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

by Charles James Lever

The strain of writing, the increasing worries of editorship, and the attacks made upon him by writers politically opposed to him, were affecting Lever so much that he feared he would break down completely. Thackeray’s dedication to him of ‘The Irish Sketch-Book’ did not tend to advance his popularity in his own land. It was rashly assumed that he had prompted or suggested many things in the ‘Sketch-Book’ which gave offence to Lorrequer’s sensitive fellow-countrymen. He had always been a heavy sleeper, but he was beginning to feel that one may have too much of a good thing. Early in 1843 he complained that he slept for twenty hours a-day and yawned through the remaining four. As the summer approached he could neither write nor read. His doctor ordered him to take a trip on the Continent—not a business visit. Still uneasy, he called in Surgeon Cusack, who warned him against railroads and steamboats. This physician informed Lever that he was suffering from apoplectic threatenings. The diagnosis caused him horrible dismay, but he begged that his wife should not be told. As August approached he found himself unable to fill a space in a proof, and he made up his mind that, as a holiday was essential, and as he had been warned against railroads, he would take a driving tour through Ireland. Accompanied by his wife, and acting as his own coachman, he drove through the counties of Wicklow and Wexford. At New Ross he ignored his friend Cusack’s advice, and putting his horse and vehicle on board, he travelled to Waterford by steamboat. The journey agreed with him, and by the time he reached Lismore he imagined that he was fit for work again. In Lismore he made an effort to finish ‘Tom Burke,’ but the effort was a failure. He was fond of ‘Tom Burke,’ but he feared that there was a vast gulf between his conception of the story and the manner of his working it out. “I intended,” he says, “to have exhibited a picture of France at a period when the prestige of a monarch had given way to the feudalism of a military state, and where the great prizes, long limited to birth and station, were thrown open for the competition of all. To depict this, and to show the lights and shadows of French military life and the contrast of our own, was also my object. I forgot my plan sometimes; sometimes my characters had a will of their own, and would go their own way.” And oftener again, he modestly adds, he found himself endeavouring to accomplish something beyond his powers. He continued the journey through Cork to Killarney, and here he was able to complete ‘Tom Burke’ and to project a new novel, ‘The O’Donoghue.’ His spirits were now reviving rapidly. Chickens and salmon were the staple fare at the various inns at which he put up; and he declared his wife and he had consumed so much fowl and fish, that they found it difficult to prevent themselves from flying and swimming. It afforded him intense delight to revisit Clare and Galway. Here he describes himself “climbing mountains, fording rivers, crossing bays, tramping along roads” with such assiduity, that pen and ink were out of the question. At Gort he was serenaded by a temperance band—the band playing all the songs in ‘Charles O’Malley.’ Its author made a speech by moonlight, and invited the serenaders to tea in the parlour of his inn. He continued his now joyous career through Mayo, refreshing himself with glimpses of the scenery of a country which was for ever associated in his memory with his earliest encourager, Maxwell.*

* Maxwell had left Ireland by this time. He is said to have
died (in poverty) in Scotland in 1850, but there is some
dispute as to the date of his death.—E. D.

This pleasant outing refreshed and reinvigorated him, and the symptoms of the brain trouble, of which he had been warned, disappeared. But he was determined to lead a more quiet life.**

During the autumn of 1844 he was visited by Mr Stephen Pearce, the portrait-painter, who had arrived in Ireland in order to execute a commission. A feeling of mutual regard seems to have sprung up at once between the artist and the novelist. Lever invited Pearce on a visit, and this visit was prolonged into a sojourn of two years. During these two years Mr Pearce painted his host’s portrait. He also made a sketch of his study—described as a little room with quaint sideboard of carved oak, dark-brown cabinet, curiously sculptured, and heavy brocade curtains across the door. Into this sketch the artist introduced a back view of Lever sitting at the fireplace bending over the fire. He made a sketch of the house, too, bringing into the picture a view of the old cascade,*** portrayed by Lever as “none of your rollicking harum-scarum things called waterfalls, but a solid, steady, discreet fall, coming heavily down, step by step, some hundred yards in the midst of a large meadow.”

** Major Leech informed Dr Fitzpatrick that Lever “lived at
the rate of £3000 a-year at Templeogue.”
*** I have endeavoured, unsuccessfully, to trace these
pictures. In 1896 Mr Pearce told me that he was unable to
throw any light upon their whereabouts. He also informed me
that, in addition to the pictures mentioned above, he had
made at Bagni di Lucca a chalk drawing of Lever’s head.—E.
D.

Mr Pearce enjoyed the society of his host so keenly that he was only a short time under his roof when he offered to become his amanuensis, and Lever, who was always hearing of growls about the illegibility of his “copy,” readily accepted the artist’s proposal. To Dr Fitzpatrick Mr Pearce furnished a most interesting account of life at Templeogue. On fine afternoons Lever and he rode into the office of ‘The Dublin University’ at a rattling pace. Sometimes the three children accompanied them on their ponies. A party of urchins were in the habit of meeting the equestrians on the outskirts of Dublin city—at Portobello Bridge. This motley crowd—known as “Lever’s pack”—followed the chase right up to the office of the Magazine in Sackville Street, sometimes yelping like hounds. At the door of Messrs Curry & Co.‘s shop there was generally a fierce struggle amongst the youths for the honour of holding Lever’s horse. It is needless to add that “the pack” was treated liberally by its master.

If the weather was wet, Lever did not venture into the city. One of his favourite pastimes was to ride about the grounds with his children, encouraging them to gallop, or to jump over trunks of fallen trees, giving a wild “hurroo” whenever they took a jump together.

Lever’s hospitality, generous and open-hearted as it was, had none of the wildness with which it was the habit to credit it in these days. Mr Pearce says that his manner was to make the house and everything in it seem to belong to his guests, but his residence in Brussels had made him “quite foreign in his dinners and his wines”; and much as he had written about whisky, it was a beverage not to be found in Templeogue House. The children dined at two o’clock, and Lever and his wife made this their luncheon. He usually slept for an hour after this meal, and then he would wake up, good-humoured and brisk, and ready for a bout of work.

“Though he was full of energy in anything he took up,” says Mr Pearce, “he was sometimes very indolently inclined. Often and often I used to try to tempt him to dictate. Sometimes I succeeded, and at other times he would vote it a bore.... I have known him to be so dissatisfied with his morning’s or evening’s work that he destroyed it. At other times his flashing and brilliant thoughts carried him on for a great length of time, pacing the room excitedly, while his delivery of words was so rapid that it was impossible to keep pace with them.... But he never allowed too slow absorption on paper of his thick-coming fancies, rapidly dictated, to elicit an exclamation of impatience. He was always genial, gentle, good-humoured; and at times as playful as a child.”

Life at Templeogue during the days of Mr Pearce’s sojourn was singularly peaceful. The only “outbreaks” were occasional dinner-parties,—generally assemblages of brilliant men; and when the more staid amongst the guests had left for the city, it was Lever’s custom to wind up the night with whist. The host was always overflowing with good stories: frequently his guests forgot that time was running away, and were startled by observing the daylight peeping in through the chinks of the window-shutters. Mr Pearce relates one of these card-table anecdotes.