Volume I Part 24 (1/2)
Four months ago he (M'G.) wrote to me asking, in eager terms, to see this MS., and promising a reply upon it without the least delay,--since which he has never once written, not even an acknowledgment of its arrival.
”I would beg of you to keep the MS. by you--that is, if it should not have already been forwarded to [catch] Maxwell in London. As to the printed story,--'Carl Stelling,'--will you scratch out the t.i.tle at top, and the words 'by the editor' carefully, and cross out the Introduction, letting the tale begin by the words of the narrator--”There are moments in life,” &c.,--and send it to Mr Chapman with a line to say that this printed matter comes in after the MS. pages of chapter xi. of 'Horace Templeton'? I may here add that the aforesaid H. T. is already--so far at least as eleven chapters go--in the printer's hands. It is precious bad stuff, and, worse still, very lachrymose and depressing--I mean, so far as such very powerless trash can be--_Mais que vovlez-vous?_ And in the present case I have laid the child at another man's door, and will never own him--if he doesn't grow up more thrivingly than I hope for.
”You wouldn't believe what difficulties the authorities here make about the unhappy doc.u.ment. The Podesta is afraid of it! The Legation trembles at it--the Commessario says it is 'Peri-colosissimo!' and how I am to find an _employe_ courageous enough to look on while I sign it, I cannot tell. I fear that in the end I must go up to Milan, where the functionaries will possibly have more hardihood.
”I am greatly gratified that you have seen John Maxwell--whose visit I look for with much pleasure. We have not met for seventeen years,--up to that we had spent, nearly day-by-day, the previous ten or twelve years always together. It will be curious for each to see time's changes in the other, and how far the opinions and tastes of the man already steering round Cape Dangerous have diverged from (those of) the boy and the youth. For myself, there are many [? changes] that I can recognise; nor am I blind to the telling of coming years, which show me the diminished sense of enjoyment I possess to heretofore,--how little I value society, how tiresome I find what I hear are very pleasant people, and so on. And without being actually old, I am old enough to think that the world used to be pleasanter long ago, and that friends were more cordial and more frank, and that there was more _laisser-aller_ in the course of life than in these hardworking, money-seeking, railroading days we've got now.
”The most enduring tastes a man can cultivate (avarice apart) are, I believe, the love of scenery and music. There I feel stronger than ever: the former has, perhaps from living a good deal alone, become a pa.s.sion with me, and I am better pleased to have glens, glaciers, and cataracts than the fascinations of soirees and receptions.
”Keep 'Horace Templeton' quite _en cachet_, for though I suppose I shall be known easily, I will not confess, but die innocent.
”We have very grave events happening here at Milan, but they are kept quiet by the police, and even in society every one you ask on the subject says--_Non e niente_: and so they will keep on saying till the streets are barricaded, and the city in open revolt. Between ourselves, the reform party here are great blackguards, and the Pope [? without irreverence] an a.s.s to think that moderate concessions and reasonable privileges will content a mob, who only look for a new const.i.tution as an occasion for general pillage. It's all very fine for 'the gentlemen of England, who live at home at ease,' to say G.o.d-speed to the march of Liberal opinions in other lands; but let them remember that our own inst.i.tutions took centuries to grow and to consolidate, and were often shaken and menaced, and only at length firmly established by the force of public opinion, which finds its exponent in aristocratic inst.i.tutions,--a hereditary peerage and a popular a.s.sembly, nearly four-fifths of which is aristocratic. Try the same systems in other countries, and see what will come of it. Get people to make laws who never met for the voting of a parish cess or a penny poor rate; liberate a press that only asks freedom that it may revel in libel; set up an aristocracy that are uneducated and unreformed as objects of general respect! No, no! If the Pope had contented himself with his first [?
effort], and swept the Church and its monastic inst.i.tutions free from abuses; had he examined into the state of charities and hospitals and schools,--he would have done far more good, though far less obtrusively, than by quarrelling with Austria, and fraternising with Mazzini & Co.
”There are rumours of an outbreak at Bologna; probably, my dear friend, you have already sighed forth a wish that I was in the midst of it rather than [that I should] inflict upon you this tiresome piece of prolixity. But remember what the old woman said to the sentinel, who threatened to put the bayonet into her hinder part--'Divil thank you--sure it's yer thrade!'
