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

by Charles James Lever

‘CON CREGAN.’

An eminent apothecary of my acquaintance once told me that to each increase of his family he added ten per cent to the price of his drugs; and as his quiver was full of daughters, a “black-draught,” when I knew him, was a more costly cordial than curaçoa. To apply this: I may mention that I had a daughter born to me about the time that ‘Con Cregan’ dates from, and not having at my command the same resources as my friend the chemist, I adopted the alternative of writing another story, to be published contemporaneously with ‘The Daltons’; and in order not to incur the reproach—so natural in criticism—of over-writing myself, I took care that the work should come out without a name. I am not sure that I made any attempt to disguise my style. I was conscious of scores of blemishes—I decline to call them mannerisms—that would betray me; but I believe I trusted most of all to the fact that I was making my monthly appearance in another story and with another publisher,* and I hoped my small duplicity would escape undetected. I was aware that there was a certain amount of peril in running an opposition coach on the line I had, in some degree, made my own; not to say that it might be questionable policy to glut the public with a kind of writing more remarkable for peculiarity than for perfection. I remember that excellent Irishman, Bianconi**—not the less Irish that he was born at Lucca (which was simply a “bull”)—once telling me that in order to popularise a road on which few people were then travelling, and on which his daily two-horse car was accustomed to go its journey with two (or at most three) passengers, the idea occurred to him of starting an opposition conveyance—of course in perfect secrecy and with every outward show of its being a genuine rival. He effected his object with such success that his own agents were completely “taken in,” and never wearied of reporting, for his gratification, all the shortcomings and disasters of the rival company. At length, when the struggle between the competitors was crucial, one of Bianconi’s drivers rushed frantically into his office one day crying out, “Give me a crown piece to drink your honour’s health for what I have done to-day.”

* ‘Con Cregan’ was published by W. S. Orr & Co., Paternoster
Bow. ‘The Daltons’ was published by Chapman & HalL—E. D.
** Charles Bianconi, an Italian who revolutionised road
traffic in Ireland.—E. D. I passed her on the long hill
when she was blown, and I bruk her heart before she reached
the top.”

“What was it, Larry?”

“I killed the yallow mare of the opposition car.

“After this I gave up the opposition,” said my friend. “Mocking was catching, as the old proverb says, and I thought that one might carry a joke a little too far.” I had this experience before me, and I will not say that it did not impress me. I imagined, however, that I did not care on which horse I stood to win: in other words, I persuaded myself it was a matter of perfect indifference to me which book took best with the public—whether the reader thought better of ‘The Daltons’ or ‘Con Cregan.’ That I totally misunderstood myself, or misconceived the case before me, I am now quite ready to own. For one notice of ‘The Daltons’ by the press there were at least three or four of ‘Con Cregan’; and while the former was dismissed with a few polite and measured phrases, the latter was largely praised and freely quoted. Nor was this all. The critics discovered in ‘Con Cregan’ a freshness and a vigour which were so sadly deficient in ‘The Daltons.’ It was, they averred, the work of a less practised writer, but of one whose humour was more subtle, and whose portraits, roughly sketched as they were, indicated a far higher intellect than that of the well-known author of ‘Harry Lorrequer.’ The unknown—for there was no attempt made to guess who the writer was—was pronounced not to be an imitator of Mr Lever,—though there were certain small points of resemblance. He was clearly original in his conception of character, in his conduct of his story, and in his dialogue; and there was displayed a knowledge of life in certain scenes and under certain conditions to which Mr Lever could lay no claim. One critic, who had discovered some features of resemblance between the two writers, uttered a friendly caution to Mr Lever to look to his laurels, for there was a rival in the field possessing many of the characteristics by which he first won public favour, but the unknown author possessed a racy drollery in description and a quaintness in his humour all his own. It was the amusement of one of my children at the time to collect these sage comments and to torment me with them; and I remember a droll little note-book in which they were pasted, and from which quotations were read from time to time with no small display of merriment. It may sound very absurd to confess it, but I was excessively amazed at the superior success of the unacknowledged book, and I felt the rivalry as painfully as though I had never written a line of ‘Con Cregan.’ Was it that I thought well of one story and meanly of the other, and in consequence was angry with my critics? I suspect not. I imagine that I was hurt at discovering how little hold I had, in my acknowledged name, on a public with whom I fancied I was on such good terms, and that it pained me to see with what ease a new and a nameless man could push me from the place I had believed to be my own.

‘THE DALTONS’

I always wrote, after my habit, in the morning. I never turned to ‘Con Cregan’ until nigh midnight; and I can still remember the widely different feelings with which I addressed myself to the task I liked—to a story which, in the absurd fashion I have mentioned, was associated with wounded self-love. It is scarcely necessary for me to say that there was no plan whatever in ‘Con Cregan.’ My notion was that the hero, once created, would not fail to find adventures. The vicissitudes of daily poverty would beget shifts and contrivances: with his successes would come ambition and daring. Meanwhile a growing knowledge of life would develop his character, and I should soon see whether he would win the silver spoon or spoil the horn. I ask pardon in the most humble manner for presuming for a moment to associate my hero with the great original of Le Sage.*

* This refers to the sub-title of ‘The Confessions of Con
Cregan’—The Irish Gil Bias.’—E. D.

But I used the word Irish adjectively and with the same amount of qualification that one employs to a diamond, and indeed, as I have read it in a London paper, to a lord. An American officer, of whom I saw much at the time, was my guide to the interior of Mexico: he had been in the Santa Fé expedition, was a man of most adventurous disposition, with a love for stirring incident and peril which even broken health and a failing constitution could not subdue. It was often very difficult for me to tear myself away from his Texan and Mexican experiences,—his wild scenes of prairie life, or his sojourn amongst Indian tribes—and to keep to the more commonplace events of my own story. Nor could all my entreaties confine him to descriptions of those places and scenes which I needed for my own characters. The saunter after tea-time with this companion, generally along that little river that tumbles through the valley of the Bagni di Lucca, was the usual preparation for my night’s work; and I came to it as intensely possessed by Mexico—dress, manner, and landscape—as though I had been drawing on the recollections of a former journey. So completely separated in my mind by the different parts of the day were the two tales, that no character of ‘The Daltons’ ever crossed my mind after nightfall, nor was there a trace of ‘Con Cregan’ in my head at breakfast next morning. None of the characters of ‘Con Cregan’ has been taken from life. The one bit of reality is in the sketch of Anticosti, where I myself suffered once a very small shipwreck, of which I retain a very vivid recollection to this hour. I have already owned that I bore a grudge to the story; nor have I outlived the memory of the chagrin it cost me, though it is many a year since I acknowledged that ‘Con Cregan’ was written by the author of ‘Harry Lorrequer.’