_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Villa Morelli, Florence, _Jan_. 6, 1866.
“I have just got your kind letter. I thank you for it heartily. The
second instalment of ‘Tony’ and the ‘O’Dowd’ [paper] will be time enough
in March.
“I am walking over the hills every day getting up my new tale; I truly
think I have got on a good track.
“I’ll send you a couple of short O’Ds. for February. When Parliament
meets we shall not want for matter.
“I send one now on ‘Tuft-hunting.’ You will see I had Whately in my head
while I was doing it.
“My hope and wish is to be able to begin a new story in the April No.
Will this suit your book?
“You can’t imagine how anxious I feel about ‘Tony.’ Let me hear from you
how it is subscribed? Mudie is, I think, the novel barometer; what says
he? If the book is not known as mine, all the better. At least, I have
such faith in my bad luck that I would rather any one else fathered it.
“If it were not for the cheer of your hearty letters I don’t know what I
should do, for I am low--low!”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Villa Morelli, _Jan_. 9, 1865.
“I send you herewith three O’Ds. ‘Going into Parliament’--not bad;
‘Excursionist,’ perhaps tolerable,--but both true, so help me!
“This is the 9th, and if in time to let me have a proof--well. If not, I
trust to you to see that my errors be set right and my sins forgiven me.
“One of the most curious trials--a case of disputed identity--is now
going on in Madrid. I’d like to have given it, but I fear that the daily
papers will have it, and of course we must never drink out of the same
well. O’D. must be original or he is nothing, and the originality ought
to be, if possible, in _matter_ as much as manner. Don’t you agree with
me?
“I think I have a good opening of a story,--Ireland,--to be changed,
scene ii., to Cagliari in Sardinia. It is only in my _head_, and in
company there with duns, usurers, attorneys, begging letters, and F. O.
impertinences,--my poor skull being like a pawnbroker’s shop, where a
great deal is ‘pledged’ and very little redeemable.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Villa Morelli, _Jan_. 19,1866.
“I got your note and your big cheque, and felt so lusty therewith that
I actually contradicted my landlord, and conducted myself with a
bumptiousness that half alarmed my family, unaware of the strong
stimulant I was under.
“Hech, sirs! aren’t I nervous about ‘Tony’? You made a great mistake
in not putting a name on the title. It will be ascribed to me, and
blackguarded in consequence.
“I am glad you like the O’D. on ‘Tuft-hunting.’ Of course you saw I had
Whately and his tail in my eye. They were the most shameless dogs I ever
forgathered with.
“Do let me hear from you about T. B. soon. You may depend on’t that
Corney O’Dowd’s sins will be visited on Tony, and the fellows who would
not dare to come out into the open and have a ‘fall’ with Tony will shy
their stone at him now.
“Why have you not reprinted in a vol. the ‘Maxims of Morgan O’Doherty’?
They are unequalled in their way.
“By this you will have received the O’D. on ‘Wolff going into
Parliament’ and a score more _sui generis_.
“I have composed three openings of the new story, and nearly driven my
family distracted by my changes of plan; but I am not on the right road
yet. However, I hope to be hard at it next week.
“Is the ‘P. M. Gazette’ to be the organ of the Party or is it a private
spec? When I only think of the Tories of my acquaintance it is not any
surprise to me that the Party is not a power; though I certainly feel
if they were there and not kicked out again it would go far to prove a
miracle. Are these your experiences?”
_To Mr John Blackwood_.
“Villa Morelli, _Jan_. 24, 1865.
“You are such a good fellow that you can give even bad news a colour of
comfort; but it is bad news, this of ‘Tony,’ and has caught me like a
strong blow between the eyes. Surely in this _gurgite vasto_ of [ ] and
sensuality there ought to be some hearing for a man who would give his
experiences of life uncharged with exaggerations, or unspiced by capital
offences.
“I am sure a notice of ‘The Times,’ if it could be, would get the book
a fair trial, and I neither ask nor have a right to more. Meanwhile I am
what Mrs O’Dowd calls ‘several degrees below Nero.’
“I began my new story yesterday, but I’ll wait till I hear more cheery
news before I take to my (ink) bottle again.
“You’ll have to look sharp for blunders in the last O’D.
“It almost puts me in spirits to talk of the theatricals. It is my
veritable passion, and I plume myself upon my actorship. I have had
plays in nearly every house I have lived in, in all parts of Europe.
Mary Boyle--that was Dickens’s _prima donna_--was of my training; her
infant steps (she was five-and-thirty at the time) were first led by me;
and I remember holding a ladder for her while she sang a love-song out
of a window, and (trying to study my own part at the same time) I set
fire to her petticoats!
“There are short things from the French which would do well if your
people had time to translate them. ‘Les Inconsolables,’ from two really
good artists, first-rate. I have a little Italian piece by me would also
adapt well, and it is an immense gain to have a piece perfectly new and
fresh, and when there can be no odious comparisons with Buckstone or
Keely, and the rest of them. In fact, half of our young English amateurs
are only bad Robsons and Paul Bedfords. My girls are all good actresses,
and we have--or we used to have--short scenes of our devising constantly
got up amongst us.
“Remember to send me good news, true or not, or at least any civil
‘notice’ you may see of ‘Tony,’ for till I hear again ‘the divil a word
ever I write.’
“When I read out your letter this morning, my wife said in a whisper,
‘Now he’ll be off to whist worse than ever!’ So it is; I take to the
rubber as other men do to a dram.
“Have you sent copies of T. B. to the press folk? I don’t know if Savage
has to do with ‘The Examiner,’ but he is an old pal of mine, and would
willingly give us a lift.
“I wish I had Bright’s speech in time for a quiz this month. It was a
rare occasion. A mock classic oration, for a tribune of the people, full
of gross flattery of the Plebs, would have been good fun; but [? the
opportunity] is everything, and the joke that comes late looks, at
least, as if it took labour to arrive at.
“Oh dear, but I am down! down! Write to me, I entreat you.
“Give my heartiest good wishes to the Corps Dramatique,--say that I am
with them in spirit. ‘My heart’s in the side scenes, my heart is not
here.’”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Villa Morelli, _Feb_. 4, 1865.
“I am impatient to show you a brick of the new house: first, because if
you don’t like it I’ll not go on; and secondly, if you should think well
of it, your encouragement will be a great strengthener to me, and give
me that confidence that none of my own connections ever inspire. My
womenkind like Sir F., partly perhaps because I have said something
about my ‘intentions.’ Not that I have any intentions, however, so
fixed that the course of the story may not serve to unhinge them. At all
events, _you_ are well able to predicate from a molar tooth what sort of
a beast it was that owned it, or might own it. Say your say then, and as
boldly as our interests require.