”Fore G.o.d! I think a Bull from the Pope must be easy to obtain in comparison with the formality of this unlucky doc.u.ment. I now enclose it _en regle_.”
_To Mr Alexander Spencer._
”Villa Lima, Lago de Como, _Oct_. 6, 1847.
”You say you are puzzled by what Chapman says as to my being charged with the production (at least one-half cost) of unsold copies. Yet the fact is precisely so. There were of 'Hinton' something above 16,000 sold and somewhere like 20,000 printed, and with the interval between the two amounts you will find that I am charged with a moiety of the cost of producing. It was this fact, coupled with the trickery of a depreciatory sale, that made Chapman p.r.o.nounce the whole [? transaction] a cheat.*
* What Edward Chapman had actually written (some time previously) was: ”You have been in the hands of the Philistines. It is these things which bring discredit on our craft, and make authors look upon us as a set of ghouls ready to eat them, body and bones--with a tendency to get fat upon their brains. No doubt it was thought that you would make a nice dish _curried._”--E. D.
”It was Chapman's accountant who discovered M'Glashan's status, [which]
is indeed the greatest mystery of all. How he could leave the concern so deeply indebted I cannot conceive. Great sacrifices, I am sure, he made to retain the Magazine, but the sum of 3000 must be six times more than would purchase the D. U. M.
”Is it not possible that some day or other that same Magazine may be in the market? If it were mine--solely--I would make 1000 out of it per annum.
”I am sincerely gratified that you have read, and, better still, are pleased with, my Tyrolean story. Had I not too just grounds to fear how the very aspect of my hand-o'-write must weary you, I would have asked you to read the MS. Now that you have done so, I may say that I wrote it in the fulness of my heartfelt admiration for the land and the people,--one in which and with whom I would feel delighted to linger out whatever may remain to me of life.
”As for Como, I own I like it better every day I stay here; but if it be very pleasurable it is costly. Every one here is rich,--millionaire Russians and Lombards, Venetian Eccelenzas, Grandees d'Espagne, &c., are around us on every side; and the whole Lake is a gala of gay gondolas and dressy signoras, which figure not only reflected in the water, but once more and less pleasantly in one's bank account.
”Maxwell wrote to me from Paris, and I replied to him to Livonia, as he desired; but he had not abandoned all idea of coming here, and was making, as fast as the heavy mail and his bronchitis would permit, for Florence.
”There is nothing really alarming in the state of affairs here. The real fun is the stupid ignorance of the English press, who are hailing the Pope and his reform party as though they were members of the Cobden League.... The Pope is an ardent, simple-minded, well-intentioned man, who sincerely desires amelioration of government, but the real movers are the _peres_ Jesuits, who are trading, like certain speculators on the Bourse, and making false purchases, to intrigue for a fall in the Funds. They are speculating on the reaction that _must_ follow. Austria, who hates and never has tolerated the residence of this party in her states, is terrified--hence the occupation of Ferrara. Meanwhile the English press swallows the bait and cries G.o.d speed the movement! Peel at least is aware of the truth,--so much I know from my old friend Sir H. S[eymour].”
_To Mr Alexander Spencer._
”Como, _Oct_. 19, 1847.
”We are again _en route_--this time with a long road before us--to Florence....
”Chapman informs me that the [Curry] accounts are of such a nature as totally to preclude his being able to form anything like a correct estimate of the value of the property. He adds that there is a 'juggle somewhere,' and suggests, with my concurrence, that he sends his own accountant over to Dublin to investigate the concern,--of course the cost of this step to be borne conjointly. I have at once acceded to this request, for even if I did not coincide in the fitness, I yield to the consideration that it engages Chapman in the affair, and thus renders him more likely to become a whole or part proprietor of the books. His becoming a republisher of them is the best--the only--guarantee I can have for his continuing all dealings in the future. An honest man and a prompt paymaster included in a publisher are very rare gifts, and I am greatly indisposed to relinquish them. Besides, he has advanced me some hundreds since I concluded my agreement, and unless I can manage to work it out with him it would be a heavy enc.u.mbrance to pay if I had to treat with other parties. This is my whole case; and if it be in some respects a cloudy one, I have yet--thank G.o.d!--good health and good courage and good spirits to meet it: and once this affair of the copyrights [is]