In October the weather made boating a somewhat dangerous pastime. In reply to M’Glashan’s stereotyped complaint that Lever was “huddling his castastrophes,” the novelist playfully replied that “a smashing Levanter” had half-filled his boat with water one day, and “all but closed the career of the author of ‘Sir Jasper Carew’ without a huddle.” He begged M’Glashan to give himself a breathing-time, to clear his head by inhaling some fresh Italian air, to visit Florence and discuss with the author of ‘Sir Jasper’ the best means of putting the hero to bed. But M’Glashan could not be inveigled into the paying of a visit to the novelist; nor could he be induced to furnish Lever with the long letters which at one time had helped to keep him in touch with literary life in Ireland and elsewhere. The fact was that M’Glashan was beginning to break down.
To Mr Alexander Spencer.
“Florence, Nov. 24, 1853.
“A very strange, but I fear impracticable, offer has come to me from the United States, which I have sent to O’Sullivan for his counsel, to be then forwarded to John....
“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.