“I’d like to write you the best story in my market--that is, if I have a
market; but now and then I half feel as if I were only manufacturing out
of old wearables, like the devil’s dust folk at Manchester.
“I have no heart to talk of ‘Tony,’ because I think the book is a deal
better than what the scoundrels are daily praising, and I know there is
better ‘talk’ in it than the rascals ever did talk or listen to in the
dirty daily Covent Garden lines. There’s a burst of indignant vanity for
you, and I’m ‘better for it’ already. If ‘The Times’ had noticed us at
once, it would have given the key-note; but _patienzia_, as the Italians
say.
“Now let me have a line at your earliest about B. F., for though we
don’t start till All Fools’ Day, I’d like to get in advance. I hope
you’ll like the O’Ds. I sent last. When vol. ii. is ready let me have
one by post. Your cheque is come all safe--my thanks for it.
“We are in great commotion here; the K. has arrived. Turin being in a
state that may be any moment ‘of siege,’ things look very ill here, and
the men in power are quite unequal to the charge.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Florence, _Feb_. 11, 1865.
“You are wrong about the scandal--there is none abroad whatever! For the
same reason that Lycurgus said there was no adultery in Sparta, because
every one had a legal right to every one else. There can be no criticism
where there is no default.
“‘The Times’ on ‘Tony’ was miserable: the book is--‘though I that
oughtn’t,’ &c,--good. That is, there is a devilish deal more good in it
than half of the things that are puffed up into celebrity, and had
it been written by any man but my unlucky self, would have had great
success. I have not seen the M. P. notice. I have just seen the ‘P.
Mall Gazette.’ It is deplorably bad: the attempts at fun and smartness
positively painful. I am impatient to hear what you say of the new
story.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Villa Morelli, _Feb._ 21,1865.
“I hasten to answer your note, which has just come and relieved me
of some gloomy apprehensions. I had begun to fancy that your delay in
pronouncing on B. F. is out of dislike to say that you are not pleased
with it. This fear of mine was increased by being low and depressed.
Your judgment has relieved me, however, and done me much good already,
and to-morrow I’ll go to work ‘with a will’ and, I hope, a ‘way.’
“‘The Judge and his Wife’ * are life sketches, the rest are fictional.
* Baron Lendrick (in ‘Sir Brook Fossbrooke’) was one of
Lever’s favourite characters. The old judge was a sketch for
which he had to depend upon a memory of a journey made more
than twenty years before ‘Sir Brook’ was written. Lever had
travelled to London in the ‘Forties with a distinguished
party--Isaac Butt, Frederick Shaw (the member for Dublin
University), Henry West (afterwards a judge), and Sergeant
Lefroy (afterwards--Lord Chief-Justice of Ireland). Baron
Lendrick was a study of Lefroy. It was said that Lever was
the only man who had ever succeeded in making Lefroy laugh.
Lever declared that his Baron Lendrick was a portrait upon
which he had expended “a good deal of time and paint”--E. D.
“I send you a batch of O’Ds. for April No. Some of them I think good.
By the way, Smith--of Smith & Elder--has been begging me to send
him something, as O’Ds. I refused, and said that Cornelius was your
property, and if I sent him an occasional squib it should be on no
account under that title.
“From what I have seen I agree with you about the style and pretensions
of the ‘P. M. Gazette.’ They are heavy when trying to be light and
volatile, the dreariest sort of failure imaginable. It is strange
fact that what the world regards as the inferior organisation--the
temperament for drollery--is infinitely the most difficult to imitate.
Your clown might possibly play Hamlet. I’ll be shot if Hamlet could play
Clown! Now original matter on daily events, to be read at all, ought
to have the stamp of originality on its style. These fellows have not
caught this. They are as tiresome as real members of Parliament.
“There is a great dearth of ‘passing topics’ for O’Dowderie; Parliament
is dull, and society duller. I am sure that a little stupidity--a sort
of prosy platitude just now in O’D.--would conciliate my critics of the
press. My pickles have given them a heartburn, d------ them; but they
shall have them hotter than ever.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“_Feb_. 29, 1866.
“I have just got your note and its ‘farce’: thanks for both. ‘Tony
Butler’ is a deal too good for the stupid public, who cram themselves
with [ ] and [ ], which any one with a Newgate Calendar at hand and an
unblushing temperament might accomplish after a few easy lessons.
“It is very little short of an indignity for a man to write for a public
who can gloat over [ ] or the stupid drolleries of [ ], so flauntingly
proclaimed by ‘The Times,’ as most utter trash. I am decidedly sick of
my readers and my critics, and not in any extravagance of self-conceit,
because though I know I have a speciality for the thing I do, I neither
want any one to believe it a high order of performance or myself a very
great artist. I only say it is mine, and that another has not done it in
the same way.
“I shall be sorry if you omit the O’Ds. this month. Two of them, at
least, are apropos, and would suffer. The careful meditation, too, is
worth something, as I claim to be ready with my pen, even when I only
wound my bird.”
_To Mr John Blackwood_.
“Villa MorElli, Florence, March 7, 1865.
“I answer your note at once to acknowledge your cheque. It’s not
necessary to tell you how I value your feeling for me, or how deeply
I prize your treatment of me. Sorely as I feel the public neglect of
‘Tony,’ I declare I am more grieved on your account than on my own. It
is in no puppyism I profess to think the book good: faults I know there
are, scores of them, but there is more knowledge of men and women and
better ‘talk’ in it, I honestly believe, than in those things which
are run after and third-editioned. As to doing better--I frankly own I
cannot. It is not _in_ me. I will not say I may not hit off my public
better, though I’m not too confident of even _that_, but as to writing
better, throwing off more original sketches of character,--better
contrasts in colour or _sharper_ talkers,--don’t believe it! I cannot.
“A more _ignorant_ notice than the ‘Saturday Review’ I never read.
M’Caskey is no more an anachronism than myself! though perhaps the
writer of the paper would say that is not taking a very strong ground.
“Why don’t you like the ‘Rope Trick’? It is better than most of the
O’Ds. By the way, Smith only _asked_ if I would send him O’Dowderies,
and I misrepresented him if I conveyed anything stronger. I was not
sorry, however, at the opportunity it gave me to say--how much and how
strongly--I felt that they were _yours_ so long as you cared for them.
You had been the godfather when they were christened.
“I am half disappointed we don’t start B. F. next month; but you are
always right,--perhaps even _that_ makes the thing harder to bear.
