Charles Lever, His Life in His Letters, Vol. II

Charles James Lever

Charles Lever, His Life in His Letters, Vol. II

XIV. FLORENCE AND SPEZZIA 1864

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Casa Capponi, Florence, Jan. 2,1863 [? 1864].

“I am not sure – so much has your criticism on ‘Tony’ weighed with me, and so far have I welded his fortunes by your counsel – that you’ll not have to own it one of these days as your own, and write ‘T. B. by J. B.’ in the title. In sober English, I am greatly obliged for all the interest you take in the story, – an interest which I insist on believing includes me fully as much as the Magazine. For this reason it is that I now send you another instalment, so that if change or suppression be needed, there will be ample time for either.

“Whenever Lytton says anything of the story let me have it. Though his counsels are often above me, they are always valuable. You will have received O’D. before this, and if you like it, I suppose the proof will be on the way to me. As to the present envoy of ‘Tony,’ if you think that an additional chapter would be of advantage to the part for March, take chapters xxv. and xxvi. too if you wish, for I now feel getting up to my work again, though the ague still keeps its hold on me and makes my alternate days very shaky ones.

“I am sorry to say that, grim as I look in marble, I am more stern and more worn in the flesh. I thought a few days ago that it was nearly up, and I wrote my epitaph —

“For fifty odd years I lived in the thick of it,And now I lie here heartily sick of it.

“Poor Thackeray! I cannot say how I was shocked at his death. He wrote his ‘Irish Sketch-Book,’ which he dedicated to me, in my old house at Templeogue, and it is with a heavy heart I think of all our long evenings together, – mingling our plans for the future with many a jest and many a story.

“He was fortunate, however, to go down in the full blaze of his genius – as so few do. The fate of most is to go on pouring water on the lees, that people at last come to suspect they never got honest liquor from the tap at all.

“I got a strange proposal t’other day from America, from The New York Institute, to go out and give lectures or readings there. As regards money it was flattering enough, but putting aside all questions as to my ability to do what I have never tried, there is in America an Irish element that would certainly assail me, and so I said ‘No.’ The possibility of doing the thing somewhere has now occurred to me. Would they listen to me in Edinburgh, think you? I own to you frankly I don’t like the thought, – it is not in any way congenial to ma Ma che voleté? I’d do it, as I wear a shabby coat and drink a small claret, though I’d like broadcloth and Bordeaux as well as my neighbours. Give me your opinion on this. I have not spoken of it to any others.

“My very best wishes for you and all yours in the year to come.”

To Mr William Blackwood.

“Casa Capponi, Florence, Jan. 11, 1864.

“I thank you sincerely for your kind note, and all the hopeful things you say of T. B. I am not in the least ashamed to say how easily elated I feel by encouragement of this sort, any more than I am to own how greatly benefited I have been by your uncle’s criticisms.

“I also send O’D. The next thing I mean to do after I return from Spezzia, where I go to-day, will be a short O’D. for March, and by that time I think it not improbable we shall be in the midst of great events here to record.

“Tell your uncle to cut out my Scotch ad lib. All my recollections of the dialect date from nigh thirty years ago in the N. of Ireland.

“Believe me with what pleasure I make your acquaintance, and with every good wish of the good season,” &c.

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Casa Capponi, Florence, Jan. 22.

“I was right glad to get your letter, and gladder to find the ‘Tony’ No. 7 pleased you. You know so much of that strange beast the public, which for so many a year I have only known by report, that when you tell me the thing will do I gain fresh courage; and what between real calamities and the small rubs of life administered to me of late years in a severer shape than I ever felt before, I do need courage.

“Most men who had written so long and so much as I have done would have become thick-hided, but if I am so, it is only to attack – aggressive attack. To anything like reproof, remonstrance, or appeal, I am more open than I ever was in my earlier days, not merely because with greater knowledge of my own shortcomings I feel how much I need it, but that the amount of interest it implies, the sympathy for which it vouches, warms my heart, and gives me renewed vigour and the wish and the hope to do better.

“Now I only inflict all this egotism upon you the better to thank you for your kind counsels; in fact, I am disclosing the depth of my wound to show my gratitude to my doctor who is curing it.

