“I looked to some arrangement of the disputed matter with Curry as the probable means to eke out the year, not intending to begin another serial till January 1848. This chance appears as remote as ever. C. & H. estimate at £600 to £800 the value of copyrights, for which Curry proposes £200,—this even irrespective of my claims on the score of ‘Hinton’ being sold without my consent, &c.
“Before leaving Ireland I paid £185 to save Hugh Baker from arrest, he averring that he had no other debts in the world. I gave him £57 more, in addition to various sums of £10 and £20 at different times during my residence in Templeogue. I also, as you are aware, paid from £38 to £40 per annum since my absence, and now the utter uselessness of these—to me, a working man—dreary sacrifices has completely overwhelmed me.
“It is only just to tell so old and true a friend as you that my wife, while deeply feeling for their miseries and willing to restrict her own expenditure to any extent to relieve them, has never given me the least encouragement to take their burthen on me, and has on every occasion done her utmost to stop unreasonable expectations, or what might assume the shape of claims.
“The announcement of this misfortune has come suddenly and without warning upon us. We believed—and with fair grounds—that we had removed the difficulties arising from past imprudence, and now we are to learn that all our sacrifices only deferred the stroke. If I seem too niggard, or if, when you visit Mrs B. (and your visit will be taken as that of my oldest, truest friend), you find that this trifle is inadequate to the relief of the pressure, pray make it £5 or £10 more,—and with God’s blessing I’ll sit up an hour or so later for some time and pull it up.
“I scarcely have heart to ask you how you like my ‘Knight’ since last I heard. [?These] hard rubs clash too rudely on the spirits to give any zest for the sorrows of tale-writing or reading; and the trade of fiction-weaving is never more distasteful than when its mock excitements are placed side by side with flesh and blood afflictions. I am well weary of it!
“If I could resume relations with M’G. for a serial in his Mag. on fair terms I would soon pull up the leeway, but I am at a loss to guess the Scotchman’s tactiques.”
To Mr Alexander Spencer.
“Bregenz, March 14,1847.
“I am shocked by the want of common candour—common honesty—you experienced in your kind visit paid in my name. It was not true that H. B.‘s [? difficulty] was temporary—far from it. He is by this time at New Orleans, and so far from any amelioration in their affairs, I sincerely believe they cannot be worse. These are sad topics and sadder confessions, but I cannot afford to be misunderstood by you, and neither zeal nor false shame shall prevent me from telling the truth.
“As regards our part—and it is of that I must think principally,—I believe that the best thing is, without making any definite pledges of aid, which to an income so precarious and uncertain as mine are always onerous, to contribute when and what we can; and although I know and feel all the great objections to a system which cannot check and may encourage unwarrantable expectations from us, and (I own I think now of ourselves) this plan would not have the apparent pressure of a positive debt,—if the world goes fairly well with us we will not be less generous in this way than we should have been just in the other.