The Log-Book of a Rambler concludes with an account of a quarrel between
the students and the professors at Heidelberg. To this university Lever
transferred himself in the autumn of 1828, and after a short sojourn
he proceeded to Vienna. In November his father, apologising for being
unable to assist a relative in distress, declares that his rents were
“being badly paid,” and that his son Charles was “no small charge” upon
him. In the same letter James Lever says that Charles intended to pass
the winter at Vienna, and then to proceed to Paris, and that he was
expected to arrive at home in April or May. “He writes in good spirits,”
says his father, “enjoys good health, and if I can supply him with money
he does not wish to return soon.”
From Vienna the young student proceeded, early in 1829, to Weimar, and
at the Academy he made the acquaintance of Goethe. He describes
Goethe’s talk as being marked by touches of picturesque and inimitable
description; he had the gift of holding his audience spell-bound by some
magic which it was impossible to describe.
From Weimar Lever travelled through Bavaria. To a friend he once stated
that not only had he “walked the hospitals” of Germany, but that he
had “walked Germany itself, exploring everything.” Possibly this was an
exaggerated account of his peregrinations through the Fatherland,
but there can be no question that he saw at this time a great deal of
Germany and of German life, and that his experiences impressed him and
remained with him, vivid and pleasant memories.
In the beginning of March the wanderer found himself in Paris. From this
city he wrote to his lifelong friend in Dublin, Alexander Spencer:--
“Paris, _Friday, March_ 13,1829.
“I am perfectly ashamed of the rapid succession in which my letters of
late have inundated the family, yet in my present state of doubt, &c.,
I think it better to write at once to prevent any further mischief. I
yesterday received a letter from Connor (Joe), informing me that he had
forwarded to me in Paris from Vienna a Dublin letter of the 28th of last
month. Now none such has arrived, and I have received already letters
from Vienna bearing date 2nd March. This delay has rendered me very
unhappy about the ultimate fate of my letter, and as Connor has already
left Vienna, I have no means of ascertaining anything about it there. I
have written to him at [MS. undecipherable], where he is at present, but
cannot receive his answer before five days, so that I think it better
in the interval to stop payment of the bill, at all events until I can
learn something about it. I have myself seen all the letters lately
arrived in Paris from Vienna, so that its delay is in no wise
attributable to the irregularity of the post in Paris.
“If this letter had arrived before, I should be now on my road homeward,
but I am here in durance vile for want of it. But away with blue devils!
“Paris would be a delightful place had a man only ‘gilt’ enough: there
are so many gay little varieties and vaudevilles, that you have never
time to spare. The Palais Royal is a world in itself of all that is
splendid and seducing, but with all these things a poor man has but a
sorry time of it. Of the Italian Opera and of Verge I dare only read
the _carte_, and content myself with a chop at Richard’s and the Opéra
Comique. Is it not (I ask you in all calmness) a thought that might lead
to insanity to see these lucky ones of fortune sent out on their travels
with fat purses, enjoying all the advantage of seeing and hearing what
they neither relish nor comprehend, while many a poor fellow might reap
advantage and improvement, but is debarred from the narrowness of his
circumstances?
“I am now very anxious to see my family and find myself at home,
although I believe I am now spending the last few days of a period I
shall always call the happiest of my life. I look back on my time in
Germany with one feeling of unmixed pleasure; if there be the least
tinge of regret, it is only because the time can never return, and that
my happiest days are already spent.
“As Don Juan says, I make a resolution every spring of reformation ere
the year runs out, but I certainly have more confidence in myself now
than I ever before had. I will go home, free myself from all fetters of
every species of acquaintanceship that can only consume time and give
nothing in return, put my shoulder to the wheel, and in one year I shall
find if I am ever to turn out well or not.
“Like every man who has lost time and let good opportunities escape him
without an effort to profit by them, I employ my leisure hours in wishes
that I had to begin the world again.”
He speaks in a postscript of an English family who were stopping at his
hotel:--
“I am going to convey one of the daughters, who is certainly pretty, to
the Louvre to-day. She is to have £10,000, and that might not be a bad
spec, but I should rather make my fortune by any other means....
“The old padrone had the impudence to half propose my going to Italy
as tutor to his young cub, but I answered him very brusquely. He was
certainly very spirited in his offer of compensation, but my prospects
have not come to that as yet. Remember me most affectionately to father,
mother, John, and Anne....
“I wrote to you a few lines on the selvage of my note to my father.
As the tenor of them may not have been very intelligible, allow me to
repeat. If any letter from Vienna should arrive in Talbot Street, secure
it for me. My mother might open it, and although she does not comprehend
German, yet there might be more of it understood than I should like.
