Charles Lever, His Life in His Letters, Vol. I

by Charles James Lever

“Spezzia, Aug. 22, 1853.

“Your letter reached me in the very nick of a negotiation of which Charley was the object. The Messrs Sandell, the Engineers to whom the Tuscan and some other of the Italian railroads have been conceded, have made me an offer to take him as a pupil and make him a C.E. I hesitated when first the proposition reached me, and I thought it was possible he might possess talents likely to win college honours and distinction, and make a fair chance of what follows on them. I find that this is less likely than I had believed; that his natural indolence requires the spur of a personal interest to stimulate it,—and this probably a real career may effect. He certainly likes the notion greatly, and appears as if the choice was really what he himself would have made. I accepted, therefore, and he does not return to Ireland. God grant that I may have done wisely what I have done maturely and after much reflection.

“I shall be chargeable with Charley’s expenses for two years certain; after that I hope he will contribute to them himself. Though it was certainly advisable he should have encountered the rough-and-tumble of a school, yet probably I should not have incurred the great outlay had I anticipated only this opening. However, it may be all for the best.

“In my career through life I have made what are popularly called many valuable acquaintances, but I can safely aver that I could not to-morrow get my son made a policeman or letter-carrier, with all my fine friends and titled associates, and the offer of Messrs Sandell is the one solitary instance of a kindness in this wise I have ever met with. From what Mr S. tells me, I shall have to pay something like a hundred per annum for a couple of years. He will be stationed in Italy at various places, and Cha. will be at his headquarters, wherever that may be.

“J. Sandell is a pupil of Stevenson, and reputed to be a man of great knowledge of his profession. His offer to me was spontaneous and made in the most flattering manner, so that, everything considered, I should feel that I was not doing a prudent thing to reject it.

“Cha. tells me that Guillemand at the most can only take a quarter’s salary for want of a previous notice of withdrawal, but I should deem him exceedingly shabby if he wanted that....

“We are here boating and bathing and swimming and salting ourselves all day long. It is the most enjoyable spot of the most enjoyable land, and we have a house five miles distant from any other, on the edge of the sea, and approachable only by boat. I cannot, however, write a line, for our whole time is spent on the water. What’s to be done with K. J. and Mrs D., Heaven knows!

“I suppose you may have seen Maxwell. He is, or ought to be, in Ireland by this time. This affair of Charles was only decided upon this afternoon, and I don’t lose a post in letting you know about it.

“I am greatly pleased at your opinion of ‘The Dodds,’ since through all its absurdity of incident and situation I have endeavoured to convey whatever I know of life and the world. I by no means intend to endorse as my own every judgment of K. J., but I mean that many of his remarks are, so far as I am capable of saying, just and correct, and when he does blunder, it is only for the sake of preserving that species of characteristic which should take off any appearance of dogmatism or pretension when speaking of more important subjects.

“As to the [? criticism] about foreigners and the Continent generally, I assure you I have not the courage to tell the things that have come under my own notice, while foreign notions of England are equally, if not more, ridiculous. I am quite prepared to hear ‘genteel people’ call K. J. very low and his family vulgar, but if so, I am consoled by the fact that it has touched the sore places in some snobbish nature; and in all ranks and conditions of our countrymen snobbery is the great prevailing vice. I am meanwhile amusing myself jotting down on paper the things which have so often afforded me real fun to contemplate in the world,—and so far from high colouring, my great effort is to tone down the picture to the sombre tints of verisimilitude and probability.”