Volume I Part 20 (1/2)
_To Mr Alexander Spencer._
”Riedenburg, _Feb_. 20, 1847.
”I have often had the unpleasant office of inflicting you with my troublesome affairs, but perhaps never before has it been my lot to have such a necessity under the same sad _circ.u.mstances_ I now do.
”I have just learned, as much to my amazement as my horror, that Hugh Baker has fled from his home and family owing to money embarra.s.sments so great as to be overwhelming. What the amount may be I cannot even hazard a guess, but I suspect and believe it to be considerable.
”I neither am aware of how, when, or where he expended the large sums attributed to him, for I well knew that the family, who derived great advantage from the Inst.i.tution, practised for several years past every suitable economy, so that they are in no wise to blame for this shocking calamity. Of course the upshot is that he will be dismissed the first meeting the Board may have, and it only remains to be seen if his mother, now old and infirm, can continue to hold her situation. Several years back Hugh obtained Mrs B.'s unwilling permission to sell an annuity of 100 settled upon her,--the proceeds of which, and several hundred pounds besides in bank, he has made away with.
”No one knows anything now--whither he has fled, or what future course he purposes for himself. Meanwhile I believe the family are in circ.u.mstances so straitened--he having taken away every pound in the house--that even the most trifling a.s.sistance is called for. Will you, then, see Mrs B. or Miss Baker, and let them have 15 from me? I grieve to say I cannot do more at the moment, but my own position is one of grave anxiety. My present literary engagement ends in June. I have formed none other,--nor can I possibly, without the expense and inconvenience of a journey to London,--so that my income ceasing suddenly, and no exact or certain date of its renewal before me, I am--not unreasonably--anxious and uneasy.
”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 a.s.sume 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 n.i.g.g.ard, 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 G.o.d'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 princ.i.p.ally,--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.
”For the present there is no need of further interference; and I never hugged the aphorism, 'Sufficient for the day,' &c., with more satisfaction.
”As to Curry. The a/cs furnished were no a/cs. On the contrary, C. & H.
p.r.o.nounced them, on the test of a London accountant, 'mere swindles.'...
My hope is not to sell but to obtain some channel of purchase of the copyrights back again--in London (not C. & H., who have now begun a cheap issue of d.i.c.kens that will last some years),--and by a new and cheap edition, with notes, &c., make a better thing of it.
”I cannot say how anxiously I look to hearing from you about M'G. The whole thing has a gloomy aspect--that is, my present state of relations in Dublin and London gives me very grave alarm.
”I am glad my 'Knight' holds his ground with you. I trust I have not vulgarised the book merely by introducing low people, but I felt that mere nominal poverty could never be the full load of affliction high-born and high-minded people would experience in a fallen condition, and I was led to lay stress on the fact that altered social relations--inferior a.s.sociations--are heavier evils than brown bread and weak congou.
”I knew--I felt while I wrote it, with a heart very full--that the verse of my poor father's song would touch you.