“Spezzia, Sept. 17, 1860
“I am doing my best at ‘One of Them.’ ‘The Ride’ I write as carelessly as a common letter, but I’d not be the least astonished to find the success in the inverse ratio to the trouble. At all events I am hard worked just now, and as ill-luck would have it, it is just the moment the F. O. should call upon me for details about Italy.
“The position of Sardinia is now one of immense difficulty. If she throws herself on France she must confront the [? Revolutionary] party at home, who are ready to seize upon Garibaldi and place him at the head of the movement. If she adopts Garibaldi and his plans, she offends France, and may be left to meet Austria alone and unaided. The old story—the beast that can’t live on sand and dies in the water. To be sure, our own newspapers assure her complacently that she has the ‘moral aid’ of England. But moral aid in these days of steel-plated frigates and Armstrong guns is rather out of date, not to say that at the best it is very like looking at a man drowning and assuring him all the while how sorry you are that he had not learned to swim when he was young. The crisis is most interesting, particularly so to me, as I know all the actors—Admirals, Generals, and Ministers—who are figuring en scène.
“One would have thought the withdrawal of the French Ambassador from Turin would have caused great discomfiture here, but with a native craft—not always right—the Italians think it a mere dodge, and that the Emperor’s policy is: ‘Go on. I’m not looking at you!”’
Small as the salary was, and insignificant as the position seemed to be, his vice-consulship was of considerable service to Lever: it gave him work to do when he was weary of weaving the web of fiction, and it prevented him from indulging too recklessly in the pleasures of Florentine society. The pity of it was that the office came to him so late, and that, when “the Party” thought fit to recognise his services, they should have recognised them so trivially. It must be borne in mind that Lever was no longer young: he was in his fifty-third year when the Spezzian post was offered to him; and his manner of living had been of such a free-and-easy character that anything in the shape of control chafed him, especially when the controller was a jack-in-office. In 1861 a good deal of time was spent in endeavouring to make a bargain with Chapman k Hall for the publication, in book form, of ‘A Day’s Ride,’ and to induce that firm to enter into an arrangement for the serial publication of a new novel, ‘The Barringtons.’ ‘The Dublin University’ being practically closed as a paying vehicle for serial stories, Lever sought to find a publishing firm which might take the place of M’Glashan. He regarded ‘Blackwood’s Magazine’ as the first of all periodical publications, but he feared that the Editor could not easily be induced to open his pages to the author of ‘Harry Lorrequer.’ However, he was fired with the desire to become a contributor to ‘Maga,’ and he enlisted the good offices of Lord Lytton. His brother novelist put the matter before Mr John Blackwood, who wrote, in May 1861, this kindly letter: “Admiring your genius cordially, as I do, I feel so doubtful as to whether what you would write would be suitable for the Magazine that I am unwilling to make a proposition, or to invite you to send MS. It would go sorely against my grain to decline anything from the friend of my youth, Harry Lorrequer.” This—though the reference to his first book afforded him a momentary flush of pleasure—was just the kind of letter which would cause much heart-burning. All his efforts to weed and to prune resulted only in Blackwood’s refusal to accept a posey from his garden! He wrote to Spencer in a melancholy tone; he was “out of health, out of work, out of spirits.” In addition to his literary troubles, the condition of his wife’s health had been the cause of much anxiety. He now feared that she was likely to become a confirmed invalid. Late in July his report to Spencer was that Mrs Lever was very ill, and that his money troubles were more acute than ever. His son was making no effort to lighten the burden: he was still in India, and was still drawing recklessly upon his father. Altogether, Lever’s heart was heavy during the greater part of 1861. Late in the year he made a vigorous effort to pull himself together, and to try to forget his troubles by sticking closely to his desk. He made good progress with ‘The Barringtons,’ and the first monthly part appeared in February 1862.
A visitor to the Levers in the summer of 1862 describes the novelist as being “all animation.” But Mrs Lever was an invalid, and could not move from her sofa. Though Lever had grown very corpulent, he had lost none of his cunning as a swimmer or as an oarsman. He spent a considerable portion of each day in the water, swimming with his daughters; and at night, “when the land breeze came through the orange-groves,” he would row himself and his daughters in their boat on the bay. On one occasion the head of the family and his eldest daughter had a very narrow escape from drowning. They were boating, and in endeavouring to rescue her dog, who seemed to be in difficulties, Miss Lever capsized the boat. Father and daughter kept themselves afloat partly with the aid of an oar,—they were a full mile from the shore when the accident happened. A younger daughter of the novelist witnessed from a window in the house the capsizing of the skiff. Without alarming her mother by informing her of the accident, she left the house and got a boat sent out to the assistance of the swimmers, who were brought ashore little the worse for a long immersion. This incident furnished the press with reports of Lever’s death,—“grossly exaggerated,” as Mark Twain would put it,—and when ‘The Barringtons’ was about to be published in book form, the author wrote to one of his journalistic friends saying that he believed the story was not bad,—at least, not worse than most stories of his which had found favour with the public. “As my critics,” he went on, “were wont to blackguard me for over-writing, let me have the (supposed) advantage to be derived from its being a full twelvemonth since the world has heard of me—except as having died at Spezzia.”
He finished the year well. He was anxious to show that his tiff with the editor of ‘All the Year Round’ was forgotten. The dedication prefixed to ‘The Barringtons,’ dated “26th December 1862,” is couched in these terms:—
“My dear Dickens,—Among the thousands who read and re-read your writings, you have not one who more warmly admires your genius than myself; and to say this in confidence to the world, I dedicate to you this story.”
XIII. FLORENCE AND SPEZZIA 1863
It seemed as if 1863 was about to prove a more enlivening year for Charles Lever than some of its predecessors had been. ‘Barrington’ was being applauded by his friends. Amongst these was Mr John Blackwood, for whose good opinion Lever sent his thanks in a letter dated January 30. To Lord Malmesbury he forwarded a copy of the novel, with the following letter:—