Part 21

“Meanwhile--and to be in a measure prepared for the future--I want you to do a bit of diplomacy for me. My story of ‘Carew’ will finish in March, when ‘The Dodds’ also will close; and as Chapman & Hall contemplate the new issue of my older books, I suspect they will not be disposed to engage me contemporaneously with a new work, so that I shall be suddenly without any engagement in London or Dublin. What I want is, therefore, that you should sound M’Glashan as to a new serial story,--to be published by him both in the Magazine and in monthly numbers, as he did with ‘O’Malley,’ and _with my name_. I want the thing done adroitly, as if the notion originated with you, and so that, if he approved, you could then suggest it to me. If he said Yes, we could then talk of terms. At all events, you could say that an offer of American origin had been made to me, and if this (the serial) could be managed, _you_ would rather have it than the Transatlantic project.”

_To Mr Alexander Spencer_

“Hôtel d’Odessa, Spezzia, _Dec_ 20, 1853.

“You write (as I am accustomed to feel) soberly and seriously. But there is this difference between us: you have borne the heavy burden of a long life of labour with noble earnestness and self-denial; I have, on the contrary, only to look back upon great opportunities neglected and fair abilities thrown away, capacity wasted, and a whole life squandered. Yet if it were not for the necessity that has kept me before the world, perhaps I should have sunk down wearied and exhausted long ago: but as the old clown in the circus goes on grinning and grimacing even when the chalk won’t hide his wrinkles, so do I make a show of light-heartedness I have long ceased to feel, or, what is more, to wish for!

“If I had the choice given me I’d rather be forsaken by my creditors than remembered by my friends.

“I am glad you like ‘Carew.’ It was more than pleasant to me to write it. What a strange confession, is it not?--as though saying that when an author came to take pleasure in his own book, he was reduced to the condition of a bear who loved sucking his own paw.

“We have come here to pass the winter, for though intrinsically little cheaper than Florence, as we are all driven to a hotel, we have got rid of horses and stable expenses altogether. Our economy up to this has not done much, but even a little seems to encourage, and I suppose that thrift is one of those remedies that requires to be introduced gradually into the system.

“I scribble a great deal--political hash amongst the rest--but not very profitable, for whatever is done without name is nearly always done without money. ‘Garibaldi,’ however, brought me about £50.

“Don’t bore yourself writing to me; but, if you like, let me write to you. I have plenty--too much--time on my hands, and it is about the last pleasure left me to commune with one who, though he has known me so long, still loves me.

“Charles is working hard away at his new trade, and likes it. His masters, the Messrs Sandell, have built a large foundry, and make all the materials of the rail.”

_To Mr Alexander Spencer_.

“Casa Capponi, Florence, _Jan._ 23, 1854.

“I am fully aware how difficult--impossible I might say--it is to obtain any reply to any demand from M’Glashan, and am therefore not impatient on that score. Besides that, from his repeated remonstrances and complaints about ‘Carew’ lately, I am more than disenchanted to renew my connection with him.

“I hope soon again to be at work on something new for Chapman & Hall.

“John and Anne give me the only good news I ever heard of ‘Sir Jasper’; but even were it worse than I like to believe, it can scarcely call for the criticisms M’G. forwards me. I really wrote it painstakingly and carefully, and, so far as in me lies, I try to do honestly with him.

“I have done nothing but feast and dance and other tomfooleries these last three weeks, for it is our Carnival; and to help me out of my slender exchequer, the Duke of Wellington has been here on a visit to us!”

_To Mr Alexander Spencer._

“Florence, _Oct_. 1864.

“Read the article I have written on Sardinia and Austria in the forthcoming number of the Magazine. It is a bold suggestion,--but it has met such high sanction already in Piedmont, and has appeared in a translation at Turin, whither I sent it. Lord J. Russell is here,--I have dined with him twice,--and he comes to me on Saturday. He is very silent and reserved, but of course this is all essential to one whose chance expressions are eagerly caught at--happy if they be not misrepresented.”

