Charles Lever, His Life in His Letters Volume Ii Part 26

"I have conceived a new story which may, I think, turn out well. I do not wish to do it hurriedly, but if you think it would suit you by the opening of the New Year, I will go on to shape and mould it in my head, and when in a state to do so, send you some pages.

"I can afford to be frank with you, for I think you wish me well. I believe there is some thought of giving me advancement, but even if it come, it will not suffice for my wants, and I must write (at all events) _one more novel_. I trust you understand me well enough to know that I am not pressing my wares on you, because _I_ want to dispose of them, or that if it be your wish or your convenience to say 'No' that it will alter anything in our friends.h.i.+p. You will bear this well in mind in giving me your reply.

"I don't believe I shall do better than 'Sir Brook.' I don't think it is _in_ me, but I will try to do as well, and certainly if it is for _you_, I will not do my work less vigorously nor with less heart in it. There is certainly plenty of time to think of all this, but I _think_ better and more purposely when the future is, to a certain degree, a.s.sured, and my new story will get a stronger hold on me if I know that you too are interested in its welfare."

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Florence, _Oct_. 7, 1866.

"My best thanks for your note and its enclosure. They only reached me last night, though dated 30th, but the mails go by G.o.d knows what route now, as the inundations have completely cut the Mont Cenis line. I send off the Nov. 'Sir B.' to-night. There are two or three small corrections which had escaped me. I think if the book be largely known it may succeed. I hope 'The Times' may notice it--is this likely? I shall ask for some copies for a few friends, and my own can be addressed to me under cover to F. Alston, Esq., F. O. My eldest daughter, who went carefully over the corrections, says I have done nothing as good. By the way, I have not gone over Sept. and Oct. Nos. See that Sewell is never Walter, always _duelling_, and look well to any other lapses.

"I am all wrong in health, and depressed most d.a.m.nably. I go down to Spezzia to have a swim or two to try to rally, and I shall take the O'Ds.

with me for correction.

"I suspect Perry will not give up Venice, but your friends are asking L.

Stanley to give me Havre, which _is_ vacant. How kind of you to offer to write to him. I don't like putting you to the bore, but if you come personally in his way, say what you can, or think you can, for me. Havre is worth 700 a-year, and would solace my declining years and decaying faculties. Paralysis is the last luxury of poor devils like myself, but I really can't afford it.

"So Lyons goes Amba.s.sador to Paris. I know him well, and his capacity is about that of a small village doctor. The devil of it is, in English diplomacy the two or three men of ability are such arrant scamps and blackguards, they can't be employed, and the honest men are dull as ditch-water. There is no denying it, and I don't say it because I am dyspeptic,--but we have arrived at Fogeydom in England, and the highest excellence that the nation wants or estimates is a solemn and stolid 'respectability' that shocks n.o.body with anything new or original, and spoils no digestion by any sudden or unexpected brilliancy.

"The Ionian knight is here with me, full of grander projects than ever Skeff Darner dreamed of. He asked me yesterday if that character had any prototype."

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Croce di Malta, Spezzia, _Oct_. 9,1866.

"I have been here some days swimming and boating, and the sea and sea-air have done wonders for me, making me feel more like a live man than I have known myself these six months.

"I send you by this post the O'Ds. corrected, and herewith a few lines to finish the 'Cable' O'D., which you properly thought needed some completion.

"I go back to-morrow, and hope to find a letter from you. Though I am totally alone here, and have n.o.body above my boatman to talk to, I leave this with some regret. The beauty of the place and the vigour it gives me are unspeakable enjoyments. It is like a dream of being twenty years younger."

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Villa Morelli, _Oct_. 22, 1866.

"I am very grateful for your note on my behalf. You said just the sort of thing that would be likely to serve me, and will, I have no doubt, serve me if opportunity offers. Lord S. has been so besieged on my part by my friends that he will for peace sake be anxious to get rid of me.

The difficulty is, however, considerable. The whole Consular service is a beggarly concern, and the only thing reconcilable about it is when there is, as in my own case, nothing to do.

"The Party were much blamed--and, I suspect, deservedly--for the way in which they are distributing their patronage. It was but last week Havre, with a thousand a-year (consular salary), was given to Bernai Osborne's brother! and two of the private sees, of Cabinet Ministers held office as such under the late Administration. These are blunders, and blunders that not alone alienate friends but confuse councils, since no one pretends to say that these men maintain a strict silence amongst their own party of what they hear and see in their official lives."

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Villa Morelli, _Nov_. 8,1866.

