Charles Lever, His Life in His Letters Volume Ii Part 12

"Why have you not reprinted in a vol. the 'Maxims of Morgan O'Doherty'?

They are unequalled in their way.

"By this you will have received the O'D. on 'Wolff going into Parliament' and a score more _sui generis_.

"I have composed three openings of the new story, and nearly driven my family distracted by my changes of plan; but I am not on the right road yet. However, I hope to be hard at it next week.

"Is the 'P. M. Gazette' to be the organ of the Party or is it a private spec? When I only think of the Tories of my acquaintance it is not any surprise to me that the Party is not a power; though I certainly feel if they were there and not kicked out again it would go far to prove a miracle. Are these your experiences?"

_To Mr John Blackwood_.

"Villa Morelli, _Jan_. 24, 1865.

"You are such a good fellow that you can give even bad news a colour of comfort; but it is bad news, this of 'Tony,' and has caught me like a strong blow between the eyes. Surely in this _gurgite vasto_ of [ ] and sensuality there ought to be some hearing for a man who would give his experiences of life uncharged with exaggerations, or unspiced by capital offences.

"I am sure a notice of 'The Times,' if it could be, would get the book a fair trial, and I neither ask nor have a right to more. Meanwhile I am what Mrs O'Dowd calls 'several degrees below Nero.'

"I began my new story yesterday, but I'll wait till I hear more cheery news before I take to my (ink) bottle again.

"You'll have to look sharp for blunders in the last O'D.

"It almost puts me in spirits to talk of the theatricals. It is my veritable pa.s.sion, and I plume myself upon my actors.h.i.+p. I have had plays in nearly every house I have lived in, in all parts of Europe.

Mary Boyle--that was d.i.c.kens's _prima donna_--was of my training; her infant steps (she was five-and-thirty at the time) were first led by me; and I remember holding a ladder for her while she sang a love-song out of a window, and (trying to study my own part at the same time) I set fire to her petticoats!

"There are short things from the French which would do well if your people had time to translate them. 'Les Inconsolables,' from two really good artists, first-rate. I have a little Italian piece by me would also adapt well, and it is an immense gain to have a piece perfectly new and fresh, and when there can be no odious comparisons with Buckstone or Keely, and the rest of them. In fact, half of our young English amateurs are only bad Robsons and Paul Bedfords. My girls are all good actresses, and we have--or we used to have--short scenes of our devising constantly got up amongst us.

"Remember to send me good news, true or not, or at least any civil 'notice' you may see of 'Tony,' for till I hear again 'the divil a word ever I write.'

"When I read out your letter this morning, my wife said in a whisper, 'Now he'll be off to whist worse than ever!' So it is; I take to the rubber as other men do to a dram.

"Have you sent copies of T. B. to the press folk? I don't know if Savage has to do with 'The Examiner,' but he is an old pal of mine, and would willingly give us a lift.

"I wish I had Bright's speech in time for a quiz this month. It was a rare occasion. A mock cla.s.sic oration, for a tribune of the people, full of gross flattery of the Plebs, would have been good fun; but [? the opportunity] is everything, and the joke that comes late looks, at least, as if it took labour to arrive at.

"Oh dear, but I am down! down! Write to me, I entreat you.

"Give my heartiest good wishes to the Corps Dramatique,--say that I am with them in spirit. 'My heart's in the side scenes, my heart is not here.'"

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Villa Morelli, _Feb_. 4, 1865.

"I am impatient to show you a brick of the new house: first, because if you don't like it I'll not go on; and secondly, if you should think well of it, your encouragement will be a great strengthener to me, and give me that confidence that none of my own connections ever inspire. My womenkind like Sir F., partly perhaps because I have said something about my 'intentions.' Not that I have any intentions, however, so fixed that the course of the story may not serve to unhinge them. At all events, _you_ are well able to predicate from a molar tooth what sort of a beast it was that owned it, or might own it. Say your say then, and as boldly as our interests require.

"I'd like to write you the best story in my market--that is, if I have a market; but now and then I half feel as if I were only manufacturing out of old wearables, like the devil's dust folk at Manchester.