“‘Piccadilly’ is very good, very amusing; one thing is pre-eminently
clear, the writer is distinctively a ‘gentleman.’ None but a man hourly
conversant with good society could give the tone he has given to Salon
Life. It has the perfume of the drawing-room throughout it all, and if
any one thinks that an easy thing to do, let him try it--that’s all
“What you say of ‘Our Mutual Friend’ I agree with thoroughly. It is very
disagreeable reading, and the characters are more or less repugnant
and repelling; but there are bits, one especially, in the last No., of
restoring a drowned fellow to life which no man living but Dickens could
have written. I only quote ‘Armadale’ for the sake of the Dream Theory:
it is an odious story to my thinking, and I never can separate the two
cousins in my head, and make an infernal confusion in consequence. How
good ‘Miss Marjoribanks’ is--how excellent! What intense humour, what
real knowledge of human nature! To my thinking she has no equal, and so
think all my womanhood, who prefer her to all the story-writers, male
and female.
“What you hint about a real love-story is good, but don’t forget that
Thackeray said, ‘No old man must prate about love.’ I remember the D.
of Wellington once saying to me, referring to Warren’s ‘Ten Thousand
a-Year’: ‘It is not that _he never had_ ten thousand a-year, but he
never knew a man who had.’ As to writing about love from memory, it’s
like counting over the bank-notes of a bank long broken. They remind you
of money, it’s true, but they’re only waste-paper after all.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Villa Morelli, _March_ 11,1865.
“I send off by book-post the O’D. proof, though I suppose, and indeed
hope, you will not use them for the April No., but keep them for May.
This, not alone because it will give me more time to think of ‘Sir B.’
but also, because there is just now rather a dearth of matter for what
the ‘Morning Post’ describes as my ‘Olympian platitudes.’
“‘Oh dear, what a trial it is--to be kicked by a cripple.’
“I have added a few lines to complete the ‘Church’ O’Dowd; pray see that
it is correct. I am curious to see the new vol., and to hear from you
about its success.
“Do write to me--and as often as you have spare time. If we ever meet,
I’ll pay it all back in _talk_.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Croce di Malta, Spezzia, _March_ (_St Pat.’s_ Day).
“Gout, a rickety table, and four stupid Piedmontese authorities talking
bad Italian and smoking ‘Cavours’ at my side, are not aids to
polite letter-writing, and so forgive me if unusually incoherent and
inexplicable.
“I came hurriedly down here to be consular, and to see poor old Mrs
Somerville, who was very seriously ill. She has rallied, but it is the
rally of eighty odd years. Nothing short of a Scotchwoman could have
lived through her attack.
“On looking over the ‘Whist’ proof, there are a few changes I would
suggest. I would, for instance, insert the 7 pp. copy in place of the
piece marked (--). It will need your careful supervision and reading.
The other bit of a page and half copy I would insert at p. 4, after the
word ‘frankness.’The concluding sentence is in its due place. These
bits are meant to take off the air of didactic assumption the article is
tinged with, and also to dispose the reader to think I am not perfectly
serious in esteeming Whist to be higher than Astronomy or the Physical
Sciences.
“I have shown ‘Foss’ to a _very_ critical fellow here, and he says it
is better in _manner_ than ‘Tony.’ I don’t believe him, though I should
like to do so.
“You shall have the proof at once. My daughter writes me that O’D. 2 has
arrived and looks very nice. Tell me how subscribed! Tell me what said
of it!
“Is it true you are all in a devil of a funk at a war with America?
So say the diplomats here, but they are very generally mistaken about
everything except ‘Quarter day.’ I had Hudson to dinner on Monday, and
we laughed ourselves into the gout, and had to finish the evening with
hot flannels and colchicum. There is not his equal in Europe. If I could
only give you his talk, you’d have such a _Noctes_ as I have never read
of for many a year, I assure you. I wished for you when the fun was
going fast. Good Heavens! how provoking it is that such a fellow should
not be commemorated. Listening to him after reading a biography is such
rank bathos; and as to settling down to _write_ after him, it is
like setting to work to brew small beer with one’s head swimming with
champagne. I hope to be back at Villa Morelli by Sunday, and to find a
proof and a letter from you when I arrive.
“I shall be very glad to see Mr M. Skene when he turns up at Florence. I
need not tell you that a friend of yours comes into the category of the
favoured nations. My life is now, however, a very dull affair to ask any
one to look at, and it is only by a real feeling of good-nature any one
would endure me.
“Only think of this climate! I have had to close the jalousies to keep
out the sun, and it is now positively too hot where I am writing. I
could almost forgive the ‘Excursionists’ coming out to bask in such
sunshine.
“I hear the ‘M. Post’ has had a long and favourable notice of ‘Tony.’
Have you seen it?
“Now be sure you write to me and often. Addio.
“The American consul has just called and told me that his Government are
sending a smashing squadron over here under an admiral--a sort of ‘Io
Triumphe’ after the raising of the blockade. All the big frigates are to
be included in it.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Villa Morelli, _March_ 30,1865.
“This is only to say how much your criticism on ‘Sir B.’ has pleased me,
but don’t believe the book is better than ‘Tony’--it is not. The man who
wrote the other hasn’t as good in his wallet.
“I am _sure_ the _Major_ is right, and the story of being _chasséd_ from
Austria reads wrong; but it is not, as one might imagine, _unfounded_.
The case was Yelverton’s, and present V. Admiral in the Mediterranean,
and the lady an Infanta of Portugal, and it went so far that she was
actually going off with him. Now, if you still think it should be
cancelled, be it so. I have only recommended it to mercy, not pardoned
it.
“Besides my gout I am in the midst of worries. The New Capital is
playing the devil with us in increased cost of everything, and my
landlord--the one honest man I used to think him in the Peninsula--has
just written to apprise me that my rent is doubled. Of course I must
go, but where to? that’s the question. I’d cut my lucky and make towards
England, but that our friends at the Carlton say, ‘Hold on to Spezzia
and we’ll give you something when we come in.’ Do you remember the
German Duke who told his ragged followers they should all have shirts,
for he was about to sow flax? I threw my sorrows into a doggerel epigram
as I was in my bath this morning.--
“To such a pass have things now come,
So high have prices risen,
If Italy don’t go to Rome,
Then--I must go to prison.
“I find that Skene and I are old friends who have fought many a
whist battle together. I wanted him to dine with me yesterday to meet
Knatchbull and Labouchere, but he was lumbagoed and obliged to keep his
bed: he is all right to-day, however.
“I hope to have a few days (a week) in England this spring--that is,
if I keep out of jail,--but I’ll let you know my plans when they are
planned.
“I have not written since--better I should not--for I go about saying
to myself ‘D------ Morelli,’ so that my family begin to tremble for my
sanity.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Spezzia, _April_ 6, 1865.
