XVII. FLORENCE AND TRIESTE 1867
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, Feb. 6, 1867.
“Up to this I have no tidings about the Queen’s Speech, and am as much in doubt as ever what the Government means. One thing I feel sure: if they do not propose some measure of reform, they are done for as a Party; and if they do, they are done for as a Ministry. Reform is a dose that will always kill the doctor that prescribes it.
“But there are graver mischiefs abroad. A great European war is coming, and I see already signs that the Yankees have their task assigned them by Russia, and which will immensely complicate the coming struggle. Jonathan is to sympathise with the distressed Cretans: he is to come into the war as a philanthropist, but it is a philanthropist with a six-shooter!
“I send you three short O’Ds. If the month is propitious I may find bones for another. Send me (if you have them) the rejected ones: I think I could transfuse blood into them and revive them. It is important that they should not be all political, and it is often hard to find a new social evil, particularly for a man laid up like myself, and not street-walking. You will see, without my telling it, that I am not myself. I am far from well, and my spirits, that I always thought would have gone on with me to the end, are flagging.
“There will be a strong session, and no quarter given or taken. How I envy the fellows that are in it. If men really wanted to see what the effect of numerical representation is, they ought to look at the French and Italian Chambers,—the one a closely packed crowd of Ministerial followers, the other a set of jobbing hounds representing neither the intelligence, the property, nor the enterprise of the country. The proprietary of Italy is scarcely seen in the Chamber, and the Parliament has neither credit with the country nor influence over it. One of Garibaldi’s ill-spelled silly proclamations is more law in the land than all that passes the House.
“I hope the Ministry will declare they want no measures of severity in Ireland, and will have the pluck to restore the Act of Habeas Corpus and give the lie to the Kimberley fabrication. I don’t say Ireland is sound, but she is no sicker than she ever was. As to the Established Church in Ireland, I am convinced that they who urge its destruction are less amicably disposed towards the Catholics than that they hate the Protestants. They always remind me of what Macaulay said of the Puritans, who put down bear-baiting not because it was cruel to the bear, but because it amused the people.
“There are many in Ireland who think that to abolish the Church would at once cut the tie that attaches Ireland to England. I myself think it would weaken it. There was assuredly a time in which, if Protestants could only have been assured that their religion would be respected, they would have joined O’Connell in Repeal. Though too loyal and too self-respecting to make outcry upon it, the Protestants in Ireland are far from thinking they are fairly dealt with.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morzlli, Florence, Feb. 17,1867.
“The short month compels me to beg you will look closely to these in proof, as I cannot hope to see them. I am ‘off the hook,’ but I wrote these last O’Ds. di cuôre, as I feel, especially in the Irish affair, the Cabinet is wrong.
“I am not sure of my appointment, but I believe it will take place. I was only waiting for certainty to tell you, well aware of your kind feeling for me. It is not a ‘big bird’ but, after all, I only shoot with a popgun.
“The Irish judge, Keogh, who tried the Fenians, dined with me yesterday. He has come abroad by special leave to escape the risque of assassination with which he was menaced.”
To Mr John Blackwood,
“Villa Morelli, Florbnce, Feb. 20, 1867.
“I write a mere line to say that I have this morning received my appointment to Trieste, and from all I hear of the climate, society, and place itself, I am fortunate. It is only eighteen hours by rail from this.
“In my last proof I corrected ‘La Marmora’ wrong: it should be ‘La Marmora’ (as it stood before I changed it). The Italian newspapers, however, spell it both ways.
“I intend to ask for a leave till May, since it would be dangerous to move my wife in bad or broken weather; so that if you should visit Paris (I mean, of course, you and Mrs B.), there is still time to come over to Florence before we leave it, and I hope that you may manage it.
“The promotion was made with great courtesy, and if I have not got a big slice of the pudding, I have been certainly ‘helped’ with all possible politeness.
“I suspect Dizzy has made a sad mull of his ‘resolutions.’ It is, however, hard to say what conditions his own friends may have imposed. At all events, if the Government be allowed to carry a bill, it will be to get rid of a troublesome measure and a party together. They will permit the horse to win, with the condition that the race shall break him down for ever.