‘Maurice Tiernay’ and ‘Sir Jasper Carew’ were issued as volumes of the Parlour Library, nothing appearing on the title-pages to indicate that these two excellent works of fiction came from the pen of Charles Lever. The author’s reason for preserving anonymity sprang from a fear--not unwarrantable--that the public might get the idea in its head that he was “over-writing.” His red-wrappered monthly-part novels had now become a kind of institution in the book trade, and anything that would tend to depreciate the circulation of them was to be carefully avoided.

‘The Dodd Family’ had arrived at its serial end in April, and was published in book form; and Chapman & Hall had agreed to issue its successor, ‘The Martins of Cro-Martin.’ Lever was still endeavouring to make a bargain with ‘The Dublin University’ for a new serial. He was wavering about an American expedition, and Mr Chapman was all the while advocating a cheap reissue of his novels. These arrangements and projects afforded the novelist some mental relief, and he found himself able to attack his work with _verve_. In sending to M’Glashan the skeleton of a plot for his proposed Magazine serial, he described himself as labouring “with the zeal of an apostle and the sweat of a galley-slave.” His fitful mind was disturbed presently by a rumour which reached him in July. It was whispered that ‘The Dublin University’ would shortly be in the market. He wrote at once to Spencer asking this much-enduring man to institute inquiries. There was nothing he would not sacrifice in order to obtain possession of the periodical. If he had it in his hands again, he was confident that he would be able to retain it and to make a good property of it. But the rumour--arising possibly out of a suspicion that M’Glashan was breaking down--proved to be premature.

Lever had contemplated a visit to Ireland during the spring. Having decided to lay the scene of his next novel in Ireland, he was anxious for “atmosphere.” Late in July he set out from Casa Capponi, and M’Glashan received one morning an invitation to meet him at his hotel in Dublin. The novelist found his admonisher in a low state of spirits, and he exerted himself to rouse him from his despondency. To a certain extent he must have succeeded, for a nephew of Lever, who dined with the pair at the Imperial Hotel in Dublin, declares that it was “a roar of fun from beginning to end.” Lorrequer was in most brilliant form, and even the waiters might have been observed rushing from the dining-room endeavouring to stifle their laughter.

Lever spent the time gaily in Dublin--reviving old friendships and making new friends, listening to good stories and telling better ones. Amongst the old friends was M. J. Barry, who had been one of the most valued contributors to ‘The Dublin University.’ He told Barry that Florence was the ideal place for the literary man; that he himself lived there for about £1200 a-year* in a style which could not be adopted in London on £3000 a-year, or in Ireland for any sum. He owned that his tastes and habits were extravagant: his mode of life, he explained, was not merely a case of luxurious inclinations, but one of necessity. “It feeds my lamp,” he said, “which would die out otherwise. My receptions are my studies. I find there characters, and I pick up a thousand things that are to me invaluable. You can’t keep drawing wine off the cask perpetually and putting nothing in it.”

* It is impossible to arrive at any definite conclusions concerning Lever’s earnings from his writings. It is certain that during some years his annual income was not less than £2000. If the whole of the period from ‘Harry Lorrequer’ in 1837 to ‘Lord Kilgobbin’ in 1871; was taken into account, his estimate of £1200 a-year would not be very far astray. It is most likely an under-estimate. £60,000 would probably represent more accurately the sum of his literary earnings. --E. D.

Amongst his entertainers in Dublin was the Viceregal Court. His _vis-à-vis_ at a dinner at the Viceregal Lodge was Sir Bernard Burke, the Ulster King-at-Arms. The remainder of the company was interested merely in military affairs or Court functions. No one at the table seemed to care whether the Irish humourist spoke or was silent--no one there was interested in such a paltry entity as a mere man of intellect; so Lever, the life and soul of Florentine salons, preserved silence for most of the evening. When he did join in the conversation, he happened to venture an opinion that Sebastopol would not be taken for at least another year, and this resulted in his having to incur “as much ridicule as was consistent with viceregal politeness to bestow, and the small wit of small AD.C.’s to inflict.” So far as he was concerned, this dinner-party was a dismal affair: it recalled some equally dismal dinner-parties, or receptions, at the grand-ducal court of Baden.