“Proof has not yet reached me, and I therefore cannot justify, by any plausibility in the context, how the night was so fine for Alice and the morning so severe for Tony.1

“You are right. I feel it more strongly since you said it that Tony has a long way to go. Hope he is worthy of Alice; but is he in this respect any worse than his neighbours? I don’t believe any man was worth the woman that inspired a real passion, and he only became approximately so by dint of loving her. And so if T. B. does ever turn out a good fellow it is Alice has done it, and not yours very faithfully.

“My thanks for your cheque, which came all safe. I thought O’D. had better be anecdotic and gossipy at first, but when I send you the batch (which I will in a day or two), tell me if something more didactic ought to come into preachment.”

To Mr John Blackwood

“Casa Capponi, Florence, Jan. 22, 1864.

“I send you herewith a piece of O’Dowderie, and if it be too light – I don’t suspect that’s its fault – I’ll weight it; and if it be too doughy, I’ll put more barm in it; and, last of all, if you don’t like it, I’ll burn it.

“What in the name of all good manners does Lord Russell mean by writing impertinences to all Europe? He is like an old Irish beggar well known in Dublin who sat in a bowl and kicked all round him. As to fighting for the Danes, it is sheer nonsense. They haven’t a fragment of a case, and we should not enjoy Mr Pickwick’s poor… consolation of shouting with the largest mob.

“The Italians are less warlike than a month ago. The ‘Men of Action’ – as the party call themselves who write in the newspapers but never take the field – declare that they are only waiting for the signal of ‘Kossuth’ from Hungary; but the fate of the Poles – who do fight and are brave soldiers – is a terrible a fortiori lesson to these people here, and I suspect they are imbibing it.

“I got a long letter yesterday from Lord Malmesbury and the criticism of Kinglake’s history. Why they don’t like it I cannot imagine. I believe he has hit the exact measure of the Emperor’s capacity, courage, and character altogether, and I go with him in everything.”

To Dr Burbidge.

“Florence, Feb. 11, 1864.

“It seems to be leaking out that both Pam and Russell have been what the sporting men call ‘squared’ by the Queen, who would not hear of a war with Germany. The Court plays very often a more prominent part in foreign politics than the nation wots of, and certainly the Prince during the Crimean war maintained close correspondence with persons in the confidence of the R. Emperor, – not treasonably, of course, but in such a way as to require great watchfulness on the part of our Ministers. This I know. There is, in fact, the game of kings as well as of nations, and the issue not always identical.

“Our glorious weather has come back, though we hear it has been severe along the coast, and snow has actually fallen in some places.

“To-day I am to have a consultation about my wife with an Edinburgh professor of note who is passing through to Rome. The opportunity was not to be lost, though the bare proposal has made her very nervous.

“My proofs – my proofs – are lost! gone Heaven knows where! – and here I sit lamenting, and certainly doing nothing else. I cannot take up the end of an unknown thread, and if I did go on, it would be to make Luttrell in love with Dolly Stuart.

“Only fancy my sitting for nigh an hour last night where a man [? retailed] the story of ‘T. Butler,’ which he had been reading in ‘Blackwood’!”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Casa Capponi, Feb. 13,1864.

“No proof. I must have made a fiasco of it in writing to C. & H. to release the proof detained in London, and which they will now discover to be ‘Tony’! Into what scrapes flunkeys, messengers, et hoc genus, do betray us. I have offended more people in life by the awkwardness of my servants than I have done by all my proper shortcomings, which have not been few. I send you two chapters for the May number, which I intend, however, to be longer by another chapter if you desire it.

“I have been casting my eyes over the ‘Athelings’ in the 3-vol. form. Is that the length you wish for ‘Tony Butler’? I never like being long-winded, but I am, after all my experiences, a precious bad judge of the time one ought to begin to ‘pucker up the end of the stocking.’ Advise me, therefore, on this, as on all else, about ‘Tony.’

“The cold weather has all but done for me, and set my ‘shaking’ fearfully at work. The post is now two days en retard here, and I have great misgivings about all Italian management of everything save roguery.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Florence, Feb. 19.