“Your letter has just caught me here. I came down hurriedly to see if
I couldn’t find a ‘location,’ for my Florentine landlord--actuated by
those pure patriotic motives which see in the change of capital the
greatness of Italy and the gain of Tuscany--has put 280 odd l. on
my rent! As I have been stupid enough to spend some little money in
improving my garden, &c. he is wise enough to calculate that I feel
reluctant to leave where I have taken root.
“These are small worries, but _they are_ worries in their way, and
sometimes more than mere worries to a man like myself who takes a
considerable time to settle down, and hates being disturbed afterwards.
It never was a matter of surprise to me that story of the prisoner who,
after twenty year’s confinement, refused to accept his liberty! And for
this reason: if I had been a Papist I’d never have spent a farthing to
get me out of Purgatory, for I know I’d have taken to the place after
a while, and made myself a sort of life that would have been very
endurable.
“You will see from this that ‘Sir B.’ is not advancing. How can he, when
I am badgered about from post to pillar? But once settled, you’ll see
how I’ll work. It’s time I should say I had your cheque all right; and
as to ‘Sir B.,’ it shall be all as you say.
“I am sorely put out by ‘Tony’ not doing better. I can understand scores
of people not caring for O’Dowd, just as I have heard in Society such
talk as O’D. voted a bore. Englishmen resent a smartness as a liberty:
the man who tries a jest in their company has been guilty of a freedom
not pardonable. But surely ‘Tony’ is as good trash as the other trash
vendors are selling; his nonsense is as readable nonsense as theirs.
I am not hopeful of hitting it off better this time, though I have a
glimmering suspicion that ‘Sir Brooke’ will be bad enough to succeed.
“Skene and Preston came out to me one evening. I wish I had seen more of
them. We laughed a good deal, though I was depressed and out of sorts.
“Of course if Hudson goes ‘yourwards’ I’ll make him known to you. What
a misfortune for all who love the best order of fun that he was not
poor enough to be obliged to write for his bread! His letters are better
drollery than any of us can do, and full of caricature illustrations far
and away beyond the best things in ‘Punch.’ Who knows but one of these
days we may meet at the same mahogany; and if we should------
“I forget if I told you I have a prospect of a few days in town towards
the beginning of May--my positively last appearance in England, before I
enter upon that long engagement in the great afterpiece where there are
no Tony Butlers nor any O’Dowds.
“I do hope I shall see you: no fault of mine will it be if I fail.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Villa Morelli, April 10, 1866.
“Send for No. 1 of ‘The Excursionist,’ edited by a Mr Cook, and if you
don’t laugh, ‘you’re no’ the man I thought ye.’ He pitches in to me most
furiously for my O’Dowd on the ‘Convict Tourists’; and seeing the tone
of his paper, I only wonder he did not make the case actionable.
“He evidently believes that I saw him and his ‘drove Bulls,’ and takes
the whole in the most serious light. Good Heavens! what a public he
represents.
“The extracts he gives from the T. B.’s article are far more _really_
severe than anything I wrote, because the snob who wrote them was a
_bona fide_ witness of the atrocious snobs around him; and as for the
tourist who asks, ‘Is this suit of clothes good enough for Florence, Mr
Cook?’ I could make a book on him.
“The fellow is frantic, that is clear.
“Heaven grant that I may fall in with his tourists! I’ll certainly go
and dine at any _table d’hôte_ I find them at in Florence.
“I have been so put out (because my landlord will insist on putting me
out) by change of house that I have not been able to write a line.”
_To Mr John Blackwood_.
“Villa Morelli, Florence, _April_ 14,1865.
“After the affecting picture Skene drew of you over one of my
inscrutable MSS., I set the governess to work to copy out a chapter of
‘Sir B.,’ which I now send; the remainder of the No. for July I shall
despatch to-morrow or next day at farthest. That done, I shall rest and
do no more for a little while, as my story needs digestion.
“I have asked for a short leave. I am not sure the answer may not be,
‘You are never at your post, and your request is mere surplusage, and
nobody knows or cares where you are,’ &c. If, however, ‘My Lord’ should
not have read ‘The Rope Trick,’ and if he should be courteously disposed
to accord me my few weeks of absence, and if I should go,--it will be
at once, as I am anxious to be in town when the world of Parliament is
there, when there are men to talk to and to listen to. I want greatly
to see you: I’m not sure that it is not one of my primest objects in my
journey.
“All this, however, must depend on F. O., which, to say truth, owes
me very little favour or civility. I have been idle latterly--not from
choice indeed; but my wife has been very poorly, and there is nothing
so entirely and hopelessly disables me as a sick house: the very silence
appals me.”
_To Mr John Blackwood,_
“Villa Morelli, _April_ 23,1865.
“I send you a short story. I have made it O’Dowdish, but you shall
yourself decide if it would be better unconnected with O’D. It would not
make a bad farce; and Buckstone as ‘Joel,’ and Paul Bedford as ‘Victor
Emanuel,’ would make what the Cockneys call a ‘screamer.’
“I have not yet heard anything of my leave, but if I get it at once, and
_am forced to utilise it immediately_, my plan would be to go over to
Ireland (where I am obliged to go on business), finish all I have to do
there, and be back by the 20th to meet you in London. I cannot say how
delighted I should be to go down to you in Scotland. I’d like to see
you with your natural background,--a man is always best with his own
accessories,--but it mauna be. I can’t manage the time. Going, as I do,
from home with my poor wife such a sufferer is very anxious work, and
though I have deferred it for the last five years, I go now--if I do
go--with great fear and uneasiness. It requires no small self-restraint
to say ‘No’ to so pleasant a project, and for God’s sake don’t try and
tempt me any more!”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Villa Morelli, _May_ 6,1865.
“I suppose (from your silence) that you imagine me in, or about to be
in, England. But no; thanks to ‘The Rope Trick,’ perhaps, my Lord has
not vouchsafed any reply to my asking for leave, and here I am still.
It is the more provoking because, in the expectation of a start, I idled
the last ten days, and now find it hard to take up my bed and walk,
uncured by the vagabondage I looked for.
“Besides this, I had received a very warm and pressing invitation to I
know not what celebrations in Ireland, and meant to have been there by
the opening of the Exhibition. However, the F. O. won’t have it, and
here I am.
“I am deucedly disposed to throw up my tuppenny consulate on every
ground, but have not the pluck, from really a want of confidence in
myself, and what I may _be_ this day twelve months, if I _be_ at all.
“Write to me at all events, and with proof, since if ‘the leave’ does
not arrive to-morrow or next day, I’ll not avail myself of it.