Apparently Lever made no headway in Dublin with the matter of the Magazine, but his visit to Ireland refreshed and invigorated him. The sight of Irish faces and of Irish scenery and the sound of Irish voices dissipated some Florentine languorousness, and enabled him to set to work spiritedly at his new novel, ‘The Martins.’

During the autumn of 1854 he submitted to M’Glashan a proposal for an interesting series of papers--“Stories of the Ruined Houses of Ireland.” Nothing came of this. Towards the end of the year he contributed some further papers on Italian politics to ‘The Dublin University.’ One upon Sardinia and Austria created some attention in Italy, and a translation was published in Turin. English politics and foreign politics, viewed from the British standpoint, were affording him keen interest, and he had the privilege of discussing them under his own roof with a very distinguished personage, the Lord President of the Council, Lord John Russell.

Thoughts of entering Parliament were again crossing Lever’s mind at this period; but his best friends, notably his brother John, sought to dissuade him from embarking upon a career which, for a man of his temperament, would be full of pitfalls, and would in all likelihood end in Nowhere.

XII. FLORENCE AND SPEZZIA 1855-1862

The story of young Charles Lever--such of it as may be evolved from his father’s letters and from other sources--is by no means uninteresting in itself, and it is intimately concerned, for a period, with the story of his father, who loved him dearly, and who looked forward to seeing the youth making a distinguished figure in the world. The profession of engineering did not hold him long. He was smitten with the military fever which had smitten his father before he had adopted medicine as a profession; but the novelist’s son was trained in a school which differed widely from the school in which the novelist had been trained. Everything that could conduce to unsettle a high-spirited youth fell to the lot of young Charles Lever. Moreover, he could, and did, imbibe from his father’s books a passion for military adventure. This in itself would have been nothing to cause uneasiness to a parent, but in addition to his longings for the adventurous career of a soldier, the novelist’s son had developed, at an early stage, a thorough contempt for “the simple life.” The only son of a father to whom reckless generosity was an easy virtue, who looked upon thrift--or anything resembling it--merely as a subject for ridicule, it would have been wellnigh impossible for young Lever to have regarded money except as a commodity difficult at times to obtain, but imperative to spend as quickly and as lavishly as possible. Early in 1855 the young engineer decided to abandon his civil profession; and seeing that there was no use in trying to keep him out of the army, his father purchased a commission for him, and he was gazetted to a cornetcy in the Royal Wilts Regiment, then stationed at Corfu. “I own to you,” Lever writes to Spencer, “I do not fancy the career, but he does not, and will not, settle down to anything else. We must only let him take his chance and try to be a Field Marshal, which in these times ought not to be so very difficult a matter, if one only thought of the competitorship.”

Having had his attention drawn to military affairs, Lever now conceived a literary project in connection with them--a work to be entitled ‘The Battlefields of Europe.’ He submitted the idea to M’Glashan, but the publisher was in no condition to offer advice or to enter into speculations off the regular track.

A serious attack of gout in the stomach prostrated the novelist in June, and for weeks he was unable to sit at his desk. He describes himself as being “covered with rugs and leeches, and warm-bathed to half his weight.” He was so ill and so depressed that he felt he was going to die. When he was able to hold a pen he wrote to M’Glashan imploring him to send sixty pounds for his life insurance premiums. “I had almost hoped,” he said, “that I was going to cheat the company and give them the slip.” He had now concluded a bargain--a somewhat loose one--for the new serial for ‘The Dublin University.’ The novel was entitled ‘The Fortunes of Glencore.’ Soon after he had despatched the first instalment, he was disturbed by receiving a letter from Dublin which contained ill news of M’Glashan.

_To Mr Alexander Spencer._

“Florence, Casa Capponi, _July_ 5, 1856.

