Charles Lever, His Life in His Letters Volume Ii Part 21

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Villa Morelli, Florence, _April_ 5,1866.

"I send you enough to make the May 'Sir Brook,'--at least it will be wellnigh a sheet. I am gaining, but slowly. My debility is excessive, partly from all the blood I have lost; but my head is free, and I think I could work better than usual if I had the strength for it.

"All my thanks for your kindest of notes and the O'D. enclosure. I could not acknowledge them earlier, for I kept all my pen-power for the story.

Try and let me have it back soon; and, meanwhile, I mean to change the air and go to Carrara. The doctors think that I must have patience, and abstain from all treatment for a while. It is evidently as hard to launch me (into the next world) as to get the _Northumberland_ afloat. I stick on the 'ways,' and the best they can say of me is that I have, up to this, received 'no fatal damage.'

"I wish I was near enough to talk to you: my spirits are not bad, and when out of pain I enjoy myself much as usual.

"What a fiasco the Derby party are making of the situation! At a time when it is all-important to conciliate the outlaying men of all parties they single them out for attack, as [? for example] Whiteside's stupid raid against Sir Robert Peel for the escape of Stephens. There never was a party in which the man-of-the-world element was so lamentably omitted....

"After all, it is a party without a policy, and they have to play the game like the fellows one sees punting at Baden, who, when they win a Louis, change it at once and go off to the silver table."

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Villa Morelli, Florence, _April_ 16,1866.

"It was a great relief to my mind to know that 'Sir B.' was up to the mark, as your note tells me, for I felt so shaken by illness that very little would have persuaded me the whole craft was going to pieces; and all they said to me _here_ I took as mere encouragement, though, sooth to say, my home critics do not usually spoil me by flatteries. I am better, but not on the right road somehow. I am deplorably weak, and my choice seems to be between debility and delirium tremens, for to keep up my strength I drink claret all day long.

"How the Conservatives must have misplayed the game! To show the Ministry the road out of the blunder was as stupid a move as ever was made, and yet it is what they have done. They ought, besides, to have widened their basis at once by making Lord Stanley a _pont du diable_ to reach Lowe and Horsman. There is a current hypocrisy in English public opinion--about admitting new men--sharing the sweets of office and such like. Why not cultivate it?

"From men who ought to know, I am told war is _certain_ between Prussia and Austria.

"There is a rumour here that Italy offered terms to Austria for the cession of Venice, even to the extent of troops! It is hard to believe it. The Austrian alliance, if it were possible, would be the crowning policy of Italy and the only barrier against France; but national antipathies are hard to deal with, and here they are positively boundless."

_To Dr Burbidge_

"Florence, _Friday, April_ 1866.

"My thanks for your most kind note. My attack was only a 'runaway knock' after all I believe when the _pallida mors_ does come, he gives a summons that there's no mistaking. But I was only ill enough to suggest to _myself_ the way by which I might become worse, and now it's all over.

"I cannot make up my mind about the house till I go down and see in what state I receive it. There is, I suspect, _very_ little furniture; but I mean to see, and decide soon, if I can. I a.s.sure you I look on 90 for a very poor quarter in a very poor place as a large rent, though you do persist in knocking my head off on account of my extravagance, which is a mere tradition, and you might as well bring up against me my idleness at school. The worst is, I used formerly to make money as easily as I spent it. I now find a great disinclination to work--that is, I am well aware, an expression for a disability."

_To Dr Burbidge._

"Casa Capponi, Florence, _Thursday, May_ 1866.

"By a telegram from Sanders, received too late to reply to by post yesterday, I learned that our funds had amounted to sixty-five pounds, and I accordingly wrote to 'My Lord' to state as much, and also that the congregation, alike in grateful recognition of the gratuitously afforded services of Doctor Burbidge, as in the very fullest desire to secure his services, had appointed him to the chaplaincy,--a nomination which, in the event of any subsidy from the F. Office, they earnestly hoped his lordship would confirm.

"I believe I said it in rather choice phrase, but that was the substance, and I am very hopeful that he will do all that we ask.

"My wife had another attack of the _rigor_ and fever yesterday, and Wilson apprehends some tertian character has inserted itself into the former illness. She is very ill indeed, so much so that although my married daughter is confined to bed and seriously ill at a hotel only a few hundred yards off, Julia cannot leave the house to see her. You see how impossible it would be for me to be away.

"I write very hurriedly, but I wished you to know that all, so far as we can do it, is now done, and if F. O. will only be as gracious as I hope, we shall have accomplished our great wish, and the Spezzia chaplaincy be a fact."

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Florence, _May_ 2, 1866.

"Herewith goes the next 'Sir B.' I was very glad indeed to get your last few lines, for I am low, low! I can't pick up, somehow. But I don't want to bore you with myself or _mes maux_.

"So they won't resign! I think, on the whole, it's as well,--I mean, that seeing what sort of composite thing a new Government must be, and how the Whigs have been beaten by a 'byblow'--not in a fair fight by the regular Opposition,--it's better to wait and see.

"Here we are going to war and to bankruptcy together. The only question is, Which will be first? That infernal knave L. Nap. has done it all, and the Italians are always cheated by him through thinking that they are greater cheats than himself. But an old boatman of mine at Spezzia said, 'There are three _nations_ that would out-rogue the devil,--the Calibrese, the Corsicans, and the _Pigs_.' How the last came to their nationality I can't explain.

"You have seen notice of the Bishop of Limerick's death. I don't think he has, in one respect, left his equal behind him in the Irish Bench. He was the most thoroughly tolerant man I ever knew, and half a dozen men like him would do more to neutralise the acrimony of public feeling in Ireland than all the Acts of Parliament. His intellect was just as genial as his heart."

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Florence, _May_ 15, 1866.

"I wish I could pack myself up in the envelope that holds this and join you at breakfast in that pleasant parlour in the Old Burlington, where we laughed so much last spring; but there are good reasons for not saluting the General, beginning with the small one, 'no powder.'

"Here we are in ruin. Gold and silver are all withdrawn from circulation, and the small notes promised by the Government delayed in issue to enable a set of scoundrelly officials to sell the reserve gold at 10 per cent and silver at 12. The banks will not discount, nor will they advance (the latter of most moment to _me_), and we are in all the pains of bankruptcy without that protection which a prison affords against dunning.

"I sent off 'Sir B.' proof to-day to W. B. I am sincerely glad you like it.

"I make no way towards strength or spirits. I believe with _me_ they mean the same thing.

"If we have no war, we shall have a revolution here. All the good powder will not be wasted!"

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Villa Morelli, Florence, _June_ 11,1866.

"Is it ignorant or wilful stupidity in the English papers that ignores the part L. Nap. is playing in the foreign imbroglio? It is one or the other. The whole machinery is his; and the very hot enthusiasm we see here was first excited by P. Napoleon's visit and the encouragement the 'Reds' got from him.

"If Elliot were worth a sou, England would have been able to avert the war. There was one moment in which Austria would have listened, _if only warned of the treachery_ planned against her. Hudson would have been the man here.

"Don't send me any bill or cheque, for we are deluged with paper money here, and are obliged to pay from 5 to 8 per cent to change large notes into small. Even the 100-f. note costs this. I must try and get money out in gold (Naps., not sovereigns) through F. O. Any of the messengers will take it. Could you find out for me if it would be more profitable to buy Naps, in London, or change notes or sovereigns for them in Paris?

Already this new form of robbery is half ruining us all here.

"I have been living on loans from my wife for six months, and she has at last stopped the supplies, though I have willingly offered to raise the rate of interest. Perhaps she suspects I shall not be able to raise the wind."