Charles Lever, His Life in His Letters Volume Ii Part 15

"A Scotch friend, J. F. Drummond (some relative of George Thompson's), has been endeavouring to have me domiciled at the house he stops at, 11 St James's Place; but I suspect that the coming Derby has made a difficulty, and I shall probably not get in: hitherto I have always gone to the Burlington, but a notion of 'Thrift' (_vide_ O'Dowd) impels me to do something that I already suspect will end in a reckless extravagance." Lever found Dublin bright, lively, and hospitable, and he was soon ready to cry out against the killing effects of too much dining, too much whist, and too much flattery. Some of his Irish friends noticed that he suffered from occasional attacks of utter despondency.

The novelist himself explains the cause of his low-spiritedness: many of his blithesome companions of the 'Thirties and 'Forties were dead, and most of those who remained in the land of the living had become very old and painfully prim. When he paid a visit to the Four Courts, he saw on the bench solemn care-worn personages whom he had known as struggling and light-hearted lawyers. His sympathies almost to the last were with young and lively folk: old age was his bogey. "I like the ambitions of young men," he said, "their high and their bold self-confidence, which no man retains when he gets 'groggy.'" Amongst his entertainers in Dublin during this visit were Sheridan Le Fanu, W. H. Lecky, and Sir William Wilde. The first two of these noted Lever's dulness: Wilde found him more brilliant than ever. The novelist's moods were peculiarly variable just then. Amongst the visits he paid to old haunts was one to the place where his Burschen Club had held revel thirty-five years previously. He discovered some of the club's paraphernalia, and obtained possession of these relics of golden hours. When he visited Trinity College he was a prey to conflicting emotions, but on the whole the remembrances of the old days, when he lived at No. 2 Botany Bay, were pleasant and inspiriting. He declares that as he walked through the courts and corridors of the University he felt as if thirty years of hard conflict with the world were no more than a memory, and that he was as ready as ever to fling himself headlong into all the fun and frolic of a freshman's life. This highly-strung mood was succeeded by a fit of deepest melancholy. As he said good-bye to Trinity he felt that he was gazing upon it for the last time. He had submitted to the ordeal of being photographed. The result did not tend to chase his gloom away. The photograph showed him features which the hand of Time had coa.r.s.ened.

In London he met, for the first time, John Blackwood. It was a merry meeting. Blackwood, writing from The Burlington on June 4th, says: "This place is in a greater whirl than ever, and it is with the greatest difficulty I can get anything done. In addition to the usual distractions, I have had Cornelius O'Dowd staying in the same house. He is a sort of fellow that comes into your room and keeps you roaring with laughter for a couple of hours every hour of the day.... His fun is something wonderful." Every likely attraction was provided for O'Dowd by his publisher. Hannay, Kinglake, Delane did their best to entertain him.

Blackwood describes the contrast between Kinglake and Lever,--the former making neat little remarks, and Lever rattling on with story after story. Harry Lorrequer appeared in the Park, riding on a nag of Lord Bolingbroke's. Blackwood humorously declares that, seeing a donkey-cart in Piccadilly, he was uneasy lest the author of 'Charles O'Malley'

should be tempted to clear the cart in a flying leap. The novelist's own impressions of this visit to London were sufficiently lively. He was entertained by Lord Houghton, Lord Lytton, and other literary big-wigs.