“This is to thank you for so promptly answering Chapman. The delay was not _his_ fault, but mine,--at least, so far as anything can be culpable which a man cannot help. Two feet of water would suffice to drown a baby; and though it takes a quarter of a million to smash Strahan & Paul, a very few hundreds would do all that mischief to Charles Lever.

“I have just made arrangements for a story to be contributed to ‘The Dublin University Magazine,’ but at the same instant I have received the most alarming tidings of M’Glashan’s health. I am, in fact, informed--and on such authority as I must believe--that disease of the brain has displayed itself, and aberration already become apparent. Total loss of memory I could collect from his letters to myself,--they were latterly nothing but a repetition of the same queries, and occasionally almost incoherent.

“It is a great pity, for, without being an original mind or one of high order, it was the rarest intellect I ever met for the gift of identifying others, looking out for the right man, and making him do the thing he was capable of. He overworked to a dreadful extent, and then, by gradual cultivation, he had so elevated his faculties above those of his associates, that he left himself companionless. Hence all the mischief.

“I hope--but I scarcely have courage to assure myself--that you like ‘Cro-Martin.’ At the same time, I think its more reflective characters will please you, and I own I wrote it with due thought.

“It is just possible that events might bring the Magazine into the market. If so, there is nothing I’d make such an effort to obtain. It would be in my hands a property--a great one.

“Charley is dallying at Corfu, and anxiously hoping to see the Crimea. I tell him not to hurry: he’ll be in good time for the taking of Sebastopol--in ‘56 or ‘57.”

Early in September Lever received a pitiful letter from M’Glashan: “I am utterly ruined in health and fortune; they have given me a pittance to live on, but taken away the Magazine and all that I care to live for. You have always treated me generously and never made hard bargains with me. Now I hope you will look to yourself, and not give ‘Glencore’ away without being well and handsomely paid.”

_To Mr Alexander Spencer._

“Spezzia, _Sept_. 1855.

“My contract for ‘Tiernay’ and ‘Carew’ was £20 a sheet, the copyright remaining mine, and my name not to be disclosed as author. These were terms conceded to M’Glashan out of personal regard to himself. So disadvantageous were they to me, that when pressing me to contribute my present tale of ‘Glencore’ M’Glashan said, ‘Make the arrangement as will suit and fairly reimburse you, and do in all respects what you think right between us.’ In this way, and without any more definite understanding, I began, nor have we to this hour any real contract between us.

“I want you to see Mr Wardlaw, and (amongst other inquiries) demand £2 per page--£32 per sheet--for ‘Glencore,’ copyright to be preserved to me.

“In your conversation with Wardlaw could you ascertain whether the present proprietors, whoever they are, might be disposed to treat with me for the editorship? You might suggest that such an arrangement would be very likely to meet liberal acceptance at my hands. The state of the Magazine when before under my management might be referred to for evidence of its success.”

_To Mr Alexander Spencer._

“Spezzia, _Sept_. 12, 1855.

“The deaths in Tuscany [from cholera] are reported at 700 a-day. I am not myself afraid of the disease, but I am more than usually anxious about my children.

“As to M’Glashan: the last letter said the Magazine had been reserved to him by some arrangement, and would, he hoped, yield him wherewithal to live on; but my impression is that the creditors have only done this in the prospect that his days are numbered, and not wishing to do anything like severity to a man so painfully placed.... Wardlaw, who encloses the proofs, says, ‘M’Glashan grows more and more helpless.’ I believe his malady is softening of the brain--and if so, incurable.”

_To Mr Alexander Spencer._

“Spezzia, _Sept_. 17, 1855.

“If I could obtain the Magazine for myself it would be a great object. I’m sure Chapman would assist in the purchase, or take some share in it.

“My fear is that J. F. Waller, at present acting as editor, will step into it before any one can interfere, and the assignees may not know that I would willingly resume it--either as editor or owner.”

_To Mr Alexander Spencer._

“Spezzia, _Sept. 27_, 1855.

