Charles James Lever

“ If I have always had before me the fact that to movement and action, to the stir of incident, and to a certain light-heartedness and gaiety of temperament (more easy to impart to others than to repress in one’s self) , I have owned much, if not all, of whatever popularity I enjoyed, I have felt (or fancied I felt) that it would be in the delineation of very different scenes, and in the portraiture of very different emotions, that I should reap what I would reckon as a real success. This conviction—or impression, if you will—has become stronger with years and with fuller knowledge of life ”

“ Maddened with an agonising thrill of horror, I felt an almost irresistible impulse to rush forward and arrest the arm that was about to deprive Eisendaller of his life; but while a sense of what was due to the established customs of society on such occasions restrained me, I stood breathless with expectation of the fatal flash, Hanstell, to my amazement, suddenly raising his pistol to a vertical position, fired straight over his head, flung his weapon into the air, and rushing forward, threw his arms round Eisendaller, and bursting into tears, exclaimed, “Mein Brader!” ”

“ And when I see the men of my own standing—and I could name a dozen such who neither have done anything as yet, nor can they in future—well off, promoted, placed, and provided for, simply because they took up public life as a trade, vice a profession, I am well disposed to think that with a very long acquaintance and a strong troop of what the world calls friends, some character, and a strong determination to get on,—why, I think the game a good one. ”

“ Every table d’hôte in this city swarms with the most unlicked cubs of our country, speaking neither German nor French—a few English. They disgust me for the false impression they convey to foreigners of what English gentlemen really are. What they come for, and where they go, I cannot say. It is impossible that they can be escaping for debt, for no one could possibly trust them; and they cannot be swindlers, for swindlers are men of captivating address and prepossessing manners. ”

“ I have really no words to speak my gratitude for the kindness which dictated such a letter,—so full of flattering encouragement, so abounding in expressions of good cheer. It is not because I have met with so little approval from the Press of my own country that I set great store by your criticisms,—though even the contrast has its consolations,—but that I begin to feel confidence under an approval from you, which no praise from one less competent could inspire. Your kindness, too,—like every real kindness,—had the merit of an apropos. ”

“ And you can have fifty people—and we never had less—for about five pounds sterling. They all so understand the art of mere chatting that music and dancing would be thought a regular bore; and except one whist-table for the dowager ladies of honour, nothing else is needed. Without witnessing it one cannot think how well these affairs always go off, and the din and clamour of fifty people, talking in about half the tongues of Europe, is about as exciting a scene in a brilliant salon as can be conceived. Lord Ely and Lord James Hay and Lord Douro are here every Monday ”

“ Up to this moment Florence is the only tranquil spot in Europe. Naples, Rome, Milan, Vienna, Baden, Paris, all convulsed; but here the slightest disturbance is unknown. The truth is, there is a quiet peace-loving population, and a government so mild as to be no government at all. ”

“ In Kilrush Dr Lever quickly made the acquaintance of a group of companionable men—hard readers and good talkers,—and almost every evening they met at the house of one or the other, or at the cholera hospital. These men were to Clare as the guests at Portumna Castle were to Galway. They knew the country and the people intimately, and they were able to impart their impressions in vivid and interesting guise. To the visitor from Dublin was disclosed another treasury of anecdote and a mine of material for character sketches: and he did not fail to avail himself of the golden opportunity. ”

“ Independently of the great sacrifice of time to a pursuit foreign to my profession,—and this I only learned was indispensable on my going to Paris,—I find the expense of living—rent in particular—far beyond my expectations or means, lodgings in any respectable quarter ranging from 3000 to 4000 francs per annum (£120 to £160) . The great influx of English, either resident or visitants, has rendered Paris a close competitor with London for extravagance. The changes which the few years since last I saw Paris have brought about, have rendered it the most magnificent city imagination can conceive. ”

“ I do not mean to say that even the ambition of such a position in society would repay one who likes his ease for the wear and tear, anxiety, turmoil, and annoyance of political existence, but what I mean is this, that an equal quantity of work directed to the interests of a party is better paid and better advantaged than when executed for a publisher. ”

“ Lever laughed immoderately, so did Wilde; and so infectious was the merriment that Kildahl laughed immoderately too, though without the remotest idea that the laugh had been at his own expense. His dismay at discovering the real facts may be conceived. The runaway horse and gig dashed down the steep hill of Stillorgan until all came to a dead smash at Galloping Green, the fragments being there gathered up and sent back to Dublin on a float. ”

“ Well as you know me, you as well as John make one mistake about me. I am not—I never was—a sanguine man. I have pumped up false enthusiasm many a time till it has imposed even upon myself, and when success came people said I predicted it, but, my dear friend, I never was fortunate yet without being the man most astonished at my own good luck. This I mention that you may know that it is no piece of soft unction I am flattering myself with, but a cold cautious calculation in which for a certain outlay of labour, directed in a way I like, I look for a certain amount of income. ”