“If I could hear O’D. was doing flourishing I’d pitch F. O. to the devil
by return of post.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Villa Morelli, Florence, _May_ 10,1866.
“When this comes to hand I hope to be nearer you than I am now. My
address will be care of Alexander Spencer, Esq., 32 North Frederick
Street, Dublin. Any proofs--and I hope for some--will find me there.
“F. O. meant to bully, and _did_ bully me; but, after all, one must
say that there is an impression that I wrote ‘Tony Butler,’ and as I
am indolent to contradict it, _que voulez-vous?_ I only got my blessed
leave to-day, and go to-morrow. Never feeling sure that I should be able
to go, I have left everything to the last, and now I am overwhelmed with
things to do.
“My stay in Ireland will be probably a week, and I hope to be in London
by the end of the month. Let me know your plans and your places.
“I am a (something) at the Irish Exhibition (remind me to tell you a
story of the D. of Richmond at Rotterdam, which won’t do to write); and
perhaps it would not be seemly to O’Dowd the Dubliners.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Morrison’s, Dublin, _May_ 21,1865.
“My movements are to go up to London by Wednesday next. I have a
fortnight at least to give to London, but don’t mulct any engagements on
my account, but let me see you on your ‘off days.’
“I sent off the ‘Hero-worship,’ corrected, by yesterday’s mail, but
added in the envelope a prayer to whomever it might concern not to
trust to my hasty revisal, but to look to the orthographies closely, and
especially to make Mr Jack ‘Mr Joel,’ as he ought to be.
“Heaven reward you for sending me money! I wonder how you knew I lost
£40 last Wednesday night at whist at a mess. I shall, I hope, have
wherewithal to pass me on to my parish, but no more.
“The Exhibition here is really good, and very tasteful and pretty. The
weather is, however, atrocious, and I am half choked with a cold.
“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 coarsened.
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 association 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, God 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_ platitudes; it’s the devil to _write_ them. Hannay is to be the
editor.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Hôtel 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
woodcock.
“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 God, let
some man learned in orthographies look to my proofs, for I can’t spell
after the thermometer passes 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_.
“Hôtel 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._
“Hôtel 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
assassination. 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 practitioner 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._
“Hôtel 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._
“Hôtel 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 appetite 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).
“God forgive me, but I grow less wise as I grow older. The old smack of
devil-may-care, that sat so easily on me as a boy, keeps dodging me now
in grey hairs and making a fool of me; but you’ve read the German story
of the fellow whose wooden leg was ‘possessed’ and ran away with him. I
haven’t a wooden leg, but I have a wooden stick that plays a like prank
with me.
“O’Dowd indeed! And _I_ flirting with little Yankee girls, and teaching
them to swim! Don’t talk to me of O’Dowd!
“Tell your uncle to send me whatever there remains of balance of the
last O’Ds., for I am losing my money here like fun, and ashamed to send
to my bankers for more.
“Continue to address me _here_: I see no prospect of my getting back to
Florence. The English fleet is still at Rosas, and the three balls we
intended to give them have already come off here, and we are all ruined
in champagne and crinoline before the honoured guests have arrived. What
an O’D. one might make on ‘The Fleet of the Future’!”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Hôtel de Milan, _Aug_. 14,1866.
“When I read of Aytoun’s death in the papers I knew how it would affect
you. I am well aware what old ties linked you; and these old ties bind
not only heart to heart, but attach a man to his former self, and make
up the sweetest part of our identity. They are often, too, the only
light that shines on the past, which would be dark and untraceable if
love did not mark it.
“It is strange, but I feel (and I wrote it to my wife) that I thought
I had lost a friend in losing him,--though we never met, and only knew
each other in a few kindly greetings transmitted by yourself from one to
the other. How right you are about the solemn fools! I go even farther,
and say that the solemn wise, the Gladstones of this world, are only
half great in wanting that humouristic vein that gives a man his wide
sympathy with other men, and makes him, through his very humanity, a
something more than human. I am sure it is in no unfair spirit I say
it, but the Aytoun type grows rarer every day. It is a commodity not
marketable, and Nature somehow ceases to produce what has not its value
in the _pièce courant._
“I can’t write a line here. My youngest daughter keeps me ever
concocting new gaieties for her, and she has such an insatiable spirit
for enjoyment the game never ends.
“Our fleet is becalmed outside Spezzia, but may be here at any moment.
“I shall send off the proof by book-post, and (if no other reach
me) beseech you to remember that, being away from my wife and eldest
daughter, I am neither to be relied upon for my orthographies nor my
‘unities,’ nor indeed any other ‘ties. Look, therefore, sharply to my
proof, and see that I am not ever obscure where I don’t intend it.
“I see no chance of getting away before the end of the month, and till I
reach V. Morelli my ink-bottle is screwed up.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Hôtel de Milan, Spezzià, _Sept_. 2,1865.
“I am in misery. Here I am, dining and being dined, eating, drinking,
singing, sailing, swimming, pic-nicing, bedevilling,--everything, in
short, but writing. I have made incredible attempts to work. I have
taken a room on the house-top; I have insulted the ward-room and
d------d the cockpit; I have even sneered at the admiral. The evil,
however, is--I have done but a few pages, and I send them to get
printed, leaving you to determine whether we shall skip a month, or
whether, completing the unfinished chapter, an instalment of about 12
pp. will be better than nothing. I am more disposed to this than leaving
a gap, and I am still very wretched that my work should be ill done.
Direct and counsel me.
“This miserable place has cost me a year’s pay to keep, and now I
hear that Elliott is sure to report me if I am found living in
Florence,--another illustration of thrift, if I add a P.S. to the
‘O’Dowd.’
“I am very sick of the row and racket I live in. I want my home and my
quiet, and even my ink-bottle.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Villa Morelli, Florence, _Sept_. 17, 1866.
“I got back here two days ago, after more real fatigue and exhaustion
than I would again face for double my miserable place at Spezzia. These
bluejackets have not only drunk me out of champagne and Allsopp, but
so tapped myself that I am perfectly dry. The constant intercourse with
creatures of mere action--with creatures of muscles, nerves, and mucous
membranes, and no brains--becomes one of the most wearing and weakening
things you can imagine. Nor is it only the nine weeks lost, but God
knows how many more it will take before I can get the machinery of my
mind to work again: all is rusted and out of gear, and I now feel, what
I only suspected, that it is in this quiet humdrum life I am able to
work, and that I keep fresh by keeping to myself. An occasional burst
(to London for instance) would be of immense value to me, but that even
then should only be brief, and not too frequent.
“Is it necessary to say I could not write at Spezzia? I tried over and
over again, and for both our sakes it is as well I did not persevere.