“I scribble this hurriedly; but I knew you would like to hear I was safe out of the ship, even though it be only in a punt.
“Italy is going clean to the devil. It will be soon the choice between a Despotism or a Republic. Parliamentary government they never did understand, but so long as Cavour lived he made the nation think it was a Parliament ruled them,—and, stranger again, the Parliament itself believed so too!”
To Mr Alexander Spencer.
“Villa Morelli, Florence, Feb. 21,1867.
“As I know of no one who will be more pleased to hear of any piece of good fortune having befallen me than yourself, I write this to tell you that the Government have given me the Trieste Consulship. It is one of the best in all respects—worth at present £700 a-year, and with fair prospect of being increased. The place itself, climate, people, and position are all that I could desire. The way the thing was done was most courteous, and as Spezzia is to be abolished, it is clear that both my last and my present post were specially created to serve me.*
* Dr Fitzpatrick (on the authority of Mr Whiteside—
afterwards Lord Chief-Justice) makes the statement that
Lord Derby exclaimed, “We must do something for Harry
Lorrequer.” Also, that in offering him the appointment,
Lord Derby said, “Here is £600 a-year for doing nothing;
and you, Lever, are the very man to do it” It does not seem
probable that Lever would have considered the somewhat
cynical observations attributed to the Secretary of State
for Foreign Affairs as being exceptionally polite or
exceptionally courteous.—E. D.
“Of course I am very glad to have some of the pressure of eternal authorship taken off my shoulders, for I can easily, by O’Dowd and such like discursive things, double my income without calling upon me for the effort of story-writing.
“I might have had something higher and more remunerative if I had been disposed to go farther away, but my wife’s health and my own inclination to keep in this part of Europe (only eighteen hours by rail from where I am) decided me to take Trieste.
“It is not, of course, without regret we leave the city we have lived twenty years in; and I believe I am not deceiving myself if I say that we shall be regretted here, for we have a large acquaintance, and are almost Florentine. Still, it would be madness to refuse such an offer and the security it gives that when my hand and head get more wearied I shall yet be able to live, and, like the princess in the fairy tale, only ‘kill mice’ for my amusement.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, Florence, March 6, 1867.
“I send you the Fenians altered—and, I hope, for the better. As the Government have called for the New Powers, there is no need to deplore their omitting to do so, and the paper will not read the worse that it does not censure them.
“I have thought over what you suggested about Gladstone,—but it would be too personal, and I hate him too much to trust myself to speak of him individually. As for the charm of his manner—his fascination, &c,—I think it is about the most arrant humbug I know. Joseph Surface, with a strong Lancashire burr, is the impression he left upon me.
“What a precious fiasco the Tories have made of their bill. Like the Chinese with the plum-pudding, they forgot to tie the bag, and all the ingredients have got loose in the pot. I see Lord Cranborne and Peel have left them. Both are losses, but it matters little how the crew is to muster when the ship is among the breakers.
“I set off for my post immediately, and hope that a new place, new situation, and new people may rally me out of my dreariness. Austrian politics, like Scotch law, confound one by the very names they give things; and I lose all pleasure in a trial when the plaintiff is called the ‘Promovent’! I know it will be many a day before I resign myself to believe that ‘Reichsrath’ means a council: it looks and sounds so like a tonic bitter. Still, I am going in for a strong acquaintance with Austria and Austrians, and mean to give up Italy when I cross the frontier.
“If Newdigate had not been such a good fellow I’d have liked to have quizzed him about his absurd speech concerning the Irish Catholics. It is hard to understand men so imbued with prejudice and yet mixing with the world. And as to Cardinal Cullen’s red stocking, why, good God! have we not seen the West Kent Rifles or the Dorset Fusiliers strutting about Paris in knickerbockers and cross belts, and there was no more thought of imitation in the one case than Papal supremacy in the other. Rome derives immense power and prestige from our unreasonable jealousy of her influence. The Prussians are far wiser: they ignore all cause of offence altogether, and outflank the priests in this way.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Hôtel de la Petri, Trieste, March 24,1867.