“A letter written by M’Glashan and merely addressed ‘Charles Lever’ was posted in Dublin on the 15th of August last, and by some accident was included in the American mail, and arrived duly in New York on September 1st, when by an equally strange accident it was re-directed there, and addressed ‘Spezzia,’ and to-day it came to my house here.

“How M’Glashan forgot to append my address is easy enough to see. How any one in New York knew it, and re-directed the letter, is more difficult to explain.

“If my demand [for ‘Glencore’] be thought too high, I have no alternative save leaving ‘Glencore’ as a ‘payment’ to the Magazine, reserving to myself its completion elsewhere. Wardlaw must be distinctly given to understand that I never contributed this story even to M’Glashan on my previous terms, still less would I do so to those with whom I have no ties of personal intimacy or friendship. You can, I know, learn much from Mr Wardlaw, whom I have ever found a straightforward honest man,--cold as a Scotchman, but to be depended on.”

_To Mr Alexander Spencer._

“Florence, _Oct_. 16,1865.

[Lever instructs his correspondent to request that his MS. for the November portion be at once returned, and Mr W. be informed that Mr L. will now consider himself free to make arrangements for the continuance of the story of ‘Glencore’ in any magazine or in any quarter that may suit him.]

“I almost fancy I can read the whole web of this small intrigue, and detect the hand of J. F. Waller throughout it.

“The trustees might, by a reference to the Magazine account, have seen that while I myself edited the Magazine I paid for a story extending through 18 Nos., and to a nameless author who had never written fiction before, £20 a sheet.”

_To Mr Alexander Spencer._

“Casa Capponi, _Nov_. 7, 1856.

“The opening of ‘Glencore’ having already appeared in the Magazine, will, I now find, seriously damage its continuance elsewhere, since no periodical will republish the past chapters, nor can they take up a story thus interrupted, and when commencement must be sought for elsewhere.... Now Mr Wardlaw knows, and the books will prove, that my terms with M’Glashan were £20 per sheet. By a dodge in a mere laughing conversation at breakfast he made a sheet to mean sixteen or seventeen pages, and as I never haggled about anything, he actually took advantage of my easiness, and paid me £20 per seventeen pages.... In a pure matter of business I have no right to dwell upon the want of consideration towards an old friend and supporter of the Magazine like myself, but I do feel deeply the scant courtesy with which I have been treated, and the little regard paid either to my interests or my sentiments as an author.”

_To Mr Alexander Spencer._

“Florence, _Dec._ 5, 1865.

“I thank you most heartily for keeping me _au courant_ to the destinies of the Magazine. I have just learned that H[urst] & B[lackett] have become the proprietors, with the intention of publishing in future in England, as I see ‘The Dublin Evening Mail’ has already announced. H. & B. are also, as I am informed, about to write to me,--probably about ‘Glencore,’ but not impossibly about editorship. Many of the difficulties and ‘disagreeables’ which my friends anticipate for me as editor of the Magazine would be probably obviated by publishing in England. Indeed from that moment the journal would cease to be Irish--at least, in all the acrimonious attributes of that unhappy adjective; and if H. & B. would propose such terms as I could accept, I’d accede, if only as a valid and sufficient reason to draw nearer to England, wherefrom I have, for my own and my children’s interests, too long separated myself. I also think that with capital, and London publishing to back it, the Magazine might be raised into a very worthy rivalry with ‘Blackwood’s,’ its one solitary competitor. However, I am merely speculating on all this, and rather weaving a web of hopes and wishes than of solid reason and sound expectation.

“It would be well if the Dublin people (in 50 Sackville St.) could be brought to book for the part ‘Glencores’ at once. There are also a few pp. about politics in the August No., written at M’Glashan’s request. They cost me more work than double as much fiction.

“I hope you continue to like ‘Cro-Martin.’ They say in England it is the best I’ve done,--but I scarcely hope it myself.”

The year 1855 closed, with plenty of work to do and plenty of interest in the work, with the usual shortage of supplies, with hopes and fears and projects chasing each other through the brain which had coined them.