Charles Lever, His Life in His Letters Volume Ii Part 29

"Thanks for your note and its enclosure.

"You are mistaken if you think I invented the n.o.bility a.s.sociation, or that it is a hoax. It is _bona fide_, every bit of it; and I have added a note which you can insert if you suspect that your own incredulity may be felt by others.

"I have added a page also to 'Garibaldi.' It is, to my mind, so essential to a right reading of the present position of Italy to place briefly the whole incident before the reader, that I think it now will display events as they have been, as they might have been, and as they are.

"To comply with your wish to return proof by post, I have, I fear, corrected laxly; but you will, I know, look to my 'shortcomings.'

"I suspect Serjeant Brownlow's reminiscences would make an amusing review. If you think so, send it to me, and I'll try.

"My wife is again very ill, a relapsed [ ] of the lung, and I am dreary--dreary."

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Trieste, _Dec_. 2.

"I send you for your New Year No. the best magazine story I think I ever wrote.

"I only hope you may agree with me,--at all events you will tell me what you think of it, and let me have early proof."

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"British Consulate, Trieste, _Dec_ 6, 1867.

"I return you 'Bob Considine,' hurriedly, but I hope effectually, corrected. I sincerely hope it may appear New Year's Day: I have a superst.i.tion of a good start on that day.

"Your note contained no cheque, and I suppose you may have found it on your table since, but you can annex it to 'Bob' when you write.

"We are going to have a mournful spectacle here--the funeral reception of the poor Mexican Emperor's remains. It will be, they say, very solemn and imposing.

"I find I could not improve the wind-up, and left it unchanged. As to how mad Bob turned out afterwards is nothing to either of us, though I own I think the case hazardous.

"A happy Xmas to you and your wife. Give her all my best wishes and warm regards; as for me,--

"The time of mince-pies, mistletoe, and buns, The time that tells of all that bright and neat is, Only brings thoughts of Xmas bills and duns, Confounded chilblains and my old bronchitis.

"This short month drives me close to time, or I should have liked to add something to the Persano sketch. I find it is a subject immensely talked of by our people (sailors) at home, and that opinion is more favourable to him in England than in Italy. There is no time, however, for this now.

"I suspect Dizzy's plurality of votes scheme is utter failure. A Bill of Reform must be simple, even at the cost of some efficiency in details.

It is a weapon to be used by coa.r.s.e hands--and every day of the week besides.

"I have heard nothing more about myself since I wrote. I suppose it is all right, but I know nothing.

"Did I tell you that I met Gladstone here? I don't think I ever saw a more consummate actor,--what the French call _poseur_,--with all the outward semblance of perfect indifference to display and complete forgetfulness of self. Even Disraeli himself is less artificial."

_To Dr Burbidge._

"Trieste, _Dec. 20_, 1867.

"I have been planning I don't know how many letters to you, as I wanted, _imprimis_, to have a consultation with you about literaries, books to be written, &c., but so many _pros_ and _cons_ got into the controversy I saw it must be talked, not written. Then came on a severe cold, lumbago, &c, and so time slipped over, and I half fancied that I had written and was awaiting your answer. This was stupid enough; but remember where I am living, and with _what_.

"Of all the dreary places it has been my fate to sojourn in, this is the very worst. There are not three people to be known; for myself, I do not know one. English are, of course, out of the question. Even as a novelist I could make nothing out of the stoker and engineer cla.s.s. Then as for all the others, they are the men of oak.u.m, hides, tallow, and tobacco, who are, so far as I can guess, about on a par with fourth-rate shopkeepers in an English provincial town. The place is duller, the tone lower, the whole social atmosphere cra.s.ser and heavier than I could have believed possible in a town where the intelligence to make money exists so palpably.

"My 'leap in the dark' has cost me dearly, for, as Paddy says, I have only gained a loss by coming here. Even as it is, if my wife's health admitted of moving I'd pitch it up to-morrow and run away--anywhere--ere softening of the brain came on as the sequela of hardening of the heart.

"I write with great difficulty, or, rather, with a daily increasing repugnance to writing. 'Bramleighs' you recognise, I suppose: I'll own the paternity when it is full grown. And I am scribbling odd papers, O'Dowderies, and others, but all without zest or pleasure. They are waifs that I never look after when they leave me; and this has Trieste done for me!

"What are you doing yourself? and how is Malta? There must surely be some congenial people in it.

"How miserably the Italians lost their opportunity in not backing up Garibaldi and making Rome their own at once! and now the great question--Will the country wait? will the Const.i.tutional party be able to move with half steam on, and still steer the s.h.i.+p? I firmly believe in war, but all my friends in England disagree with me: they talk of bankruptcy, as if the length of the bill ever baulked any man's appet.i.te.

"I don't think I understood you aright in your last. Is it that I ought to wind up the O'Dowd and start a new shaft, or do you encourage going on? I am equal to either fortune. Of the two, it is always easier for me to lay a new foundation than put a roof on an old building. Give me your advice, and as freely as may be, for I hold much to it."

XVIII. TRIESTE 1868

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Trieste, _jan_ 3, 1868.

"Immense preparations are being made here for the reception of the remains of the Emperor of Mexico, to arrive on the 15th. It will be a very grand and solemn affair.

"I think the squib I enclose will please you. It is in the form of a letter from M. M'Caskey to a Fenian colonel, showing what ought and ought not to be the Fenian strategy. The main point is, however, to lay stress on the necessity of ascribing all brutalities to the Government."

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Trieste, _Jan_. 6, 1868.

"Your note and enclosure, though delayed by the snow in Styria, reached me all safely yesterday. Your hearty words of good cheer dallied me out of a blue-devilism that is more often my companion nowadays than some fifteen or twenty years ago.

"I am sincerely glad you liked 'B. C.' I sent it to you because I really thought it good--I mean, for the sort of thing it pretends to be.

"I hope you will like 'M'Caske ': it may need a little retouching, but not much. I send you some O'Ds., and if I live and do well I'll try a story for March No. I have a sort of glimmering notion of one flitting across me now.

"We are here in the midst of _crepe_ and black cloth, and for poor Maximilian, whose body is to arrive this week. What a blunder of our people not to send a s.h.i.+p to the convoy, as the French have done. We have no tact of this kind, and lose more than you would believe by the want of it."

_To Mr John Blackwood._