Charles Lever, His Life in His Letters Volume Ii Part 6

"The thermometer has taken a sudden start upwards to-day, 26 Reamur, and work is downright impossible. The_ cicale_ too make a most infernal uproar, for every confounded thing, from a bug to a baritone, sings all day in Italy."

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Villa Morelli, Florence, _July_ 23, 1864.

"I was getting a great stock of health, swimming and boating at Spezzia, when I was called back by the illness of my youngest daughter, a sort of feverish attack brought on by the excessive heat of the weather, 92 and 93 every day in the shade. She is, thank G.o.d, a little better now, and I hope the severest part is over. When shall I be at work again? There never was so much idleness a.s.sisted by an evil destiny.

"What a jolly letter you sent me. I read it over half a dozen times, even after I knew it all, just as an unalterable toper touches his lips to the gla.s.s after emptying it. I wish I could be as hopeful about O'D.,--not exactly _that_, but I wish I could know it would have some success, and for once in my life the wish is not entirely selfish.

"You will, I am sure, tell me how it fares, and if you see any notices, good or bad, tell me of them.

"What a strange line Newdigate has taken,--not but he has a certain amount of right in the middle of all the confusion of his ideas. Dizzy unquestionably _coquetted_ with Rome. Little Earle, his secretary, was out here on a small mission of intrigue, and I did my utmost to show him that for every priest he 'netted' he would inevitably lose two Protestants--I mean in Ireland. As for the worldly wit of the men who think that they can drive a good bargain with the 'Romish' clergy, all I can say is that they have no value in my eyes. The vulgarest cure that ever wore a coal-scuttle hat is more than the match of all the craft in Downing Street.

"You are quite right, it would do me immense good to breathe your bracing air, but it 'mauna be.' I wish I could see a chance of _your_ crossing the Alps--is it on the cards?

"I wish I was twenty years younger and I'd make an effort to get into Parliament. Like my friend Corney, my friends always prophesied a success to me in something and somewhere that I have never explored--but so it is.

"Oh! for the books that have never been written, With all the wise things that n.o.body has read.

And oh! for the hearts that have never been smitten, Nor heard the fond things that n.o.body has said.

"_My_ treasures are, I suspect, safely locked in the same secure obscurity. _N'importe!_ at this moment I'd rather be sure my little girl would have a good night than I'd be Member for Oxford."

_To Mr Alexander Spencer._

"Villa Morelli, Florence, _July_ 23, 1864.

"It would be unfair amidst all your labours to expect you could read through the volume of 'Corney O'Dowd' that Blackwood will have already sent--or a few days more will bring--to you. Still, if you will open it, and here and there look through some of those jottings-down, I know they will recall me to your memory. It is so very natural to me to half-reason over things, that an old friend [? like] yourself will recognise me on every page, and for this reason it is that I would like to imagine you reading it. My great critics declare that I have done nothing so good since the 'Dodds,'--and now, enough of the whole theme!

"Here we are in a pretty villa on a south slope of the Apennines, with Florence at our feet and a glorious foreground of all that is richest in Italian foliage between us and the city. It is of all places the most perfect to write in,--beauty of view, quiet, silence, and seclusion all perfect,--but somehow I suppose I have grown a little footsore on the road. I do not write with my old facility. I sit and think--or fancy I think--and find very little is done after [all].

"The dreary thought of time lost and talent misapplied--for I ought never to have taken to the cla.s.s of writing that I did--_will_ invade, and, instead of plodding steadily along the journey, I am like one who sits down to cry over the map of the country to be traversed.

"I go to Spezzia occasionally--the fast mail now makes it but five hours. The Foreign Office is really most indulgent: they ask nothing of me, and in return I give them exactly what they ask.

"My wife is a little better--that is, she can move about una.s.sisted and has less suffering. Her malady, however, is not checked. The others are well. As for myself, I am in great bodily health,--lazy and indolent, as I always was, and more given to depressions, perhaps, but also more patient under them than I used to be."