"You say nothing about the serial, so I conclude your plans are made; but what say you to taking my story to begin your _July volume?_ _That_ interval would perhaps take off the air of sameness you seem to apprehend, and it would in so far suit me that I could rest a little just now, which is perhaps the best thing I could do. Say if this will suit you.

"I was greatly tempted to go to Venice, so many of my friends went; but I was too low in many ways, and so resisted all offers.

"Send me some money. The Florence tradesmen, in their religious fervour, antic.i.p.ate Xmas by sending in their bills before December, and in this way they keep me blaspheming all Advent.

"I hope to hear some good news of 'Sir Brook,'--if, that is to say, good news has not cut with me, which I half begin to suspect.

"What do you say to the Pope's allocution? It appears to me _son dernier mot_. By the way, why did your political article last month p.r.o.nounce so positively against any Reform Bill, when it is quite certain the Government will try one? Would not the best tactic of party be now to declare that the only possible reform measure could come from the Tories? that, representing, as they do, the nation more broadly as well as more unchangeably, their bill would be more likely to settle the question for a longer term of years than any measure conceived in the spirit of mere party,--and I would like to show that it is the spirit of party, of even factious party, that is animating the Whigs.

"Universal suffrage in Australia has proved an eminently Conservative measure. What we have to bear most in England is not _great_ change so much as _sudden_ change. We can conform to anything, but we need time to suit ourselves to the task.

"I suspect that the moderate Whigs have no intention of joining the Conservatives. There is, first of all, the same disgrace attaching to a change of seat in the House as in a change of religion. n.o.body hesitates to think that a convert must be either a knave or a fool; and, secondly, the Whigs do not apprehend danger as _we_ do: they do not think Democracy either so near or so perilous. Which of us is right, G.o.d knows! For my own part, perhaps my stomach has something to say to it.

I believe we have turned the summit of the hill, and are on our way downward as fast as may be.

"America is wonderfully interesting just now. It is a great problem at issue, and never was popular government submitted to so severe a test.

If Johnson goes on and determines to beard the Radicals, he will be driven to get up a row with England to obtain an army. They will vote troops readily enough for _that,--reste a savoir_ against whom he will employ them.

"I am glad to see Lord Stanley appointing a Commission to consider the Yankee claims. There is nothing so really good in parliamentary government as the simple fact that a new Cabinet may undo the very policy they once approved of, and thus the changeful fortunes of the world may be used to profit, instead of accepted as hopeless calamities."

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Villa Morelli, _Nov_. 16,1866

"I would have delayed these proofs another day in the hope of hearing from you, as I am so anxious to do, but that the Queen's Messenger leaves this evening for England, and I desire to catch him as my postman.

"I send you an O'D. on the Pope, and, curiously enough, since I wrote it I have found that Lord Derby's instructions to Odo Russell are in conformity with the line I take, being to make the Pope stay where he is.

"We were to have had great Department changes, but they are all _tombees dans Veau_, at least for the present. Lyons was to have gone to Paris _vice_ Cowley, and Hudson come back here, but the Queen will not permit the Princess of Wales, on her visit to the Exhibition, to go to a bachelor's house! L. Lyons has no wife. Why they don't send him an order through F. O. to marry immediately I don't know, but I can swear if the command came from the head of a department he'd have obeyed before the week was over."

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Villa Morelli, Dec 16,1866.

"I return the proof, which by our blundering post office only reached me last night. I have added a short bit to the Pope, and also the Fenians.

I'm sure you will agree with me as to Ireland; what we want is something like a continuous policy--something that men will be satisfied to see being carried out with the a.s.surance that it will not be either discouraged or abandoned by a change of Government. We want, in fact, that Ireland should be administered for Ireland, and not for the especial gain or loss of party.

"My wife is a little better, and was up for a few hours yesterday. I suppose there is not much the matter with myself beyond some depression and a little want of appet.i.te, but I know I'm not right, for I feel no enjoyment in whist.

"It is d------d hard that 'Fossbrooke' has been so little noticed. 'Pall Mall' and 'Athenaeum' are very civil, and my private 'advices' say I have done nothing equal to it. I know I am pretty sure never to do so again. If I had had time, I would have liked to have written a long paper on Ireland and its evils. I believe I have lived long enough _in_ Ireland to know something of the country, and long enough _out_ of it to have shaken off the prejudice and narrowness that attach to men who live at home--and I suspect I am a 'wet' Tory in much that regards Ireland, though not the least of a Whig in this or anything else. My O'D. will, however, serve as a pilot balloon, and if it go up freely we can follow in the same direction.

"If you see any notices, I am perfectly indifferent if civil or the reverse, of 'Sir B.' send them to me, and tell if you hear of any criticism from any noticeable quarter.