"I have no heart to talk of 'Tony,' because I think the book is a deal better than what the scoundrels are daily praising, and I know there is better 'talk' in it than the rascals ever did talk or listen to in the dirty daily Covent Garden lines. There's a burst of indignant vanity for you, and I'm 'better for it' already. If 'The Times' had noticed us at once, it would have given the key-note; but _patienzia_, as the Italians say.

"Now let me have a line at your earliest about B. F., for though we don't start till All Fools' Day, I'd like to get in advance. I hope you'll like the O'Ds. I sent last. When vol. ii. is ready let me have one by post. Your cheque is come all safe--my thanks for it.

"We are in great commotion here; the K. has arrived. Turin being in a state that may be any moment 'of siege,' things look very ill here, and the men in power are quite unequal to the charge."

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Florence, _Feb_. 11, 1865.

"You are wrong about the scandal--there is none abroad whatever! For the same reason that Lycurgus said there was no adultery in Sparta, because every one had a legal right to every one else. There can be no criticism where there is no default.

"'The Times' on 'Tony' was miserable: the book is--'though I that oughtn't,' &c,--good. That is, there is a devilish deal more good in it than half of the things that are puffed up into celebrity, and had it been written by any man but my unlucky self, would have had great success. I have not seen the M. P. notice. I have just seen the 'P.

Mall Gazette.' It is deplorably bad: the attempts at fun and smartness positively painful. I am impatient to hear what you say of the new story."

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Villa Morelli, _Feb._ 21,1865.

"I hasten to answer your note, which has just come and relieved me of some gloomy apprehensions. I had begun to fancy that your delay in p.r.o.nouncing on B. F. is out of dislike to say that you are not pleased with it. This fear of mine was increased by being low and depressed.

Your judgment has relieved me, however, and done me much good already, and to-morrow I'll go to work 'with a will' and, I hope, a 'way.'

"'The Judge and his Wife'* are life sketches, the rest are fictional.

* 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 b.u.t.t, 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.

"I send you a batch of O'Ds. for April No. Some of them I think good.

By the way, Smith--of Smith & Elder--has been begging me to send him something, as O'Ds. I refused, and said that Cornelius was your property, and if I sent him an occasional squib it should be on no account under that t.i.tle.

"From what I have seen I agree with you about the style and pretensions of the 'P. M. Gazette.' They are heavy when trying to be light and volatile, the dreariest sort of failure imaginable. It is strange fact that what the world regards as the inferior organisation--the temperament for drollery--is infinitely the most difficult to imitate.

Your clown might possibly play Hamlet. I'll be shot if Hamlet could play Clown! Now original matter on daily events, to be read at all, ought to have the stamp of originality on its style. These fellows have not caught this. They are as tiresome as real members of Parliament.

"There is a great dearth of 'pa.s.sing topics' for O'Dowderie; Parliament is dull, and society duller. I am sure that a little stupidity--a sort of prosy plat.i.tude just now in O'D.--would conciliate my critics of the press. My pickles have given them a heartburn, d------ them; but they shall have them hotter than ever."

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"_Feb_. 29, 1866.

"I have just got your note and its 'farce': thanks for both. 'Tony Butler' is a deal too good for the stupid public, who cram themselves with [ ] and [ ], which any one with a Newgate Calendar at hand and an unblus.h.i.+ng temperament might accomplish after a few easy lessons.

"It is very little short of an indignity for a man to write for a public who can gloat over [ ] or the stupid drolleries of [ ], so flauntingly proclaimed by 'The Times,' as most utter trash. I am decidedly sick of my readers and my critics, and not in any extravagance of self-conceit, because though I know I have a speciality for the thing I do, I neither want any one to believe it a high order of performance or myself a very great artist. I only say it is mine, and that another has not done it in the same way.

"I shall be sorry if you omit the O'Ds. this month. Two of them, at least, are apropos, and would suffer. The careful meditation, too, is worth something, as I claim to be ready with my pen, even when I only wound my bird."