Charles Lever, His Life in His Letters Volume Ii Part 36

"Lord L.* proposes our pa.s.sing next week at Knebworth, and the idea has something tempting, but I suspect if you are not likely to come up, I shall scarcely delay here, but make a straight run home, from which my last accounts are far from rea.s.suring.

* A story is told of this visit. The Consul, on his arrival in England, called upon Lord Lytton. The two novelists chatted for some time, and at length Lytton said, "I'm so glad for many reasons to see you here. You will have an opportunity presently of meeting your chief, Clarendon. I expect him every moment." Lever was aghast. He recollected that he had left Trieste without obtaining formal "leave."

He endeavoured to excuse himself to Lytton (who was now very deaf): he had to be off to meet his daughters. While he was apologising for his hurried decision to say good-bye, the Minister for Foreign Affairs was announced. "Ah, Mr Lever,"

said Lord Clarendon, "I didn't know that you had left Trieste." "No, my lord," stammered Lever, unable for the moment to see how he was going to get out of the difficulty.

"The fact is, I thought it would be more respectful if I came and asked your lords.h.i.+p personally for leave."

Possibly this anecdote is of the "ben trovato" order.--E. D.

"My old friend Seymour is with us every day with plans for amus.e.m.e.nt.

"To turn to other matters, I have a couple of half finished O'Ds. which, if you like to print, I shall have time to lick into shape. I went yesterday to the 'House' to see if my countryman the Mayor of Cork might not furnish matter for an O'Dowd, but the whole was flat and wearisome."

_To Mr William Blackwood._

"Knebworth, _May_ 18, 1869.

"Half stupid with a cold, and shaken by the worst cough I ever had in my life, I send you an O'D., part of which I read to your uncle, and indeed wrote after a conversation with him. I hope it has more go in it than the man who wrote it.

"I am told you are likely to come up to town, and I cannot tell you how I would like to meet you. It may be, most probably is, my last appearance on these boards, for it is most unlikely I shall ever cross the Alps again, so that I entreat you let us have a shake hands, if only that we may recognise each other when on t'other side of the Styx.

"I shall be back in town to-morrow or the day after, and hope to hear news of you.

"I am afraid to write more, I am so overwhelmed by wheezing and nose-blowing."

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Trieste, _June_ 25, 1869.

"I have been coughing unceasingly since I saw you last, and with difficulty secured intervals to write these O'Ds. We made only a day's delay at Paris, and came on here without resting at all.

"Of my wife I can only say she is not worse, but I dare not say she is better. The excessive heat here is very debilitating, especially coming after a somewhat rough spring.

"Sydney is pressing me to join her in a visit to a chateau in Croatia, where she is about to stay for a couple of months, but I can't afford the time, though in one way it might repay me."

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Trieste, _July_ 9, 1869.

"I have just got your note and am glad you like the O'Ds., but the best of the batch are not here, as I am sure you will think,--'Forfeited Pledges' and 'What to do with it' especially. I cannot throw off my cough, and as I don't sleep at night I do nothing but sleep all day, and this disposition of my time is little favourable to habits of industry.

"I suppose you are right. Syd's energy would have carried me off to Croatia if possible. Do you remember the story of the Irish priest telling the peasant that whenever he--the peasant aforesaid--went into a 'shebeen' to drink, his guardian angel stood weeping at the door.

'Begorra,' said Pat, 'I don't wonder but if he had sixpence he'd be in too.' It is really the want of the sixpence makes me a guardian angel.

"The weather is intensely hot here just now, and all out-of-door life impossible till evening, and for my own part I never wander beyond the walls of my own garden, which, fortunately for me, is very pretty and shady too. Very little companions.h.i.+p would reconcile me to the place, but there's positively none. It was this sort of solitude, begetting a species of brooding, that broke down my poor brother in an Irish parish; and sometimes I dread the depression for myself. It costs me such an effort to do anything."

_To Mr John Blackwood_

"Trieste, _July_ 10, 1869.

"You have read of some s.h.i.+ps having crossed the Atlantic with eight feet of water in the hold, bulwarks staved in, sails in tatters, the whole only kept afloat by the incessant labour of crew and pa.s.sengers at the pumps; and such is pretty much my condition, and must, I believe, continue to be for the rest of my voyage here, and what is perhaps worst of all is, in this same lamentable state I must still solicit freight and cargo, ask to be 'chartered,' and pledge myself to be seaworthy and insurable.

"Well, I can only say, 'I'll not humbug you.' You shall see the craft in all its rottenness, and not embark a bale on board of me without knowing how frail is the hope you trust to. Having said this much of warning (not that you need warning, for no man better knows the value of what he takes or rejects), I have now another confession to make. I have begun my new story, which I call 'Lord Kilgobbin,' which will be essentially Irish, and for which, if I live and thrive, I mean to take a look at Ireland about May next.

"I have made such an opening--such as all here are delighted with, and I myself think not so bad. I shall be ready if you like to begin in April, and shall be able to send you No. 1 before the present month is out.

"I had gout on me all the time I was writing the 'Dodds,' and I have a theory that if it does not utterly floor me it sharpens me. What debilitates occasionally stimulates, just as cutting a s.h.i.+p's timbers will give a knot to her speed."

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Trieste, July 12,1869.

"I am going on fairly: my malady is there, and must stay there; but I am going to tide over this time, and will not fret myself for the future.

"I'm glad you like my talk. How I'd like to read you my opening of 'Kilgobbin.' They like it much here, but I don't know how much may have been said to cheer me. I'm not able to write beyond a very short time, but I must do something or my head will run clean away with me.

"My wife's state keeps me in intense anxiety, but on the whole she is better than heretofore.

"Is there anything out worth reviewing? I'd like to have something would take me off myself for a while.

"That poor fellow Baker, who was shot, was a cousin of my wife,--a good, amiable, soft-hearted fellow, I hear, and incapable of a severe thing."

_To Mr John Blackwood._

"Trieste, _July_ 16, 1869.

"I kept over the O'Ds., at your nephew's suggestion, till I heard from you, but am glad now to see that you have no change to advise, for I don't think I could make them better, especially by dictation. Any value these things have is as a sort of 'schnaps,' and n.o.body likes water with his gla.s.s of curacoa.

"The heat is so overpowering here that I can do nothing, and I am afraid, in my wife's critical state, to leave home for the Styrian mountains, where some hospitable invitations are tempting me. From all I can learn, there is a fine field for story-writing in those unvisited lands on the Hungarian frontier, and I may one of these days perhaps be able to profit by it.

"I am glad the chestnut turns out so well, but I was sure she would improve every day she was ridden. If I were Mrs B. I'd strongly demur to putting a collar on her, at least till she was thoroughly made for the saddle; for it is a curious fact that you may harness your saddle-horse but you can't ride your harness-horse. Mrs B. will understand me, and I am sure agree with me. Whether she does or not, give her my kindest regards."

_To Mr William Blackwood._

"_July_ 16, 1869.