Charles Lever, His Life in His Letters Volume Ii Part 34

"I get up out of my bed to write to you. I have been--still am--very ill, and not well sure if I am to rub through. My sufferings have been great, and I have had nights of torture I cannot bear to think of.

"I hope Bradlaugh will not give you any trouble, but I feel sure I said nothing that could be called libellous. Would it be reparation to say that, after seeing the published list of the new Government, I beg to a.s.sure Mr B. that there is no reason whatever he might not figure amongst them?

"It is great aggravation to dying to feel that I must be buried here. I never hated a place or people so much, and it is a hard measure to lay me down amongst them where I have no chance of getting away till that grand new deal of the pack before distributing the stakes.

"I wish I could write one more O'D.--'the last O'Dowd.' I have a number of little valueless legacies to leave the world, and could put them into codicil form and direct their destination. My ink is as sluggish as my blood, indeed it has been my blood for many a day, and I must wind up.

I don't think I have strength to go over the longer proof: perhaps you would kindly do it for me.

"The cheque came all right, but I was not able to thank you at the time. Give my love to Mrs Blackwood, and say that it was always fleeting across me, in moments of relief, I was to meet you both again and be very jolly and light-hearted. Who knows! I have moments still that seem to promise a rally; but there must be a long spell of absence from pain and anxiety--not so easy things to accomplish.

"I'll write to you very soon again if strong enough."

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Trieste, _the day before Xmas_ 1868

"I promised to report if I was alive, and I do so, though, without any captiousness or Gladstonianism, the matter of my vitality might be well open to contention.

"I am barely able to move from a sofa to a chair, very weak, intensely nervous, and not at all reconciled to the fast-and-loose way death is treating me. Though there is every reason why I ought not to wish to go just now, I will put a bold face on it and say _Ecco mi p.r.o.nto!_ But the grinning humbug sends away the coach with orders to come back to-morrow at the same hour.

"I hope you have heard no more of Bradlaugh. I'd not like to carry any memory of him with me, which I might if he were annoying you. What a beast I am to obtrude my sadness against the blaze of your Xmas fire! I thought, however, you would like to hear I was yet here,--though to what end or for what use, if I continue as I now am, is not easy to see. I feel, however, that if I was freely bled and a little longer starved, I'd soon be in the frame of mind I detect in my colleagues of the Consular service here, and that, with a slight dash of paralysis, I should soon be _a l'hauteur_ of my employment in the public service.

"I have resolved to devote my first moment of strength to a despatch to F. O., and if I be only half an imbecile as I believe, I shall crown myself with imperishable laurel.

"It's a bore for a man--especially an Irishman--to be called away when the rows are beginning! Now next year there will be wigs on the green and no mistake. Besides, I'd like to see Gladstone well away in the deep slough of Disendowment, which I know he'll fall into. Disestablish he may, but the other will be a complication that nothing but open robbery could deal with.

"Then I'd like to see him lose his temper, and perhaps lose his place."

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Trieste, _Dec_. 29, 1868.

"Weak as I am, I must thank you for your kind note, which has done me a deal of good. I a.s.sure you I never valued kindness more, and I will ask you to say as much for me to your wife, and to thank her sincerely for all her sympathy and good feeling for me.

"I am, I take it, about as well as I shall ever be again, which is not much to boast of,--but I really am past boasting in any sense; and provided I do not die at the top first, like the cabbage palms, I ought to be thankful.

"I wish with all my heart I could be your guest, in such guise as I might hope to be; now I am not worth my salt. I was dreaming away to-day of making an O'Dowd will, and leaving to the public my speculations on many things ere I go.

"We are living amidst wars and alarms here. Greeks and Turks seem eager to be at each other; and if talking and b.u.mptiousness should carry the day, Heaven help the poor Turk!

"I know Hobart well; and why he didn't sink the _Enosis_ when she fired on him I can't conceive, all the more as he is always at least half screwed (they must have watered his grog that morning). The Greeks here have subscribed a million of florins (100,000), and have ordered an armour-plated frigate to be built and launched by the 20th Feb. I don't know whether all the row will induce the Turks to cede territory, but I'm perfectly certain that it will end by our giving up Gibraltar, though the logic of the proceeding may be a little puzzling at first blush.

"The foreign press is always preaching up neutrality to us in the affairs of Turkey. Good G.o.d! can't they see the man who represents us in Constantinople? Can they wish more from us than the most incapable cretin in the public service?

"Thank your nephew cordially for me for his good wishes for me. Who knows if I may not live to say as much to him one day. I get plucky when I am half an hour out of pain.

"I am in great hopes that my wife's malady has taken a favourable turn; one gleam of such suns.h.i.+ne would do me more good than all this dosing.

"Forgive my long rambling note; but it was so pleasant to talk to you, I could not give in."

XIX. TRIESTE 1869

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Trieste, Jan. 4, 1869.

"Thanks twice over for your note and enclosure. Your hearty sympathy is a very great comfort to me. I suppose I am getting better, but I suffer a good deal, and find it hard to struggle against depression. I am an ungrateful dog after all, for my poor wife is decidedly better, and I ought to be satisfied and thankful for a mercy that any suffering of my own is a cheap price.

"Imagine Charles Mathews asked to pay at the door of the Adelphi, and you can fancy my horror at feeing doctors! But it has come to this with me, and you may suppose how the fact adds bitterness to illness.

"I hope you will like the O'Ds. I sent you, and that they may not savour of that break-up which is threatening me.

"They say that I must give up work for some considerable time; but till they can show me how I am to live in the interval (even with a diminished appet.i.te), I demur."

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Trieste, _Jan_. 19,1869.

"I have no doubt you will be astonished at this reaction of mine to unwonted industry, but so it has been ever with me. When the lamp has been nearly out a very little tr.i.m.m.i.n.g has set it to flare out again, even though the illumination last but a short time.

"I send you a bit of light matter, which I hope you will like. The Home Office has p.r.o.nounced in its favour. I must work, and devilish hard too; for, cruel as it may sound, I have been feeing doctors! So you see that the adage about dogs not eating dogs does not apply to German hounds.

"I have been also driven to get my steam up by being notified officially that the Prince and Princess of Wales are coming down here to embark for Egypt; and as the exact date of their arrival is not known to us, and we only are told to be in readiness to receive them, I have slept in my c.o.c.ked hat for the last week, and shave myself with my sword on.

"I have no taste for royalties, at least seen near, and would give a trifle that H.RH. had preferred any other port of departure.

"The _Psyche_ arrived here yesterday, but the gale was so severe that the officers who were engaged to dine with me could not come on sh.o.r.e.

The _Ariadne_ is hourly expected, but with the wind as it is now, I can't believe she will leave Corfu.

"The Greeks are about to launch another ironclad, for which the Greek merchants here have paid the cost. She is a large corvette, carrying ten heavy guns and plated with six-inch iron. They are savagely warlike, and say that America is all ready and willing to aid them; and there is more truth in this report than one would imagine from the source it comes from.

"I have got a letter from New York that says the Yankees are wonderfully 'tickled' by the O'D. on the 'Diplomacy.' It has been printed separately as what they call 'a piece,' and circulated largely.

"Tell me, if you can, that you like my 'Whist' sketch."

_To Mr John Blackwood._