“Your packet with proof followed me to Vienna, into Hungary, and at length caught me here this morning—I need not say, too late for correction. I have had what Yankees call ‘a fine time,’ and talked myself hoarse in strange tongues; but I have seen strange men and cities, and, on the whole, filled my head while emptying my pocket. I have stories for you when we meet, and I trust that might be soon.
“As to my new post—keep the confession purely to yourself—-it is unpleasant, damnable. There is nothing to eat, nothing to drink, nothing to live in, no one to speak to. Liverpool, with Jews and blacklegs for gentlemen—voilà tout.
“It was a veritable leap in the dark, and I hesitated long whether it might not be best to pitch it to the devil who made it and go on penny-a-lining to the end; but Lord Bloomfield, our Ambassador at Vienna, who really took to me, persuaded me to hold on for a while at least, and I have asked for, and got, three months’ leave, during which time I must either try and get some change or poison myself.
“All this avowal—made, as you may believe, neither willingly nor pleasantly—is made to you alone of all my friends, for I am heartily ashamed of myself for getting into such a scrape and talking rather mysteriously about my good-luck, &c., which is pretty much like a man’s boasting at being transported for life. Trieste means no books, no writing, no O’D., no leave nor go of any kind, but moral death, and d———n too.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, Florence, April 6,1867.
“I got back here last night late to find your note, and I may own that I never ‘touched’ money that didn’t belong to me with more pleasure than your cheque, plucked by innkeepers and cleared out by whist as I have been while away.
“Only think of my going to see Flynn in prison at Venice! I hope I’ll be able some day to give you an account of our meeting. I have taken charge of the scoundrel’s petition for pardon, and believe I shall succeed in obtaining it, though what society is to gain by his liberation is more a matter for speculation than hope; but I am really curious to know what resources of knavery he has in his budget, all the more since his rival swindler, L. Napoleon, would seem at the end of his rogueries, and stands fully exposed and found out by all Europe. I saw some most astounding correspondence of his on the Mexican affair, and it will be published one of these days.
“I’ll go over ‘The Fenian’ the moment I am rested. Now my hand is shaking terribly, and I am a good deal fatigued.
“Trieste was a fatal blunder of mine. If you could hear of [any one who] would exchange with me, put him in ‘relations’ at once: I’ll pay liberally the ‘difference.’
“Of course I was not in London, though I read I was, in a Scotch paper. I hope you and Mrs B. will not let May go over without a run to Paris and a peep at us here. It would be a great pleasure to see you.
“I am, as you may believe, very down in the mouth about my move. I feel as might a vicar leaving a snug parsonage to become bishop in the Cannibal Islands.”
To Mr Alexander Spencer.
“Villa Morelli, Florence, May 7,1867.
“I suspect my Trieste appointment is a bit of a white elephant. There will be a great deal to do, a large staff necessary, and the place is generally costly to live in. In fact, I believe it would have been fully as well for me to have retained my humble post at Spezzia, where, if I received little, I did less. But I was tired of being a country mouse, and began to fancy that I had a right to some more generous diet than hard peas.
“My poor wife has gone back sorely in health. I have many causes for uneasiness, but this is the worst of all.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, June 18,1867.
“I enclose you the proof and a few pages to wind up ‘The Adieu.’
“You will see ere long that I am right about L. Nap. He means to play us a slippery trick about the East. He bamboozled us into the Crimean War, and he is now going to juggle us out of its small benefits.
“My wife is at last a little better. I got to bed last night after twelve nights of half-sleep on the sofa. I am fairly knocked up, and for this and other reasons do look to the proof, and don’t trust me.
“You have heard that Elliott has been appointed Ambassador to Constantinople. He is about the greatest ass in diplomacy,—a big word when one remembers Loftus at Berlin and Howard at Munich. Here is an epigram I made on his appointment:—
“F.O. is much puzzled, we all have heard recently,
To find proper Envoys to send to each Court;
And while Lyons at Paris may get along decently,
We rejoice to hear Elliott est mis à la Porte.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“British Consulate, Trieste, July 2,1867.
