Charles Lever, His Life in His Letters Volume Ii Part 38

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Trieste, _Oct_. 27, 1869.

"I send you I think a smart O'Dowd 'On the Misery of Singing without an Accompaniment' (or rather, speaking without a brogue). I'm terribly hipped: I wish to G.o.d I could get out of this! If nothing else offers, perhaps I could get Elizabeth Barry to steal me: I'd make no objection to her cutting off my curls, and as to my clothes, I'll be shot if she could change them for worse."

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Trieste, _Nov_. 9, 1869.

"I have detained these proofs that I might hear from you; but the snow has begun to make the pa.s.ses difficult for the post, and I think it better to despatch them. I hope you'll think them good. There was a slaughter of the innocents last month--that is, if they ever reached you.

"If my poor wife had not been so dreadfully ill I believe I'd have managed a trip to Suez. I had a pressing invitation, and it would have been exciting enough for the mere strange gathering it brought about, but my home anxieties are thickening every hour.

"You know we are in trouble here in Dalmatia. So far back as July I warned Lord Bloomfield that there was mischief brewing, and that Montenegro was preparing for an outbreak. Of course I never supposed that a consular report would carry weight, but I wrote in a light jocular strain that I thought might be attended to. The reply was: 'I showed Beust your note, and he thinks you have been humbugged.' Now I have the satisfaction of seeing B. make a very humble _amende_, admitting that I knew more of what was menaced than his agent at Cattaro.

"Still the Austrians believe, or affect to believe, that Russia is not in it; nor is she more than certain American politicians are in Fenianism--that is, they want to see the chances of success before they go farther. I hear that Gladstone has got a fright about Ireland, and that his Land Bill will be 'Moderate and even Conservative'--in fact, he begins to feel that dealing with Ireland means 'concession,' and when you have given all you have, you've to make way for somebody else who'll give something more. Bright is very much disgusted at the moderation of the measure intended, and the Cabinet, I hear, not one-minded.

"All these things, however, open no prospect for a Tory Government, and out of pure fear of what Gladstone would do, _if pushed to it_, the squires will vote for him rather than risk--not their seats, but their acres.

"The indifference foreign statesmen feel about England, and what she thinks on anything now, exceeds belief. I declare to you I believe Holland has as much weight in Europe.

"Would you like something about Suez?--I mean, about the trade prospects, &c,--that is, if anything could be had new or striking. Up to this the only speculation I have seen worth anything is how greatly to our benefit the route would be if we had a war with America, for we could certainly 'make the police' of the Mediterranean and Levant, though not of the Atlantic and Pacific."

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Trieste, _Nov_. 29, 1869.

"I am still confined to the house with a feverish cold, and overrun by travellers to and from Suez.

"The Dalmatian revolt is becoming a very serious affair. The peasants are beating the troops, and now the season must stop all operations till spring. Whether by that time the complication will not take wider limits and embrace Servia and the Balkans, is not easy to see. That blessed ally of ours, Louis Napoleon, is now intriguing to get a Russian alliance and undo all the work of the Crimean campaign, and of course our 'Non-interference Policy' will leave the coast free to him! Thank G.o.d, his home troubles may overtake him before he goes much farther!"

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Trieste, _Dec_. 11, 1869.

"Thanks for your note and its enclosure, and thanks, too, for telling me that the deferred O'Ds. are not rejected ones, for I was getting low-spirited at the number of recruits sent back as below the standard.

When I asked you to send me the unused, it was a painful confession. It was like a manufacturer owning to his being reduced to work up his old material. Perhaps I shall one of these days make an O'Dowd on 'Devil's Dust in Literature.' What do you think of it?

"I hope you will like the 'O'Dowd' I send. It is meant to expose a very common blunder respecting the influences of the better cla.s.ses abroad.

You must ensure the correction yourself, and it will be the last I shall forward this month. For the last week I have been keeping a dark room with a severe ophthalmia. It was a dreary time, and I am glad it is over.