The city seemed as new to him--"just as noisy, as confounding, as addling, as exciting, as tantalising, as never satisfying"--as when he had first seen it. London loungers, he said, had no idea of the overwhelming excitement produced on an idle Anglo-Italian by the mere sounds and sights of the streets, nor could they measure the confusion and enjoyment experienced by a man "who hears more in half an hour than he has imagined in half a year." He returned to Florence in June, visiting Paris on the homeward journey. He was not sorry to find that official duties called him to Spezzia. He was anxious for a period of rumination--for an easy opportunity of sliding back into the routine ways of pen-craft, which were, he declares, the labour and the happiness of his life. For some weeks consular work kept him busy, and it was difficult to make much headway with 'Sir Brook.' Moreover, he was beginning to suffer from attacks of somnolency, akin to the attacks which had prostrated him at Templeogue. When he was not sleeping he was frequently enwrapped in a half dream. "I reflect much," he said, "and always with my eyes closed and a pillow under my head, and with such a semblance of perfect repose that calumnious people have said I was asleep. These hours of reflection occupy a large share of the forenoon and of the time between early dinner and sunset. They are periods of great enjoyment: they once were even more so, when an opinion prevailed that it would be a sacrilege to disturb me, these being the creative hours of my active intelligence. This faith has long since changed for a less reverent version of my labours, and people are less scrupulous about interruption." One cannot help suspecting that opium played some part in this languorousness,--though there is no evidence that he resumed the habit. It would have been impossible that Lever should allow even his slumber-fits to escape from a.s.sociation with some form of frolic. Attired in a negligently-worn linen suit, he fell asleep on a chair one day at the public baths. An English footman came into the place, and, mistaking the vice-consul for an attendant, he rudely shook him and declared that he wanted a bath instantly. "There you are!" said Lever, springing to his feet, seizing the flashily-dressed lackey, and pitching him into the reservoir.

_To Dr Burbidge._

"Villa Morelli, _July_ 1,1865.

"I am much obliged by your interest for me at Valetta. I really _want_ the house, first, because I would be glad to get away from Florentine dear-ness; and secondly, I ought to give up Spezzia or go to it. If, then, anything can be done anent this matter, it will serve me much.

"Of course I am sorry to hear that you should leave Spezzia, but I cannot but feel the bishop's offer a good one--good as the means of securing an excellent position and field for further effort. To me Malta would be very palatable. I like the 49th, and their stupid talk. I like pipeclay, and facings, and camp gossip. I like the Mess, and the half-crown whist, and the no 'canon' company.

"_You_ are above all this, and _tant pis_ for you. It is a grand lesson in life to have habits and ways that will suit the lowest rate of intelligence; and as for me, I have not a pursuit that could not be practised by the company of a private madhouse.

"I have seen a review of 'Tony,' excellent in its way, and giving some encouragement to the 'evidently young author,' and warning him that his Italian politics are too heavy for fiction.

"I have begun a new story, 'Sir Brook Fossbrooke.' What it will turn out, G.o.d knows. 'Luttrell is complete and out, and another vol. of 'O'Dowd' appears next week.

"There is a new evening paper (Tory) called 'The Pall Mall Gazette'

started. They have asked me to join them, but I don't like newspaper work, and have said 'No.'

"Till 'the party' are able to strike out some line essentially different from Palmerston's, not merely crotchety, but really distinctive, all advocating of them in the press is impossible. Now, it's hard work to _read_ plat.i.tudes; it's the devil to _write_ them. Hannay is to be the editor."

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Hotel de Milan, Spezzia, _July_ 11,1865.

"I have just got your note and the proof of O'D. in the midst of my consular cares, with my Jack flying out of my consular windows, and my consular brains broiling under a temperature that would roast a woodc.o.c.k.

"I sent you off Sir B. in proof by this post. 'O'Dowd' shall follow (if possible) to-morrow, at all events in time. For the love of G.o.d, let some man learned in orthographies look to my proofs, for I can't spell after the thermometer pa.s.ses 90 in the shade, and if I were to be d------d I don't know how many d's there are in granddaughter.

"As to writing here I need only say that it costs me a small apoplexy to perform the present note. The railroad screams under my window, and two Miss Somervilles are sol-faing overhead (and I vow to Heaven I like the locomotive best), and I have a telegram to say that the admiral may be here any day after the 17th, and stay as long as he finds it pleasant,--a condition which (if I know myself) will not entail any undue delay."

_To Mr John Blackwood_.

"Hotel de Milan, Spezzia, _July_ 13, 1865.