“Though my cry, like the starling’s, is still ‘I can’t get out,’ I exist in the hope that I am not to be left to die here.
“I send you a short bit on Miramar that I hope you may like. I’ll follow it with something lighter, but I send this now to acknowledge your note and its eighteen-pounder (a shot in my locker that told with considerable effect). I see you will not pity me for being sentenced to this d———d place, but if you only saw the faces of the Shylocks you’d be more compassionate. If nothing else offer, I’ll try and negotiate an exchange with Flynn. I’ll be shot if there must not be something amongst the convicts more companionable than here.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Villa Morelli, Florence, Sept. 5,1867.
“I am passing my last few days at the Villa Morelli, and mean to leave for good—if that be the phrase for it—on Monday next. My wife is still very ill, and very unfit for the fatigue of a journey; but short of giving up my post, I have no alternative. I hoped to have heard from you before I wrote, but as I have a quiet half hour—not a very frequent thing with me of late—I sit down to inflict it on you. I wish, besides, to ask and learn from you—shall you want me seriously next year,—that is, do you care to have a novel from me any time about April or May next? I am driven to ask this because I have had a proposal which, if you want me, I shall certainly not accept, nor am I sure I shall even in the other alternative.
“I am always hoping that each book I write will be my last; and if it were not that I have taken (mentally) as many farewells as Grey, I’d say this new and not-a-bit-the-less-on-that-account-much-to-be-thought-over story would be my final curtsey to an indulgent public.
“It seems to me you won’t believe in a war in England. It is part of the national hypocrisy to cry peace while our neighbours are whetting their knives and polishing their breechloaders. War is certain, nevertheless—as sure as the devil is in hell and I am a consul!—two facts so apparently alike, it seems tantalising to mention them.
“We are in for a little war of our own, meanwhile, with the African savage,—perhaps to serve as an excuse for not taking part in the bigger fight near home. This policy reminds me of an old Irish squire who, being a bad horseman, always excused himself when the hounds met near him by saying ‘he was off for a rat-hunt.’
“The next Glasgow steamer that leaves Trieste will bring you a few bottles of Maraschino, which, as Cattaro is one of my dependencies, will be real. I wish I could think I’d see you sip a glass with me one of these days beside the blue Adriatic.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Trieste, Oct. 18.
“It is not now I need tell you what a miserable hand I am at correcting a proof. The man who has never been able, after fifty odd years’ experience of his own nature, to correct one of his own faults, can scarcely have much success in dealing with his printers’. Look, therefore, to this for me, and let me come decently before the public. I have added a bit to Garibaldi’s which is certainly true, whatever men may think of it in England.
“I am afraid I am not equal to a notice (a worthy notice) of Aytoun. I never knew [him] personally, and I suspect it should be one who did should now recall his fine traits of heart as well as of intellect. All I know of him I liked sincerely.
“I abhor Cockneydom as much as you do! Without being a Fenian, I have an Irishman’s hate of the Londoner.
“Only think of what a lucky dog I am! All our clothes, &c, coming from Florence have been shipwrecked in the Adriatic. They were sent from Ravenna, and the craft was wrecked off Pola. I must make an O’D. of it!”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Consulate, Trieste, Nov. 16,1867.
“Thanks for your note and its enclosure.
“You are mistaken if you think I invented the Nobility Association, or that it is a hoax. It is bona fide, every bit of it; and I have added a note which you can insert if you suspect that your own incredulity may be felt by others.
“I have added a page also to ‘Garibaldi.’ It is, to my mind, so essential to a right reading of the present position of Italy to place briefly the whole incident before the reader, that I think it now will display events as they have been, as they might have been, and as they are.
“To comply with your wish to return proof by post, I have, I fear, corrected laxly; but you will, I know, look to my ‘shortcomings.’
“I suspect Serjeant Brownlow’s reminiscences would make an amusing review. If you think so, send it to me, and I’ll try.
“My wife is again very ill, a relapsed [ ] of the lung, and I am dreary—dreary.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“Trieste, Dec. 2.