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Florence, _Sat.u.r.day_, July 30.

"Yours has just come. O'D. is very handsome. Confound the public if they won't like them! Nothing could be neater and prettier than the book. How I long to hear some good tidings of it!

"My daughter had a slight relapse, but is now doing all well and safely.

"I think that the Irish papers--'The Dub. E. Mail' and 'Express'--would review us if copies were sent, and perhaps an advertis.e.m.e.nt.

"I know you'll let me hear, so I don't importune you for news.

"Your cheque came all safe; my thanks for it. The intense heat is such now that I can only write late at night, and very little then."

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Villa Morelli, _Aug_. 3, 1864.

"Unshaven, dishevelled, I sit all bedevilled; Your news has upset me,-- It was meet it should fret me.

What! two hundred and fifty!

Is the public so thrifty?

Or are jokes so redundant, And funds so abundant That 'O'Dowd' cannot find more admirers than this!

I am sure in the City 'Punch' is reckoned more witty, And c.o.c.kneys won't laugh Save at Lombard Street chaff; But of _gentlemen_, surely there can be no stint, Who would like dinner drolleries dished up in print, And to _read_ the same nonsense would gladly be able That they'd laugh at--if heard--o'er the claret at table The sort of light folly that sensible men Are never ashamed of--at least now and then.

For even the gravest are not above chaff, And I know of a bishop that loves a good laugh.

Then why will they deny me, And why won't they buy me?

I know that the world is full of cajolery, And many a dull dog will trade on _my_ drollery, Though he'll never be brought to confess it aloud That the story you laughed at he stole from O'Dowd; But the truth is, I feel if my book is unsold, That my fun, like myself, it must be--has grown old.

And though the confession may come with a d.a.m.n, I must own it--_non sum qualis eram_.

"I got a droll characteristic note from the Duke of Wellington and a cordial hearty one from Sir H. Seymour. I'd like to show you both, but I am out of sorts by this sluggishness in our [circulation]. The worst of it is, I have n.o.body to blame but myself.

"Send a copy of O'D. to Kinglake with my respects and regards. He is the only man (except C. O'D.) in England who understands Louis Nap."

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Florence, _Aug_. 9, 1864.

"I am just sent for to Spezzia to afford my Lords of the Admiralty a full and true account of all the dock accommodation possible there, which looks like something in 'the wind'; the whole 'most secret and confidential.'

"I am sorry to leave home, though my little girl is doing well I have _many_ causes of anxiety, and for the first time in my whole life have begun to pa.s.s sleepless nights, being from my birth as sound a sleeper as Sancho Panza himself.

"Of course Wilson was better than anything he ever did--but why wouldn't he? He was a n.o.ble bit of manhood every way; he was my _beau ideal_ of a fine fellow from the days I was a schoolboy. The men who link genius with geniality are the true salt of the earth, but they are marvellously few in number. I don't bore you, I hope, asking after O'D.; at least you are so forgiving to my importunity that I fancy I am merciful."

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Florence, _Aug_. 11,1864.

"I forgot to tell you that the scene of the collision in the longer O'D. is all invented--there was nothing of it in 'The Times' or anywhere else. How right you are about the melodramatic tone in the scene between Maitland and his Mother! It is worse. It is bow-wow! It is Minerva Press and the rest of it, but all that comes of a d------d public. I mean it all comes of novel-writing for a d------d public that like novels,--and novels are--novels.

"I am very gouty to-day, and I have a cross-grained man coming to dinner, and my women (affecting to keep the mother company) won't dine with me, and I am sore put out.

"Another despatch! I am wanted at Spezzia,--a frigate or a gunboat has just put in there and no consul Captain Short, of the _Sneezer_ perhaps, after destroying Chiavari and the organ-men, put in for instructions. By the way, Yule was dining with Perry, the Consul-General at Venice, the other day, when there came an Austrian official to ask for the Magazine with _Flynn's Life_ as a _piece de conviction!_ This would be grand, but it is beaten hollow by another fact. In a French 'Life of Wellington,'