“The proofs arrived to-day under the envelope that I forward. On learning from the post office in London that a proof of mine was detained there, I immediately surmised it must be one of my serial story ‘Luttrell,’ and enclosed the reference to C. & H. to release it. Now I find that it is ‘Tony’ and O’D. Consequently I am in terror lest our secret be out and all our hitherto care defeated by this maladetto messenger who ‘crimped the tuppence.’ I want you therefore to assure me, if you can assure me, that C. & Hall’s people, when sent to St Martin’s le Grand to release the proof, had no power to open and examine it, nor any privilege to carry it away with them out of the office. If this be the case, of course there is no mischief done, and I am quitte pour la peur; but pray do tell me the regulation on the subject, and for Heaven’s sake and Tony’s sake, water that man’s grog who posted the packet originally, or tell me his name, and I’ll call my next villain by it, if I have to write another story.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Casa Capponi, Florence, Feb. 25, 1864.

“It is quite true, as you surmised; claims and demands of all sorts have been presented to me, and in my deeper and heavier cares there have mixed vexations and worries all the more bitter that to remedy them was no longer to build up a hope.

“My only anxiety about the missing proof was that it might lead to the discovery of our secret as to the authorship of ‘Tony.’ You have by your present letter allayed this fear, and I am easy.

“I await the proof, and what you say of it, to see if the last portion of ‘Tony’ will do. I own I thought better of it in writing than it perhaps deserves on reading.

“You must tell me, however, what number of sheets you think 3 vols, ought to be, for I want to make the craft as ship-shape as I am able.

“Be assured of one thing: I never for many a year felt more anxious for success, and the anxiety is only half selfish, if so much.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Casa Capponi, Florence, Feb. 25, 1864.

“In the O’D. I now send, the order should be: (1) Law, (2) Organ, (3) Chevalier d’Industrie. The last is a sketch of a notorious (Continentally) Robert Napoleon Flynn, made Chief-Justice of Tobago by Lord Normanby in ‘36 or ‘37, the appointment being rescinded before he could go out. It was Grant who met him at Padua last week.

“I am terribly shaky and shaken. I hope I’ll be able to finish ‘Tony’ before I go, but sometimes I think it will have to figure as a fragment. My headaches seldom leave me, and for the first time in my life I have become a bad sleeper.

“Let me have a proof of T. B. as soon as you can conveniently, for I want to get off to Spezzia and see what change of air and no pen-and-ink will do for me.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Casa Capponi, Florence, Feb.

“I have just got back from Spezzia, and found your pleasant note but no proof. It will probably arrive to-morrow. Of course it was right to tell Aytoun. I am the gladder of it, as perhaps I may get the benefit of his advice occasionally. Tell him what a hearty admirer he has in me, and with what pleasure I’d make his acquaintance. His glorious Lays are immense favourites of mine, and it is time I should thank you for the magnificent copy of them they sent me.

“Grant – Speke’s Grant – drank tea with me a few nights back. I like him much; he is about the most modest traveller I ever met with. If an Irishman had done the half of his exploits he would not be endurable for ten years afterwards.

“I see Le Fanu has completed in the D. U. M. his clever story ‘Wylder’s Hand,’ making his 3-vol. novel out of fifteen magazine sheets. As I suppose your pages are about the same as the Dub., tell me what you think our length ought to be.

“Why don’t you throw your eyes over – not read, I don’t ask that – ‘Luttrell,’ and tell me what you think of it? I am so fearfully nervous of having got to the lees of the cask, that I have a nervous impatience to know what people think of the liquor.”

To Dr Burbidge.

“Florence, March 2, 1864.

“I got yesterday an F. O. declaring that Lord R. did not opine that we came within the provisions of chap. &c, and Act so-and-so Elizabeth, and therefore declined to accord us the assistance we had asked for. Thereupon I wrote an urgent and pressing letter to Napier, stating that I found myself so pledged by his assurances to my Church colleagues, that I begged he would immediately report to me what progress our application had made, in order that I might communicate it to our C. committee. I hope for a speedy reply.

“I have half a hope that the Whigs are falling. Pam’s State declarations about Denmark ought to overthrow any Administration. Even Gladstone, so able in subterfuge, was not equal to the task assigned him of showing Black to be very frequently, but not naturally, White.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Casa Capponi, Florence, March 3,1864

“I only write one line to acknowledge and thank you for your cheque, which has just reached me. I have not looked at pen-and-ink for the past week, but I am on the road to get stronger. I always feel, in taking port wine (a hard thing to get here) for my ague, as if I were using crown pieces to repair the coppering of a shattered old craft. Better-keep the money and let the worthless boat go to – I won’t say the devil, lest there come a confusion in my figure of speech.