I know your reflections very well at this moment, but you are in the
wrong. As the song says,
‘It’s a bit of a thing to keep.’
But wait a week and you shall hear it all orally.”
Spencer evidently came promptly to the aid of the traveller, for the
same month of March found him once more in his native land.
It is stated by Dr Fitzpatrick in the later editions of his ‘Life of
Charles Lever’ that the novelist obtained in 1824 an appointment as
medical officer in charge of an emigrant ship bound from New Boss to
Quebec. In 1824 Lever would have been only in his eighteenth year, and
he would not have been in possession of any medical degree, nor would
his brief experience as a student of the healing art have entitled him
to undertake the medical charge of a passenger ship. Moreover, in a
letter quoted by Dr Fitzpatrick, Lever speaks of spending the summer of
1829 in Canada, and there is no suggestion that he made two voyages to
America. It may be safely asserted that the date of the American voyage
was not 1824; and in all probability 1829 was the year of the Hegira.*
* I discussed these points with Dr Fitzpatrick during his
last visit to London, shortly before his death, and he stuck
to his theory that 1824 was the date. He declared (as he
declares in his book) that in the early years of the last
century there was no Board of Emigration or other authority
to interfere with the engagement of an unqualified or
inexperienced man as ship’s doctor, and that 1824 fitted in
with his own opinions about Lever’s various movements more
easily than 1829; and that Lever speaks in his Log-Book of
having heard the sound of Niagara. But the Log-Book was not
completed until 1830. Subsequently I found in one of James
Lever’s letters, dated 1824, a statement that his son
Charles was then studying medicine and surgery, and was
“still in college.” In 1901 the novelist’s only surviving
daughther, Mrs Bowes-Watson, writes: “Yes; my father went
to the United States and Canada when he was a very young
man. It must have been in 1829 or 1830.”--E. D.
Lever appears to have embarked from New Ross in a vessel belonging to
Messrs Pope of Waterford. A cousin of Lever, Mr Harry Innes, declares
that it was through his good offices the young medical student succeeded
in obtaining “the appointment, such as it was.” Lever abandoned the ship
upon her arrival in the St Lawrence. He does not speak of this voyage
in any of his autobiographical writings, except that he tells us in a
preface to ‘Con Cregan’--a novel in which certain quarters of Quebec are
intimately and graphically described--that once upon a time he “endured
a small shipwreck” on the island of Anticosti. To his friend Canon
Hayman he wrote (in June 1843) that the Canadian incidents in ‘Arthur
O’Leary’ were largely personal experiences. He narrated to the canon an
account of his landing in the New World, and of his rapid passage from
civilised districts to the haunts of the red man. He was eager to taste
the wild freedom of life with an Indian tribe. Lever, according to
himself, found no difficulty in being admitted to Red-Indian fellowship,
and for a time the unrestrained life of the prairie was a delightful and
exhilarating experience. The nights in the open air, the days spent
in the pine-forests or on the banks of some majestic river, were
transcendently happy. He was endowed by the sachem with “tribal
privileges,” and he identified himself as far as possible with
his newly-made friends. Ere long, however, he grew weary of the
latitudinarianism and of the ingloriousness of barbaric life, and he
began to sigh for the flesh-pots of the city. He contrived to hide his
feelings from the noble red man, but a noble red woman shrewdly guessed
that the pale-face was weary, discontented, home-sick. This woman warned
the young “medicine man” that if he made any overt attempt to seek his
own people he would be followed, and one of his tribal privileges would
be to suffer death by the tomahawk. Lever dissembled, and (somewhat
after the manner of the as yet uncreated Mrs Micawber) he asseverated
that he would never desert the clan.
But his moodiness grew apace and his health gave way. The perspicacious
squaw, knowing the origin of his malady, feared that the pale-face would
die from natural causes. Moved by compassion, she planned, at the risk
of her own life and reputation, the escape of the interesting young
stranger. An Indian named Tahata--a kind of half-savage commercial
traveller--visited the tribe at long intervals, bearing with him
supplies of such necessaries as rum and tobacco. Swayed by the promise
of a good round sum, Tahata agreed to do his best to smuggle Charles
Lever back to the paths of civilisation. The pair, after many
vicissitudes, reached Quebec one bright frosty morning in December. “I
walked through the streets,” said Harry Lorrequer to Canon Hayman, “in
moccasins and with head-feathers.” In Quebec he found a timber merchant
with whom his father had business transactions, and this hospitable man
recompensed the trusty Tahata, and made Lever his guest; and when the
ex-Indian was newly “rigged out” the merchant paid his passage back to
the old country.
Lever averred that his description in ‘Arthur O’Leary’ of the escape
of Con O’Kelly was a faithful account of his own adventures “deep in
Canadian woods.”