"Your note came on here to-day, the enclosure stayed at Florence.

What cruel inspiration suggested your thoughtful kindness? I left home declaring that I was ruined, had overdrawn you, and had not a _sou_ for anything; that we must live on roots and drink water till next spring: and now my beautiful budget, that I have just carried at the risk of the Government, is all gone and smashed.

"You (fortunately for you) don't know that all these things are very great things to people who are always swimming for their lives,--but enough of it.

"I have been exceedingly busy since I came here. An order of the Queen's Bench named me a Commissioner to take evidence in a case coming on for trial next November, and I have been sitting up--like a Brummagem Chief-Justice--and rebuking witnesses, and scowling at the public like a real judge.

"I send a few lines to complete O'D. for the month. How I wrote them I don't know, for this infernal place is so noisy, and the interruptions so frequent, I'd fain be back in Brook Street for quiet.

"I fear I shall be detained here all this month, for the admiral is on his way here, and the whole Maltese fleet are thirsting for bitter beer and champagne. I wonder if I were to put down their powers of suction in my extraordinaries would F. O. stand it?"

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Hotel de Milan, Spezzia, _July_ 15, 1865.

"I send off O'D. proof to-night. I last night sent by private hand some pages to conclude it. Do look very carefully to both; my orthography (like Acre's courage) oozes out of my finger-ends in this hot weather.

"I have had a two hours' swim, and am so sleepy and 'water-logged' that I can't write, though I'm dying to O'Dowd the judge for his remarks on Dr Paterson in the Pritchard case. They are so ignorant, and so vulgar to boot.

"If every doctor who _suspected_ foul play in the treatment of malady was to cry out Murder! the whole world would be one wild shout of a.s.sa.s.sination. What between medical timidity, terror, _gobemoucherie_, and sometimes private malice, the police-courts would have enough on their hands. They say railroads must have no signals because pusillanimous travellers would be eternally summoning the guard, and here is exactly a similar evil with worse consequences.

"I don't think I ever conversed with a country pract.i.tioner who hadn't a story or two of 'foul play,' and so palpably untrue as to be laughable.

In all probability Paterson's impressions were only strong when he found the woman had died, and it is a very medical error to imagine a skill in prediction which only comes after the event. The world is all subserviency to the doctor when there is an epidemic abroad, and 'takes it out' in insult when the weather is fine and the season salubrious.

"'The Spanish fleet' is not in sight.

"Remember I rely upon you to look closely to these last 'Sir Bs.' and 'O'Dowds,' for I am as near softening of the brain as it is permitted to a consul to be."

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Hotel de Milan, Spezzia, _July_ 28, 1865.

"It seems like a century to me since we heard of each other. Here I am still awaiting the fleet. They were to come on the 27th, and they are to be here positively on the 6th, most positively on the 8th, and as sure as the Lord liveth (I mean the First Lord), on the 12th August.

"I have my youngest daughter with me, who keeps me in a perpetual round of croquet, picnics, boat-races, and moonlight rowing-parties.

"If you knew, then, the difficulty I have had to write the two chaps.

I now send you (my first instalment of Sept. 'Fossbrooke '), you would prize them more certainly than their merit could call for."

_To Mr William Blackwood._

"Hotel de Milan, Spezzia, _Aug_. 6, 1865.

"I got your telegram just as I was starting for a picnic, to eat my lobster afterwards with what appet.i.te I might. I suspect (it is mere suspicion) that chap, i., enclosed in an envelope I had borrowed from an American colleague, has gone (through the words 'U.S. Consulate' on the corner) to America, and that Sir B. F. is now making the tour of 'the Union.'

"Rewriting is all very fine; but I have forgotten all I wrote, as I always do, or I should go mad. If Providence had only inflicted me with a memory in proportion to my imagination, I'd have been in Bedlam twenty years ago. I have therefore set to work and written something else. If the other turns up, you may prefer it ('You pays your money and takes your choice,' as the apple-women say).