“Of course ‘Tony’ is the main thing. In O’D. I am only like the retired Cat Princess, who merely caught mice for her amusement. I’ll read the L. N. article with attention. Is Laurence Oliphant, par hazard, the author? He is a charming fellow, and I like him greatly, but I’d not think him a safe guide politically.

“I like Grant much, and have been at him to write some camp-life sketches on Africa. The Yankees here want him to go over to America and lecture, but he is far too modest to stand scrutiny from opera-glasses.”

To Dr Burbidge.

“Casa Capponi, Florence, March 4,1864.

“I had hoped to have got a line from you either last night or the night before about your flunkey; so I am unable to wait longer, and must take one of the creatures that offers here. Indeed, making the one who remains do all the work has installed him into a position of such insolent tyranny, it will take a month at least to reduce him to his proper proportions.

“Some disaster has befallen my No. of ‘Luttrell’ for April, No. 5, and I can hear nothing of it. The proof and added part were sent from this, by me, four weeks ago, and after that…

“I have not written for the last eight or ten days, but I am getting all right, and take long walks every day, looking at villas, of which there are scores, but scarcely a habitable one, at least as a permanent abode, to be found.

“There is not one word of news beyond the arming of the French fleet. I find that many Mazzinists here believe that Mazzini was really engaged in the late plot; but I can neither believe the plot nor that he was in it. I look upon it as a very clumsy police trick throughout.

“My wife makes no advance towards health, – a day back and a day forward is the history of her life; but everything shows me that to undertake a journey to Spezzia without feeling that I had a comfortable place for her when there, and that she could remain without another change back in winter, would be a fatal mistake.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Casa Capponi, March 8,1864.

“The whole story of R N. F. (Robert Napoleon Flynn, his real name) is an unexaggerated fact, and I have only culled a very few of the traits known to me, and not given, as perhaps I ought, a rather droll scene I had with him myself at Spezzia. The man was originally a barrister, and actually appointed Chief-Justice of Tobago by Lord Normanby, and as such presented to the Queen at the Levée. The appointment was rescinded, however, and the fellow sent adrift.

“I have met a large number of these fellows of every nation, but never one with the same versatility as this, nor with the same hearty enjoyment of his own rascality. Dickens never read over a successful proof with one-half the zest Flynn has felt when sending off – as I have known him to do – a quizzing letter to a Police Prefect from whose clutches he had just escaped by crossing a frontier. He is, in fact, the grand artiste, and he feels it.

“I am glad you like ‘O’Dowd’: first of all, they are the sort of things I can do best. I have seen a great deal of life, and have a tolerably good memory for strange and out-of-the-way people, and I am sure such sketches are far more my ‘speciality’ than story-writing.

“I assure you your cheery notes do me more service than my sulph. – quinine, and I have so much of my old schoolboy blood in me that I do my tasks better with praise than after a caning.

“Your sketch of the French Legitimist amused me much. The insolence of these rascals is the fine thing about them, as t’other day I heard one of our own amongst them (the uncle of a peer, and a great name too) reply, when I found him playing billiards at the club and asked him how he was getting on: ‘Badly, Lever, badly, or you wouldn’t find me playing half-crown pool with three snobs that I’d not have condescended to know ten years ago.’ And this the three snobs had to listen to!

“I am far from sure Grant was not ‘done’ by Flynn. But t’other night Labouchere (Lord Taunton’s nephew and heir, who is the L. of the story) met Grant here, and we all pressed G. to confess he had been ‘walked into,’ but he only grew red and confused, and as we had laughed so much at F.‘s victims, he would not own to having been of the number.

“The Napoleon paper is very good, and perhaps not exaggerated. It is the best sketch of the campaign I ever read, and only wants a further allusion to the intentions of the 4th corps under Prince Napoleon to be a perfect history of the event.

“‘Schleswig-Holstein’ admirable. I am proud of my company and au raison.”

To Dr Burbidge.

“Casa Capponi, Wednesday, March 1864.

“I thank you sincerely for the trouble you have had about my proof: honestly, I only wanted a criticism, but I forgot you had not seen the last previous part. As to what is to come, you know, I am sorry to say it, just as much as I do.