I send, therefore, these two chapters, and a short bit to round off the
last one. If you opine (as I do) that even a short link is better than
a break, insert them next No., taking especial care to correct the new
portion, and, indeed, to look well to all.
“To-morrow I set to work,--I hope vigorously, at least so far as
intention goes,--and you shall have, if I’m able, a strong Sir B.’ and
an ‘O’Dowd’ for next month. I never for thirty years of monthly labour
broke down before, and I am heartily ashamed of my shortcoming; but I
repeat it is better to give short measure than poison the company.
“I like the tribute to poor Aytoun very much, and I condole heartily
with you on the loss of one who walked so much of life at your side.
I am sure the habit of writing turns out more of a man’s nature to his
friends than happens to those who never commit themselves to print, and
I am certain that his friends have their own reading of an author that
is totally denied to his outer public. You knew Aytoun well enough to
know if my theory does not apply to him.
“Don’t be as chary of your letters as you have been. I’ll so pepper you
now with correspondence that you must reply.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Villa Morelli, _Sept_. 24,1865.
“You have herewith three chapters of ‘Sir B.’ for Nov. No., and if so be
that you need a fourth, there will be time to write it when I see these
in proof; but I thought it as well to keep the reader in suspense about
the interview, all the more because I know no more of what is coming
than he does! My impression is that these chapters will do: my womankind
like them, and only complain that there are no female scenes in the No.
But there shall be crinolines to the fore hereafter.
“I shall now set to work to write an ‘O’Dowd’ on my late Spezzia life
and experiences.
“What a fuss they are making about the Fenians, as if rebellion was
anything new in Ireland! It is only an acute attack of the old chronic
com-plaint, and wants nothing but bleeding to cure it.
“Some vile sailor, I suspect, has walked off with my May No. Magazine,
and I have not the beginning of the ‘Sir B.’ Will you send it to me?
“My wife is very poorly again, but this month coming round renews so
much sorrow to her that I suspect the cause may be there.
“I have just this moment heard that the new squadron is coming back to
Spezzia. If so, it will be the ruin of me--that is, if I go there; and
indeed I am seriously thinking of pitching my consular dignity to the
devil, and becoming a gentleman again, if only, as my coachman says,
‘for an alternative.’”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Villa Morelli, _Oct_. 1,1865.
“The squib I enclose will, I think, be well-timed. It is a letter
supposed to be found on a Fenian prisoner, a Col. Denis Donovan,
Assistant Adjutant-General, Fenian army, from Major-General M’Caskey,
who has been asked to take command of the National Forces. It can be
introduced to the reader thus.
“My wife says I have written nothing to equal this.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Villa Morelli, Florence, _Oct_. 8,1866.
“You will have received before this the Fenian squib. I have little
courage to ask how you like it. Of course it would be easy enough to
make a long and strong paper out of the condensed materials of M’Caskey,
but I don’t water my milk, though my experiences with the public might
have taught me that it would suit us both best.
“I have mislaid--perhaps some one has carried off--my ‘Rebel Songs,’
for I heard a threat of the kind in connection with some autograph
balderdash. They are, however, no loss either to the cause or the
public. The best was one called ‘The Devil may care.’ I add a verse (as
it strikes me) for the public--
“You don’t read ‘O’Dowd’ and don’t like its style;
But then to my conscience I swear
You buy things that are worse,
And some not worth a curse,
And for _my_ part--the Devil may care!”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Villa Morelli, Florence, _Oct_. 12,1865.
“Take care that M’Caskey’s letter is not amongst the ‘O’Dowds.’
Cornelius never heard of him, nor has he any knowledge of ‘Tony Butler.’
Mind this.
“Send me the Horse-book of your Cavalry Officer, and I’ll try and make
a short notice of it. I want the book of Villa Architecture too. I was
thinking of a paper (I have good bones for it) on the Italian fleet,
wood and iron, but I foresee that I should say so many impertinent
things, and hurt so many people I know, that I suspect on the whole it
is better not to go on with it. What I am to do with my surplus venom
when I close ‘O’Dowd’ I don’t see, except I go into the Church and
preach on the Athanasian Creed.
“Wolff is in Paris still, scheming in ‘Turks.’
“It will astonish Lyons when he discovers what a heritage Bulwer has
left him at Constantinople.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Villa Morelli, _Oct_. 20, 1866.
“Your note and its ‘padding’ came to my hand a couple of hours ago. I
thank you much for both, but more for the encouragement than the cash,
though I wanted the last badly.
“I don’t think there is a public for O’D. collectively. I don’t think
people will take more than a monthly dose of ‘my bitters,’ and I incline
to suspect mawkish twaddle and old Joe Millers would hit the mark
better. Shall I try? _At all events, make room if you can for the
postscript I send you. Now I wrote it at your own suggestion when I read
your note_, and it seems to me to embody the dispute. I have tried to
put in a bit of Swift s tart dryness in the style.
“The telegram just announces Palmerston’s death. Take care that his name
does not occur in my last O’D. I don’t remember using it, but look to it
for me.
“What will happen now? I hear the Whigs won’t have Russell, and that he
won’t serve under Clarendon.
“How I wish I were in England to hear all the talk. It is d------d hard
to be chained up here and left only to bark, when I want to bite too.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Villa Morelli, _Oct_. 23,1865.
“Does it not strike you that a good view of Palmerston’s character might
be taken from considering how essentially the man was English, and that
in no other assembly than a British House of Commons would his qualities
have had the same sway and influence? All that intense vitality and rich
geniality would have been totally powerless in Austria, France, Italy,
or even America. None would have accepted the glorious nature of the
man, or the element of statesmanship, as the House accepted it. None
would have seen that the spirit of all he did was the rebound of that
public opinion which only a genial man ever feels or knows the value
of. If I be right in this, depend upon it Gladstone will make a lame
successor to him. God grant it!
“I send you a ‘Sir B.’ for December, as I am about to leave for Carrara
for a few days. I hope it is good. It may be that another short chapter
may be necessary, and if so there will be time for it when I come back.
“How I would like now if I had the time (but it would take time and
labour too) to write an article on the deception which the Whigs have
practised in trading on their Italian policy as their true claim to
office. It is the most rascally fraud ever practised.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Villa Morelli, _Oct_. 29, 1865.
“I send you two O’Ds.; that on Gladstone I think tolerably good. The
short paper on ‘The Horse,’ being all done in the first person, I think
had better be an ‘O’Dowd,’--indeed I signed it such; but do as you like
about this.
