Volume Ii Part 7 (2/2)
”The thought of this, and a new cookery-book showing _when_ each thing ought to be eaten, and making a sort of gastronomic tour, have been addling my head the last three nights. But now I sit down steadily to 'Tony,' and 'G.o.d give me a good deliverance.'”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
”Florence, _Sept._ 8.
”I am in such a hang-dog humour that I must write you.
”I suspect Anster _has_ got his CD., but his d.a.m.nable writing has misled me. What I thought was a complaint for its non-arrival was, I imagine, a praise of its contents.
”I send you the rest of 'Tony' for October: G.o.d grant it be better than I think it is. But if you only saw me you'd wonder that I could even do the bad things I send you.
”Tell me, are you sick of the cant of people who uphold servants and talk of them as an 'interesting cla.s.s'? I think them the greatest rascals breathing, and would rather build a jail for them than a refuge.
I want to O'Dowd them; shall I?
”Gout is overcoming me completely! Isn't it too hard to realise both Dives and Lazarus in oneself at once?”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
”Villa Morelli, _Sept_. 19.
”I send you the last chap, for the November 'Tony,' and I want all your most critical comment on the Envoy, because, as the book draws to the end, I desire to avoid the crying sin of all my stories, a huddled-up conclusion. Be sure you tell me all my shortcomings, for even if I cannot amend them I'll bear in mind the impression they must create, and, so far as I can, deprecate my reader's wrath. You have not answered me as to the advisability of a name or no name,--a matter of little moment, but I'd like your counsel on it. My notion is this. If 'Tony' be likely to have success as a novel when published entire, a name might be useful for future publication, and as to that, I mean futurity, what would you say to a Stuart story, taking the last days of Charles Edward in Florence, and bringing in the great reforming Grand Duke, Pietro-Leopoldo and Horace Mann, &c.?*
* Lever must have intended to recast and to rewrite the adventures of ”Gerald Fitzgerald, the Chevalier,” the story which appeared as a serial in 'The Dublin University' in 1869.--E. D.
”I have been mooning over this for the last week. The fact is, when I draw towards the close of a story I can't help hammering at another: like the alderman who said, 'I am always, during the second course, imagining what will come with the woodc.o.c.ks.' Mind above all that no thought of me personally is to interfere with other Magazine arrangements, for it is merely as the outpouring of a confession that I speak now of a _story_, and if you don't want me, or don't want so much of me, you will say so.
”As I told you once before, I believe I am, or rather was--for there is very little 'am' left--better at other things than story-writing, and certainly I _like_ any other pen labour more. But this shall be as you determine....
”Give me some hints as to the grievances of the 'Limited Liability Schemes.' What are the weak points? Brief me!
”I have a notion that a course of O'Dowd lectures on Men and Women would be a success, orally given. What think you?”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
”Villa Morelli, _Sept_. 20.
”In my haste of correction in T. B. I believe I left 'Castel d'Uovo'
'Castel Ovo'; _now it should be the former_--pray look to it. G.o.d help me! but if I live a little longer I shall find spelling impossible.
Till I began to correct the press I never made a mistake; and now I understand what is meant by the tree of knowledge, for when once you begin to see there's a right and a wrong way to do anything, it's 'all up' with you. In my suspicion that the missing O'Ds. might possibly have come to your hand, I asked you to cancel [the bit] about Pam. _Pray do so_. It was ill-natured and gouty, though true; and, after all, he is a grand old fellow with all his humbug, and if we do make too much of him the fault is ours, not his.
”I have just got yours, 16th, and my mind is easy about the O'Ds. which never reached me. It will be easier, however, when I know you have squashed all about Pam.
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