“ If he had endeavoured to confine his intellectual powers to the study and practice of the healing art, and if success had crowned his efforts, it is most likely that his life would have been more even and more happy; but he would have missed the moments of exaltation which were worth living for, even if they were followed occasionally by periods of abysmal melancholy. Lever the physician could have benefited only those with whom he came into direct contact: Lever the novelist could, and did, provide a rich fund of healthy enjoyment for a vast circle of his contemporaries, and for posterity. ”

“ My time latterly has been tolerably occupied by finishing ‘O’Malley,’ which required a double No. for December, and making the début of my new hero Jack Hinton—besides which doctoring, and occasionally scribbling short articles for the ‘University.’ I wish much you had seen the first volume of ‘Our Mess.’ I am more than usually nervous about its success. Every new book is a new effort, and the world is often discontented with the forthcoming work of a man whom their own flattery induced to commit himself at first. ”

“ Still, I am sorry to leave them, and feel that the exchange to Italy is, in every respect save climate, for the worse. The Germans are peaceful, good-natured, homely, honest souls, docile as dogs, and never treacherous. The Italians are falsehood incarnated,—their whole lives a long practical lie. Still, not to see the land would be a sad disgrace, the more as we have stood so long on the threshold—or rather at the bottom of the stairs—i.e., at the foot of the Alps. ”

“ The Palais Royal is a world in itself of all that is splendid and seducing, but with all these things a poor man has but a sorry time of it. Of the Italian Opera and of Verge I dare only read the carte, and content myself with a chop at Richard’s and the Opéra Comique. ”

“ The mere Irishman resents having fun poked at him. He prefers, or pretends to prefer, unstinted praise to a reasonable mixture of praise, blame, and sarcasm; he knows that in his inmost breast he harbours the quality of merciless self-criticism. He does not desire laudation for the comfort of his inner self, but for blazonry—for the eye of the world outside his beloved island. Lever made no attempt to pander to this idiosyncrasy—like Don John, he laughed when he was merry and clawed no man in his humour ”

“ Should we travel this road together, I want to beg that you will be as free to tell me what you think of what I send as though I was the rawest recruit in literature. I never write with the same spirit as under such criticism—given when not too late to amend; and if anything reaches you that you think ill of, do not hesitate to say so at once. I can change—in fact, it is the one compensation for all the inartistic demerits of my way of work—I can change as easily as I can talk of changing. ”

“ Our little villa, one of the very smallest on the lake, stands next the Villa D’Esté, so renowned as Queen Caroline’s—about two and a half miles from Como, in a small embayment bounded by lofty mountains, and almost hid among the thick shade of olives, citrons, wild fig-trees, and cactus. On every side stands some picturesque abode, all, or nearly all, belonging to distinguished persons, and built in every variety of architectural taste. ”

“ The same day that he wrote to Spencer he forwarded a letter to M’Glashan:—
“My dear Sir,—The permit to practise is a matter so difficult to obtain, that in fact every English physician has been deterred from trying Brussels for that one and sole cause, and I have come here only to discover that there is a great opening for a fairly qualified and well introduced man,—the others who have been here for several years (before any permit was necessary) being underbred and uneducated men, and unfit for anything but second-class apothecary practice. ”

“ In addition to this love of literature and the drama, young Lever evinced at a very early age a fondness for military heroes and military affairs. Occasionally military men were to be encountered under his father’s roof, and at times the youth was to be found haunting some convenient barrack. James Lever had expressed a desire that his second son should become an architect, but he was not infrequently fearful that the lad might one fine morning take it into his wild head to seek the bubble reputation even in the cannon’s mouth. ”

“ But, after all, I have found it a hard task and sore test of my courage for the last five weeks to go on daily bolting the egotism, selfishness, and sordid meanness of my sick world, and at night writing till one or two or three o’clock every imaginable kind of nonsense, with a heavy heart and an aching head—for means, ay, for means,—only to continue the same dull drudgery somewhat longer. ”

“ I am much amused by your account of Irish affairs. There is something inherent in the national taste for rascality. I am rather well pleased that Old Dan has conquered Young Ireland. I like him, if only that he is the Old Established Blackguard.
“It is rather good fun for us here to read the London morning papers—‘Times,’ &c.—commenting on the Austrian business. Such a mass of lies, mistakes, and absurdities as they circulate never was heard of. ”

“ From the moment we left Cologne the scenery began to improve, and near Bonn it became really beautiful. The Rhine, from the bold and frequent winding course it takes, presents the appearance of a succession of small lakes. It is bounded by lofty vine-clad mountains bristling with tower and keep, while below are seen opening glens through which the small streams rush on, bearing their tribute to the father of rivers. The villages have generally a most picturesque effect as they rise street above street upon the steep mountain-sides, their white walls scarcely visible amid the trellised vines. ”