"Gladstone is going to propose a sort of Court of Arbitration for land purposes--that is, another body of men to be shot at when the peasants find landlords scarce, or what the sportsmen call 'wild.'

"This Dalmatian revolt must sleep during the winter, but it will be a serious mischief yet, especially if this Franco-Russian alliance takes place. Our policy now ought to be to reconcile Austria and Prussia at once, and prepare for the big struggle that is coming to undo the results of the Crimean War. I wish, if it be decided to represent England abroad by old _women_, that at least they would send us old _ladies_."

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Trieste, _Dec_. 14, 1860.

"I hope for both our sakes you are not quite just about the 'Pope' O'D.

I think it has a smack of Swift--a very faint one it may be, but still enough to recall the flavour. The anecdote of the Yankee was not made for the occasion, only it occurred to Sir J. Hudson, and not to O'Dowd.

Take them all in all, I have done better and worse; but I think with those you have already on hand, they will make a fair batch.

"I hope you will like the 'Dr Temple' O'D. It, at least, is worked out.

"I am very poorly, and very low in spirits; my wife grows weaker every day, and our anxieties are great. For the first time in my life I find it a 'grind' to write a few lines. _Le commencement du fin_, maybe--who knows?"

XX. TRIESTE 1870

_To Mr John Blackwood_.

"Trieste, _Jan_. 4,1870.

"When I saw 'Maga' without me I began to feel as if I had died (hitherto at Trieste I only believed I had been buried), and when your cheque reached me this morning I pictured myself as my own executor! You are most kind to bethink you of the necessities of this pleasant season,--indeed I scarcely know anything of Christmas but its bills I Still, I should be well content to have nothing heavier on my heart than money cares, and I believe that is about as dreary a confession as a man can well make.

"I am sorry to hear you have not been well, but I trust it is a thing of the past already: I don't think either of us would be what is called a good patient. I like the Homer Odyssey (?) greatly. I suspect I guess the writer--that is, from a mere accident. 'Suez' is excellent, and Stanley's opinion is that of the best German engineers also. Aren't you flattering to my Lord of Knebworth? It was not, however, a 'good fairy'

gave him a wife.

"Sydney sends her love. She is going over to England in spring (at least she says so, and I suppose I am bound to believe it) to pay that Devonshire visit I interrupted last year."

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Trieste, _Feb_. 3,1870.

"In Stanley's clever article on 'Suez' for January there is a sketch of an Italian travelling companion so like a portrait that we all here fancy we recognise the man. It is the same who addresses the Empress Eugenie so brusquely. If we be right, he is an old acquaintance of ours called 'Campereo.' Pray, if occasion serve, ask if this be the man. It is wonderfully like him at all events, and I could almost bet on it.

"I have been hoping to hear from you, and delaying to tell you--what for me is a rare event--a piece of pleasant news. Sydney is about to be married. The _sposo_, an Englishman, young, well educated, well-mannered, and well off; he is the great millowner, paper manufacturer, and shipbuilder of Austria, and has about 7000 a-year.

"I need not say it is a great match for a poor 'tocherless la.s.s,' but I can say that the man's character and reputation would make him acceptable if he had only 500 a-year.

"To myself, overborne and distressed by the thought of how little I had done for my children, and how wastefully and foolishly I had lived,--spending my means pretty much as I did my brains, in bursts of spendthrift extravagance, and leaving myself in both cases with nothing to fall back on,--it is a relief unspeakable that one of my poor girls at least is beyond the straits of penury.

"I know that you and Mrs Blackwood have a warm and kindly feeling towards us, and you will be glad to hear of such good fortune. I do not know that the excitement has been very favourable to my poor wife, who can only look as yet to the one feature--that is, that she loses a child's companionship; but I trust that in time she will see with me that the event is one to be truly thankful for.