“I think there seems a very good prospect of the Tories coming in during
the session. Phil Rose was here the other day and gave me good hopes,
and said also they would certainly give me _something_. Heaven grant
it! for I am getting very footsore, and would like to fall back upon a
do-nothing existence, and never hear more of the public.
“The foreign papers are all--especially the Bonapartist ones--attacking
Lord Russell as an ‘Orleanist.’ I never had heard of his leanings in
that direction; but it is exactly one of those tendencies we should
_not_ hear of in England, but which foreigners would be certain to
chance upon.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Villa Morelli, _Friday, Nov. 3_, 1866.
“I am rather out of spirits,--indeed I feel that my public and myself
are at cross-purposes.
“D------ their souls--(God forgive me)--but they go on repeating some
stone-cold drollery of old Pam’s, and my fun--hot and piping--is left
un-tasted; and as to wisdom, I’ll back O’Dowd against all the mock
aphorisms of Lord Russell and his whole Cabinet. It would not do to
touch Palmerston in O’D.: I could not go on the intensely laudatory
tack, and any--the very slightest--qualification of praise would be
ill taken. Do you know the real secret of P.’s success? It was, that he
never displayed ambition till he was a rich man. Had Disraeli reserved
himself in the same degree, there would have been nothing of all the
rotten cant of ‘adventurer,’ &c., that we now hear against him. _Begin_
life rich in England, and all things will be added to you.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Villa Morelli, Florence, _Nov._ 6,1865.
“I think the Bagmen deserve an ‘O’Dowd’; their impertinent wine
discussion is too much to bear. I don’t suspect the general public
will dislike seeing them lashed, and from the specimens I have met
travelling, I owe some of the race more than I have given them.
“I think there is a good chance of a (short-lived) Conservative
Government next year, and then Gladstone and _le Déluge_. Unless some
great change resolves the two parties in the House into real open
enemies (not camps where deserters cross and recross any day), we shall
have neither political honesty nor good government.
“The present condition of things makes a lukewarm public and
disreputable politicians.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Villa Morelli, Florence, _Nov_. 11, 1866.
“I would have sent another chapter to ‘Sir Brook,’ but that I have been
sick and ill,--a sort of feverish cold, with a headache little short
of madness. I am over it now, but very low and spiritless and unfit for
work....
“I have got a long letter from Whiteside this morning: he thinks that
the conduct of the Palmerston Whigs will decide the question as to who
should govern the country. It is, however, decided that Gladstone is to
smash the Irish Education scheme and to overturn the Church.
“I had written to him to press upon his friend the importance of
restoring Hudson to his Embassy in the event of the Derby party coming
to power, and he sent my letter as it was to Lord Malmes-bury, though it
contained some rather sharp remarks on Lord M.’s conduct while at F. O.
He (W.) says Lord M. asked to keep the letter, and wrote a very civil
reply.
“Look carefully to ‘Sir B.’ for me, for my head is a stage below
correction. I composed some hundred O’Ds. in doggerel the night before
last, and (I hear) laughed immoderately in my sleep.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Villa Morelli, Florence, _Nov_. 30, 1866.
“If I be right, Lord R. will dodge both parties, say ‘No’ to neither,
and, while cajoling the old Palmerston Whigs not to desert him, he’ll
by certain Radical appointments conciliate that party and bribe them to
_wait_. In this sense I have written the O’Dowd, ‘The Man at the
Wheel.’ I think it reasonably good. _That is, if my prediction be true_:
otherwise it won’t do at all; but we’ll have time to see before we
commit ourselves.
“I hope you’ll like it, as also the sterner one on ‘Hospitalities
_ex-officio_.’
“The post here is now very irregular,--indeed since we’re a capital the
place has gone to the devil. I don’t know whether the dulness or the
dearness be greatest.
“The Radicals, waiting for reform and taking the destruction of the
Irish Church meanwhile, remind one of Nelson’s coxwain’s saying when
asked if he would have a glass of rum or a tumbler of punch, that ‘he’d
be drinking the rum while her ladyship was mixing the punch.’ Ireland
is to be complimented for her projected rebellion by fresh concessions.
Never was there such a splendid policy.
“The Italians say, ‘The toad got no tail at the creation of the
world because he never asked for one.’ Certes, my countrymen won’t be
deficient in their caudal appendages on such grounds.
“I am hipped by bad weather, undeveloped gout, and other ills too
numerous to mention, but still------”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Spezzia, _Dec_. 4, 1866.
“In reply to your note, and its enclosure referring to a passage in one
of my late ‘O’Dowds’ that an admiral is a sort of human rhinoceros, &c.,
I have simply to say that the joke is a very sorry one, and one of the
worst I have ever uttered, if it give offence; but I most distinctly
declare that I never entertained the most distant idea of a personality.
Indeed my whole allusion was to the externals of admirals,--a certain
gruffness, &c., which in itself is much too superficial a trait to
include a personality.
“That I could say anything offensive to or of a service from which I
have received nothing but politeness and courtesy, and some of whose
members I regard as my closest and best friends, seems so impossible a
charge against me that I know not how to answer it. Indeed nothing is
left for me but a simple denial of intention. It then remains, perhaps,
to apologise for an expression which may be misapprehended. I do so just
as frankly. I think the men who so read me, read me _wrongfully_. No
matter; my fault it is that I should be open to such misconstruction,
and I ask to be forgiven for it.
“So much of reparation is in my power (if time permit), and I would ask
you to assist me to it--to omit the entire passage when you republish
the papers in a volume.
“Will you, in any form that you think best, convey the explanation and
the amends to the writer of the note you have enclosed?”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Villa Morelli, Florence, _Dec._ 4, 1866.
“I have just read the note you enclosed me calling my attention to my
having said that an admiral was a sort of ‘human rhinoceros.’ I beg to
recant the opinion, and when opportunity serves I will do so publicly,
and declare that I believe them to be the most thin-skinned of mortals,
otherwise there was nothing in the paragraph referred to which could
give the slightest offence.
“To impute a personality to it would be for the reader to attach the
passage to some one to whom he thought it applicable, if there be such.
“When they mentioned vice or bribe,
It’s so pat to all the tribe,
Each cried that was levelled at me.
“Now I had not the vaguest idea of a personality; I was simply
chronicling a sort of professional gruffness and mysteriousness,--both
admirable in the way of discipline, doubtless, but not so agreeable
socially as the gifts of younger and less responsible men.
“Omit the whole passage, however, when you republish the papers; and
accept my assurance that if ever I mention an admiral again, I will
insert the word ‘bishop’ in my MS., and only correct it with the proof.
“It is not easy to be serious in replying to such a charge of ‘doing
something prejudicial to the service.’ There is no accounting, however,
for phraseology, as Mr Carter called the loss of his right eye ‘a
domestic calamity.’