“I send you for your New Year No. the best magazine story I think I ever wrote.
“I only hope you may agree with me,—at all events you will tell me what you think of it, and let me have early proof.”
To Mr John Blackwood.
“British Consulate, Trieste, Dec 6, 1867.
“I return you ‘Bob Considine,’ hurriedly, but I hope effectually, corrected. I sincerely hope it may appear New Year’s Day: I have a superstition of a good start on that day.
“Your note contained no cheque, and I suppose you may have found it on your table since, but you can annex it to ‘Bob’ when you write.
“We are going to have a mournful spectacle here—the funeral reception of the poor Mexican Emperor’s remains. It will be, they say, very solemn and imposing.
“I find I could not improve the wind-up, and left it unchanged. As to how mad Bob turned out afterwards is nothing to either of us, though I own I think the case hazardous.
“A happy Xmas to you and your wife. Give her all my best wishes and warm regards; as for me,—
“The time of mince-pies, mistletoe, and buns,
The time that tells of all that bright and neat is,
Only brings thoughts of Xmas bills and duns,
Confounded chilblains and my old bronchitis.
“This short month drives me close to time, or I should have liked to add something to the Persano sketch. I find it is a subject immensely talked of by our people (sailors) at home, and that opinion is more favourable to him in England than in Italy. There is no time, however, for this now.
“I suspect Dizzy’s plurality of votes scheme is utter failure. A Bill of Reform must be simple, even at the cost of some efficiency in details. It is a weapon to be used by coarse hands—and every day of the week besides.
“I have heard nothing more about myself since I wrote. I suppose it is all right, but I know nothing.
“Did I tell you that I met Gladstone here? I don’t think I ever saw a more consummate actor,—what the French call poseur,—with all the outward semblance of perfect indifference to display and complete forgetfulness of self. Even Disraeli himself is less artificial.”
To Dr Burbidge.
“Trieste, Dec. 20, 1867.
“I have been planning I don’t know how many letters to you, as I wanted, imprimis, to have a consultation with you about literaries, books to be written, &c., but so many pros and cons got into the controversy I saw it must be talked, not written. Then came on a severe cold, lumbago, &c, and so time slipped over, and I half fancied that I had written and was awaiting your answer. This was stupid enough; but remember where I am living, and with what.
“Of all the dreary places it has been my fate to sojourn in, this is the very worst. There are not three people to be known; for myself, I do not know one. English are, of course, out of the question. Even as a novelist I could make nothing out of the stoker and engineer class. Then as for all the others, they are the men of oakum, hides, tallow, and tobacco, who are, so far as I can guess, about on a par with fourth-rate shopkeepers in an English provincial town. The place is duller, the tone lower, the whole social atmosphere crasser and heavier than I could have believed possible in a town where the intelligence to make money exists so palpably.
“My ‘leap in the dark’ has cost me dearly, for, as Paddy says, I have only gained a loss by coming here. Even as it is, if my wife’s health admitted of moving I’d pitch it up to-morrow and run away—anywhere—ere softening of the brain came on as the sequela of hardening of the heart.
“I write with great difficulty, or, rather, with a daily increasing repugnance to writing. ‘Bramleighs’ you recognise, I suppose: I’ll own the paternity when it is full grown. And I am scribbling odd papers, O’Dowderies, and others, but all without zest or pleasure. They are waifs that I never look after when they leave me; and this has Trieste done for me!
“What are you doing yourself? and how is Malta? There must surely be some congenial people in it.
“How miserably the Italians lost their opportunity in not backing up Garibaldi and making Rome their own at once! and now the great question—Will the country wait? will the Constitutional party be able to move with half steam on, and still steer the ship? I firmly believe in war, but all my friends in England disagree with me: they talk of bankruptcy, as if the length of the bill ever baulked any man’s appetite.
“I don’t think I understood you aright in your last. Is it that I ought to wind up the O’Dowd and start a new shaft, or do you encourage going on? I am equal to either fortune. Of the two, it is always easier for me to lay a new foundation than put a roof on an old building. Give me your advice, and as freely as may be, for I hold much to it.”