* His brother.
To Mr Alexander Spencer.
“Carlsruhe, Aug. 10, 1846.
“Your letter followed me here from Bonn, from which delightful little sojourn a royal visit and a musical festival had driven me,—Queen Victoria and Beethoven, with the due accompaniment of bonfires, blue lights, and bassoons, being too much for my common nerves. Here we are for the present, located, as the Yankees say, in the stillest, quietest, most fast-asleep of all German cities, regularly, even beautifully, built,—with a Grand Duke and a Ministry and a corps diplomatique, but all seemingly mesmerised into a dreamy lethargy, in which all speech or motion is excluded. We had some thoughts of passing a winter here, but though it would suit my pocket well, my impatience and restlessness could scarcely stand the sluggish tranquillity.... I am unable to say where we shall pass the winter. There was some thought of Lausanne, but all Switzerland is dear, and our party is a large one—ten souls and five quadrupeds.”
In sleepy Carlsruhe he received two letters which disturbed him considerably,—one causing him the gravest annoyance and anxiety, the other affording him intense and justifiable joy.
The unpleasant communication was from Curry & Co. It took the form of a statement of account between publisher and author, and showed that the latter was heavily indebted to the former. Lever wrote to his fidus Achates in Dublin, expressing his goodwill for Curry & Co., who had hitherto treated him fairly. He declared that he had no desire to quarrel with them. “I detest,” he wrote, “the hackneyed fightings of bookseller and author,”—but he denied emphatically that he owed the money claimed by Curry.
The pleasant letter was from Miss Edgeworth. He had written to her twice from Templeogue, inquiring if he might dedicate to her ‘Tom Burke of Ours.’ Miss Edgeworth replied tardily. In the course of her welcome letter, the author of ‘Castle Rackrent’ spoke of having read aloud to her nephews and nieces ‘The O’Donoghue,’ which was appearing in monthly parts,—an announcement which afforded the author of ‘The O’Donoghue’ a thrill of delight, animated him with high hopes, and filled him with fresh ambitions. To Spencer he wrote: “I hope John told you—I’d rather he had than I—of a letter Miss Edgeworth wrote to me about ‘O’Donoghue.’ I never felt so proud in my life as in reading it. There is, independent of all flattering, so much of true criticism, so much of instructive guidance, that for the first time I begin to feel myself able to take advice with advantage, and to hope that I have stuff in me for something like real success. What a prerogative true genius possesses when it can compensate by one word of praise for neglect and calumny! So do I feel that Miss Edgeworth has repaid me for all the bitterness and injustice of my Irish critics. I never made such an effort as in this book. I hope sincerely that you may think I have not failed, for with all my reliance on your friendship, I feel your criticism will be as free from prejudice as so warm and affectionate a friend’s can be.”
To Mr Alexander Spencer.
“Baden-Baden, Sept. 8, 1846.
“Your kind and satisfactory letter reached me here, where we have been sojourning in one of the sweetest valleys in the world,—a perfect wilderness of vineyards and olives, traversed by innumerable streams, and inhabited by a happy people. This day twelvemonth we were at Achill in the midst of dire poverty, when the very waves that thundered along the seashore were less stormy than the passions of man beside them. And yet in one case the law of the land is Despotism, and in the other there are the blessings (!) of the English constitution. So much have political privileges to do with human happiness. In my own narrow experience, I should say that the most contented communities are those that know not how they are governed.