Charles Lever, His Life in His Letters Volume Ii Part 16

"G.o.d forgive me, but I grow less wise as I grow older. The old smack of devil-may-care, that sat so easily on me as a boy, keeps dodging me now in grey hairs and making a fool of me; but you've read the German story of the fellow whose wooden leg was 'possessed' and ran away with him. I haven't a wooden leg, but I have a wooden stick that plays a like prank with me.

"O'Dowd indeed! And _I_ flirting with little Yankee girls, and teaching them to swim! Don't talk to me of O'Dowd!

"Tell your uncle to send me whatever there remains of balance of the last O'Ds., for I am losing my money here like fun, and ashamed to send to my bankers for more.

"Continue to address me _here_: I see no prospect of my getting back to Florence. The English fleet is still at Rosas, and the three b.a.l.l.s we intended to give them have already come off here, and we are all ruined in champagne and crinoline before the honoured guests have arrived. What an O'D. one might make on 'The Fleet of the Future'!"

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Hotel de Milan, _Aug_. 14,1866.

"When I read of Aytoun's death in the papers I knew how it would affect you. I am well aware what old ties linked you; and these old ties bind not only heart to heart, but attach a man to his former self, and make up the sweetest part of our ident.i.ty. They are often, too, the only light that s.h.i.+nes on the past, which would be dark and untraceable if love did not mark it.

"It is strange, but I feel (and I wrote it to my wife) that I thought I had lost a friend in losing him,--though we never met, and only knew each other in a few kindly greetings transmitted by yourself from one to the other. How right you are about the solemn fools! I go even farther, and say that the solemn wise, the Gladstones of this world, are only half great in wanting that humouristic vein that gives a man his wide sympathy with other men, and makes him, through his very humanity, a something more than human. I am sure it is in no unfair spirit I say it, but the Aytoun type grows rarer every day. It is a commodity not marketable, and Nature somehow ceases to produce what has not its value in the _piece courant._

"I can't write a line here. My youngest daughter keeps me ever concocting new gaieties for her, and she has such an insatiable spirit for enjoyment the game never ends.

"Our fleet is becalmed outside Spezzia, but may be here at any moment.

"I shall send off the proof by book-post, and (if no other reach me) beseech you to remember that, being away from my wife and eldest daughter, I am neither to be relied upon for my orthographies nor my 'unities,' nor indeed any other 'ties. Look, therefore, sharply to my proof, and see that I am not ever obscure where I don't intend it.

"I see no chance of getting away before the end of the month, and till I reach V. Morelli my ink-bottle is screwed up."

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Hotel de Milan, Spezzia, _Sept_. 2,1865.

"I am in misery. Here I am, dining and being dined, eating, drinking, singing, sailing, swimming, pic-nicing, bedevilling,--everything, in short, but writing. I have made incredible attempts to work. I have taken a room on the house-top; I have insulted the ward-room and d------d the c.o.c.kpit; I have even sneered at the admiral. The evil, however, is--I have done but a few pages, and I send them to get printed, leaving you to determine whether we shall skip a month, or whether, completing the unfinished chapter, an instalment of about 12 pp. will be better than nothing. I am more disposed to this than leaving a gap, and I am still very wretched that my work should be ill done.

Direct and counsel me.

"This miserable place has cost me a year's pay to keep, and now I hear that Elliott is sure to report me if I am found living in Florence,--another ill.u.s.tration of thrift, if I add a P.S. to the 'O'Dowd.'

"I am very sick of the row and racket I live in. I want my home and my quiet, and even my ink-bottle."

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Villa Morelli, Florence, _Sept_. 17, 1866.

"I got back here two days ago, after more real fatigue and exhaustion than I would again face for double my miserable place at Spezzia. These bluejackets have not only drunk me out of champagne and Allsopp, but so tapped myself that I am perfectly dry. The constant intercourse with creatures of mere action--with creatures of muscles, nerves, and mucous membranes, and no brains--becomes one of the most wearing and weakening things you can imagine. Nor is it only the nine weeks lost, but G.o.d knows how many more it will take before I can get the machinery of my mind to work again: all is rusted and out of gear, and I now feel, what I only suspected, that it is in this quiet humdrum life I am able to work, and that I keep fresh by keeping to myself. An occasional burst (to London for instance) would be of immense value to me, but that even then should only be brief, and not too frequent.

"Is it necessary to say I could not write at Spezzia? I tried over and over again, and for both our sakes it is as well I did not persevere.

I send, therefore, these two chapters, and a short bit to round off the last one. If you opine (as I do) that even a short link is better than a break, insert them next No., taking especial care to correct the new portion, and, indeed, to look well to all.

"To-morrow I set to work,--I hope vigorously, at least so far as intention goes,--and you shall have, if I'm able, a strong Sir B.' and an 'O'Dowd' for next month. I never for thirty years of monthly labour broke down before, and I am heartily ashamed of my shortcoming; but I repeat it is better to give short measure than poison the company.

"I like the tribute to poor Aytoun very much, and I condole heartily with you on the loss of one who walked so much of life at your side.

I am sure the habit of writing turns out more of a man's nature to his friends than happens to those who never commit themselves to print, and I am certain that his friends have their own reading of an author that is totally denied to his outer public. You knew Aytoun well enough to know if my theory does not apply to him.

"Don't be as chary of your letters as you have been. I'll so pepper you now with correspondence that you must reply."

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Villa Morelli, _Sept_. 24,1865.

"You have herewith three chapters of 'Sir B.' for Nov. No., and if so be that you need a fourth, there will be time to write it when I see these in proof; but I thought it as well to keep the reader in suspense about the interview, all the more because I know no more of what is coming than he does! My impression is that these chapters will do: my womankind like them, and only complain that there are no female scenes in the No.

But there shall be crinolines to the fore hereafter.

"I shall now set to work to write an 'O'Dowd' on my late Spezzia life and experiences.

"What a fuss they are making about the Fenians, as if rebellion was anything new in Ireland! It is only an acute attack of the old chronic com-plaint, and wants nothing but bleeding to cure it.

"Some vile sailor, I suspect, has walked off with my May No. Magazine, and I have not the beginning of the 'Sir B.' Will you send it to me?

"My wife is very poorly again, but this month coming round renews so much sorrow to her that I suspect the cause may be there.

"I have just this moment heard that the new squadron is coming back to Spezzia. If so, it will be the ruin of me--that is, if I go there; and indeed I am seriously thinking of pitching my consular dignity to the devil, and becoming a gentleman again, if only, as my coachman says, 'for an alternative.'"

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Villa Morelli, _Oct_. 1,1865.

"The squib I enclose will, I think, be well-timed. It is a letter supposed to be found on a Fenian prisoner, a Col. Denis Donovan, a.s.sistant Adjutant-General, Fenian army, from Major-General M'Caskey, who has been asked to take command of the National Forces. It can be introduced to the reader thus.

"My wife says I have written nothing to equal this."

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Villa Morelli, Florence, _Oct_. 8,1866.

"You will have received before this the Fenian squib. I have little courage to ask how you like it. Of course it would be easy enough to make a long and strong paper out of the condensed materials of M'Caskey, but I don't water my milk, though my experiences with the public might have taught me that it would suit us both best.

"I have mislaid--perhaps some one has carried off--my 'Rebel Songs,'

for I heard a threat of the kind in connection with some autograph balderdash. They are, however, no loss either to the cause or the public. The best was one called 'The Devil may care.' I add a verse (as it strikes me) for the public--

"You don't read 'O'Dowd' and don't like its style; But then to my conscience I swear You buy things that are worse, And some not worth a curse, And for _my_ part--the Devil may care!"