“Once more, I never meant offence. I never went within a thousand miles
of a personality; and if ever I mention the sea-service again, I hope I
may be in it.
“P.S.--Make the fullest disclaimer on my part, if you can, to
the quarter whence came the letter, as to either offence or
personality,--but more particularly the latter. I am only sorry that the
letter, not being addressed to myself, does not enable me to reply to
the writer with this assurance.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Florence, Dec. 7.
“Out of deference to my wife’s opinion I wrote a mild disclaimer that
might satisfy Admiral Kellett as to my intentions, &c. I have, since I
wrote, heard confidentially that the Maltese authorities are trying
to bring the matter before F. O. Now I am resolved not to make a
very smallest submission, or even to go to the barest extent of an
explanation.
“The only ‘personality in the article was the reference to an admiral
that I respected and admired. I am perfectly ready to maintain that this
was not Admiral Kellett.
“If you like to forward my first note, do so, but on no account let the
civil one reach him. Indeed very little reconsideration showed me that
such an appeal as K.’s bespoke a consummate ass, and ought not to be
treated seriously. This will explain why I despatched a telegram to
you this morning to use the first, not the amended, letter. My first
thoughts are, I know, always my best.
“I shall be delighted if they make an F. O. affair of it: to have an
opportunity of telling the cadets there what I think of the ‘Authority.’
and how much respect I attach to their ‘opinion,’ would cure me of the
attack that is now making my foot fizz with pain.
“I am annoyed with myself for being so much annoyed as all this; but
if you knew to what lengths I went to make these bluejackets enjoy
themselves,--what time, money, patience, pleasantry, and bitter beer
I spent in their service,--you would see that this sort of requital is
more than a mere worry.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Florence, _Dec_. 1865.
“My wife is miserable at the sharp note I sent in reply to the
admiral. She says it was all wrong, “_because_, as I never did mean a
personality, I ought to have no hesitation in saying as much, &c, &c.
“In fact, she makes me send the enclosed, and ask you to forward it to
Kellett--that is, if _you_ agree with her. For myself, I own I am the
aggrieved party; I was d------d civil to the whole menagerie, rhinoceros
included. I half ruined myself in entertaining them, and now I am
rebuked for a little very mild pleasantry and very weak joking.
“What! is it because ye are bluejackets there shall be no more
‘O’Dowds’? Ay, marry, and very hot ones too--and sharp in the mouth.
“All right as to the new tariff. It is a great [? nuisance] to me that
the public does not like its devilled kidneys in wholesale, but perhaps
we may make the palate yet: I’ll try a little longer, at all events.
But if the Tories come in and make me a tide-waiter, I’ll forswear
pen-and-ink and only write for ‘The Hue and Cry.’”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“_Dec_. 11,1865.
“Your first objection to Cave’s ‘spoonyness’ * I answer thus. Cave was
heartily ashamed of himself for having played at stakes far above his
means, and, like a man so overwhelmed, was ready to do, say, or approve
of anything in his confusion. I was drawing from life in this sketch.
* In ‘Sir Brook Fossbrooke.’ of doctrine by the opposite
poles--Exeter and Cashel, Colenso and Carlisle; but you
will see that I never instanced these men, or any other
individuals, as likely to offer their pulpits.
“2nd, Sewell’s addressing the men in his town so carelessly. He
never saw them before; they came, hundreds, to see a race, and his
acquaintances and the public were so mingled. He addressed them with an
insolence not infrequent in Englishmen towards ‘mere Irish,’ and only
corrected himself when pulled up.
“I am deep in thinking over the story; and though I have not written a
line, I am _at it_ night and day.” To Mr John Blackwood.
“Florence, _Dec_. 12,1865.
“I have just got your note. I need not say it has not given me pleasure,
for I really thought--so little are men judges of their own work--that
there were some of these O’Ds. equal to any I ever wrote. The paper that
requires either explanation or defence can’t be good, and so I accept
the adverse verdict. I make no defence, but I must make explanation.
“In the ‘Prof. Politeness’ paper there is no personality whatever. I
simply expressed divergence.
“As to the practice, I have seen it over and over, and I can vouch for
it in hospitals, home and foreign, as well.
“I have expunged ‘Times,’ and made the word ‘newspapers’; I have
cancelled ‘C. Connellan’ altogether. And now I trust your fear of
an action must be relieved,--though if Corney Connellan were to be
offended, I might really despair of a joke being well taken by any one.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Villa Morelli, _Christmas Day._
“I send you a full measure of ‘Sir B.’ for next month, and despatch it
now, as I have only remained here to eat my Christmas dinner, and start
to-morrow for Spezzia, where I have some eight or ten days’ work before
me.
“I hope you will like the present ‘envoy.’ I have taken pains with the
dialogue, and made it as sharp and touchy as I could.
“There is, I hear, a compact _in petto_ between the Whigs and the Irish
by which all Irish Education is to be made over to the Church of Rome.
If so, a paper on the way in which countries, essentially Romish, reject
the priest’s domination and provide against all subjugation to the
Church, might be well timed. It has only struck me this morning, but it
is worth you turning your mind to, especially if the papers were to be
ready and in print for the eventuality of the debate in Parliament, and
_debate there will be on the question_.
“I am not sure I could do such a paper, but I could be of use to any
one who could, and give him some valuable material, too, from Italian
enactments.
“I do not know if my Belgium bit reached you in time, and our post is
now so irregular here I may not know for some days.
“I hear that the Government mean to hand over Eyre to the Radicals; and
though there is much in his case hard to defend, that the man did his
best in a great difficulty according to ‘his lights’ I am convinced.
“I have such a good story for you about Drummond Wolff _versus_
Bulwer,--but I can’t write it. You shall hear it, however, when I come
over in spring, even if I go down to Edinburgh to tell it.
“A great many happy Christmases to you and all yours.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
“Croce di Malta, Spezzia, Dec. 30, 1866.
“Your last pleasant note and its ‘stuffing’ has just reached me here,
where I am consularising, bullying Custom-house folk, and playing
the devil with all the authorities to show my activity in the public
service. I can’t endure being away from home and my old routine life;
but there was no help for it, and I am here now for another week to
come.
“The name I want for the author of Tony is ‘Arthur Helsham,’ the name
of my mother’s family; and the last man who bore the aforesaid was the
stupidest blockhead of the house, and the luckiest too. _Faustum sit
augurium_.
“As to G. Berkeley’s book, it is quite impossible to do anything at all
commensurate with so rascally a book. It is hopeless work trying to make
a sweep dirtier, and I agree with you--better not touch him.”