencer._

"Spezzia, _Sept_. 1855.

"My contract for 'Tiernay' and 'Carew' was 20 a sheet, the copyright remaining mine, and my name not to be disclosed as author. These were terms conceded to M'Glashan out of personal regard to himself. So disadvantageous were they to me, that when pressing me to contribute my present tale of 'Glencore' M'Glashan said, 'Make the arrangement as will suit and fairly reimburse you, and do in all respects what you think right between us.' In this way, and without any more definite understanding, I began, nor have we to this hour any real contract between us.

"I want you to see Mr Wardlaw, and (amongst other inquiries) demand 2 per page--32 per sheet--for 'Glencore,' copyright to be preserved to me.

"In your conversation with Wardlaw could you ascertain whether the present proprietors, whoever they are, might be disposed to treat with me for the editors.h.i.+p? You might suggest that such an arrangement would be very likely to meet liberal acceptance at my hands. The state of the Magazine when before under my management might be referred to for evidence of its success."

_To Mr Alexander Spencer._

"Spezzia, _Sept_. 12, 1855.

"The deaths in Tuscany [from cholera] are reported at 700 a-day. I am not myself afraid of the disease, but I am more than usually anxious about my children.

"As to M'Glashan: the last letter said the Magazine had been reserved to him by some arrangement, and would, he hoped, yield him wherewithal to live on; but my impression is that the creditors have only done this in the prospect that his days are numbered, and not wis.h.i.+ng to do anything like severity to a man so painfully placed.... Wardlaw, who encloses the proofs, says, 'M'Glashan grows more and more helpless.' I believe his malady is softening of the brain--and if so, incurable."

_To Mr Alexander Spencer._

"Spezzia, _Sept_. 17, 1855.

"If I could obtain the Magazine for myself it would be a great object.

I'm sure Chapman would a.s.sist in the purchase, or take some share in it.

"My fear is that J. F. Waller, at present acting as editor, will step into it before any one can interfere, and the a.s.signees may not know that I would willingly resume it--either as editor or owner."

_To Mr Alexander Spencer._

"Spezzia, _Sept. 27_, 1855.

"A letter written by M'Glashan and merely addressed 'Charles Lever' was posted in Dublin on the 15th of August last, and by some accident was included in the American mail, and arrived duly in New York on September 1st, when by an equally strange accident it was re-directed there, and addressed 'Spezzia,' and to-day it came to my house here.

"How M'Glashan forgot to append my address is easy enough to see.

How any one in New York knew it, and re-directed the letter, is more difficult to explain.

"If my demand [for 'Glencore'] be thought too high, I have no alternative save leaving 'Glencore' as a 'payment' to the Magazine, reserving to myself its completion elsewhere. Wardlaw must be distinctly given to understand that I never contributed this story even to M'Glashan on my previous terms, still less would I do so to those with whom I have no ties of personal intimacy or friends.h.i.+p. You can, I know, learn much from Mr Wardlaw, whom I have ever found a straightforward honest man,--cold as a Scotchman, but to be depended on."

_To Mr Alexander Spencer._

"Florence, _Oct_. 16,1865.

[Lever instructs his correspondent to request that his MS.

for the November portion be at once returned, and Mr W. be informed that Mr L. will now consider himself free to make arrangements for the continuance of the story of 'Glencore'

in any magazine or in any quarter that may suit him.]

"I almost fancy I can read the whole web of this small intrigue, and detect the hand of J. F. Waller throughout it.

"The trustees might, by a reference to the Magazine account, have seen that while I myself edited the Magazine I paid for a story extending through 18 Nos., and to a nameless author who had never written fiction before, 20 a sheet."

_To Mr Alexander Spencer._

"Casa Capponi, _Nov_. 7, 1856.