“‘Luttrell’ No. 5, that is for next month, has been in part lost, and I am in a fearful hobble about it, – that is, I must re-write, without any recollection of where, what, or how.

“My poor wife has been seriously, very seriously, attacked. Last night Julia was obliged to stay up with her, and to-day, though easier, she is not materially better. I write in great haste, as I have only got up, and it is nigh one o’clock, and the post closes early.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Casa Capponi, Florence, March 18, 1864.

“B. L.‘s criticism on T. B. amused me greatly. Did you never hear of the elder who waited on Chief-Justice Holt to say, ‘The Lord hath sent me to thee to say that thou must stop that prosecution that is now going on against me,’ and Holt replied, ‘Thou art wrong, my friend; the Lord never sent thee on such an errand, for He well knoweth it is not I, but the Attorney-General, that can enter a nolle prosequi.’ But B[ulwer] L[ytton]’s fine pedantry beats the Chief-Justice hollow, with this advantage that he is wrong besides. Nothing is more common than for Ministers to ‘swap’ patronage. It was done in my own case, and to my sorrow, for I refused a good thing from one and took a d – d bad one from another. Au reste, he is all right both as to O’D. and Maitland. O’D. ought to be broader and wider. I have an idea that with a few illustrations it would make a very readable sort of gossiping book. I am not quite clear how far reminiscences and bygones come in well in such a mélange. After all, it is only a hash at best, and one must reckon on it that the meat has been cooked already. What do you say? I have some Irish recollections of noticeable men like Bushe, Lord Guillamore, Plunkett, &c., too good to be lost, but perhaps only available as apropos to something passing.

“I have thought of some of these as subjects: Good Talkers —Le Sport Abroad – Diplomacy – Demi-monde Influences – Whist – Irish Justice – Home as the Bon Marché of Europe – Travelled Americans – Plan of a new Cookery Book (with a quiz on Charters, your book), showing what to eat every month of the year. These I scratch down at random, for I can’t write just yet: I have got gout vice ague retired, and my knuckle is as big as a walnut.

“I hope you have received T. B. before this. I am very sorry the conspirator chapter of T. B. does not appear this month, when the question of Stanfield is before the public, but I think O’Dowd might well touch on the question of the politicians of the knife. Give me your counsel about all these. B. L.‘s remark that Maitland belonged to twenty or thirty years ago is perfectly just, and very acute too; but, unfortunately, so do I too. Do you remember old Lord Sefton’s reply when the Bishop of Lincoln tried to repress him one day at dinner from entering upon old college recollections by saying, ‘Oh, my lord, the devil was strong in us in those days’? ‘I wish he was strong in me now, my Lord Bishop!’ I am afraid I am something of his mind.”

To Mr John Blackwood.

“Casa Capponi, Florence, March 20, 1864.

“As it is likely I shall start to-morrow for Spezzia to give them a touch of my ‘consular quality,’ I send you a line to thank you for your kind note, and with it a portion (all I have yet done) of the next ‘O’Dowd.’ I shall, however, meditate as I go, and perhaps the Providence who supplies oddities to penny-a-liners may help me to one in the train.

“I thank you heartily for the offer of a mount, but I have grown marvellously heavy, in more ways than one, this last year or two; and the phrase of my daughter when ordering my horse to be saddled may illustrate the fact, as she said, ‘Put the howdah on papa’s elephant.’

“Don’t fancy the Italians are not athletes. All the great performers of feats of strength come from Italy. Belzoni the traveller was one. They have a game here called Paettone, played with a ball as large as a child’s head and flung to an incredible distance, which combines strength, skill, and agility. Then as to swimming, I can only say that I and my two eldest daughters can cross Spezzia – the width is three miles, – and yet we are beaten hollow every season by Italians. They swim in a peculiar way, turning from side to side and using the arms alternately; and when there is anything of a sea they never top the waves, but shoot through them, which gives immense speed, but it is a process I never could master. We had a swim last year with old General Menegaldo, who swam the Lido with Byron: he is now eighty-four years old, and he swam a good mile along with us. I intend, if I can throw off my gout, to have a day or two in the blue water next week, though I suspect in your regions the idea would suggest a shiver. The weather is fine here now – in fact, too hot for many people.”