Part 15

“You will see by the papers that Dickens, as well as Bulwer, has fallen under the lash of ‘The Times.’ It matters little however; the [? love] for low verbiage and coarse pictures of unreality is a widespread--and a spreading--taste. People will buy and read what requires no effort of mean capacities to follow, and what satisfies lowbred tastes by a standard of morality to which they can, with as little difficulty, attain. I have suffered--I am suffering--from the endeavour to supply a healthier, more manly, and more English sustenance, but it may be that before I succeed--if I do succeed at all--the hand will be cold and the heart still, and that I may be only a pioneer to clear the way for the breaching party.

“That such a taste must rot of its own corruption is clear enough, but, meanwhile, literature is an unattractive career for those who would use it for a higher purpose.

“I hope you like my ‘Knight’--because, while I perceive many and grave faults in its construction and development, I still would fain hope that the writing (as writing) is pure, and the tone throughout such as a gentleman might write and a lady read. If you agree with me, I shall feel that my book requires no better eulogy.

“Miss Edgeworth and O’Sullivan give me warm encouragement and high commendation; but I take it much of both proceeds from kindness of feeling, which, perhaps, guesses with intuitive good-nature that such are as much ‘bids for the future’ as flatteries for the past.”

_To Mr Hugh Baker._

“Bregenz, _Jan._ 22, 1847.

“....I know Cumming has burked my ‘Knight,’--not intentionally, but from the blundering of a lethargic bad habit of business, and the result has been most disheartening and unpleasant to me.

“I am suffering severely from gout in the head and palpitations of the heart, and not able to write: even correcting is too much for me.”

_To Mr Hugh Baker._

“Riedenburg, _Feb_. 10, 1847.

“C. & H. wrote me that they do not contemplate the purchase, but that if I could get £600 to £800 I should be well off,--though if these sums (either of them) were to include the disputed moiety on the sale of ‘Hinton’ ‘the settlement is not so grand.’ I think otherwise, and would be exceedingly glad to have so much out of the fire; besides, I really want the cash, as my present engagement terminates soon, and I have nothing in preparation to succeed it for the remainder of the year....

“What would you say--if in the event of their (Curry) refusing me fair terms--to make this proposal: ‘What will you give Mr Lever if he revises the works (and they need it) for republication--adding notes, &c.? and also giving you the copyright of “O’Leary,” to appear like the others?’

“This might lead to something, and the occupation of re-editing, writing mems., and prefaces, &c., would give me immediate work.”

_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 _circumstances_ 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 embarrassments 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 Institution, 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 circumstances so straitened--he having taken away every pound in the house--that even the most trifling assistance 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 assume 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 niggard, 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 God’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 principally,--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. pronounced 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 Dickens 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 associations--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.

“It is strange enough that the habit of describing emotions and sentiments in fiction should have heightened to a most painful degree my own susceptibilities, so that I really am as weak as a girl, and far more unable to buffet against the rocks of life than when, as a doctor, I encountered them really and bodily. Half a dozen years may have had its share in this, but only its share. Besides, we have been living a very retired solitary life,--my only neighbours are an old Austrian general and his staff. I have therefore been doing with my thoughts what they say has deteriorated Spanish nobility--ruining them by frequent intermarriage.

“I am also fretted by a kind of vague consciousness that I have better stuff in me than I have yet shown; and though I was just as often disposed to regret as to indulge this belief, the confession will not entirely leave me, acting like a blunt spur on a lazy horse,--enough to irritate him but not to increase his speed.”

_To Mr Alexander Spencer._

“Hôtel Bain, Zurich, _March_ 20, 1847.

“Your most welcome letter came after me here, where, in the vague pursuit of a less expensive residence, I have come, intending by reason of late events to shorten sail, not knowing what weather may be in store for us.

“M’Glashan’s [? offer of] arbitration promises well, but you are quite right not to concede the acknowledgment of the a/c as a preliminary. My object would be far rather to buy than to sell, but Curry asks £2500 for his interest,--nearly as much as he gave me originally. If we could induce him to make a reasonable demand, I think I could induce a publisher to treat for the books, so that I would be more disposed now simply to press the ‘Hinton’ settlement, which, according to the a/c you have sent me, is a complete puzzle--2000 being rated as 1000 copies (as you have yourself observed).... I believe M’Glashan intends fairly by me, but, from a careless remark of Hugh Baker, he fancied he was to be immediately examined before a Master in Chancery, and with native prudence [he] abstained from opening any correspondence in the conjuncture.... Chapman’s letter will show you _his_ opinion of the trickery the Currys are attempting. He--Chapman--said £800 would not be more than a fair sum for my interest,--all claims of ‘Hinton’ being previously settled to my satisfaction.... M’O.’s estimate of Chapman (Hall is since dead) is perfectly correct. They are, as indeed is every bookseller of the London trade that I have conversed with, very inferior to M’G. himself in natural acuteness and knowledge of books, book-writers, and book-readers. He is without question the very ablest man in his walk, and--now that Blackwood* is gone--far above Murray, Colburn, Longman, and the rest of them; and in London, and with capital, would beat them hollow.”

* William Blackwood, founder of the firm.

_To Mr Alexander Spencer_.

“Riedenburg, _April_ 13, 1847.

“M’Glashan is so far fair that he says he insisted that in my share of half profits the expense counted against me should be limited to the mere paper and press-work, and not the eleventh part of the whole original cost--authorship, engraving, stereotyping, &c. Now the question is, Is this the spirit and meaning of the a/c now furnished?*

* The letter enclosing Curry’s a/c had not yet reached Lever. It had gone to Zurich (or via Zurich).--E. D.

“Am I then credited with all my due and debited with no more than my due? I ask this because, in my ignorance of figures, I shall be little the wiser when the a/c is before me.

“I am so far of opinion that it would be well not to couple any proportion for buying or selling with the settlement of a/cs, and for this reason: that no sum Curry could be induced to give me _now_ would be a fair compensation for my share of the profits of a reissue,--without which speculation in view he would never have made his present steps to obtain the sole copyrights,--and I am not in a position to repurchase the books, though if Curry would put a fair price on them I believe I could effect, through another, some arrangement on the subject....

“Lastly, if Curry does not make me a suitable offer to buy or to sell, and if he intends a reissue, then comes another feature of the case worth consideration, and which would all depend on the spirit and temper he may show. What arrangement could be made for the new edition appearing with revival prefaces, &c., by me? This, of course, is a last of all results.

“As to M’G., his letter is possibly a very candid and honest _exposé_, but I have limited myself to the observation already quoted. With regard to the Magazine he has made a proposal--i.e., he has asked me to name my terms for a contribution of some length. I have done so, wishing to open sources of profit to myself by what I may term ‘irresponsible labour’; for I really am tired of seeing my name before the public, and more than tired of the anxiety for success each new acknowledged book brings along with it. I scarcely suppose he will accede to my terms, which are sharp ones; but less than I have asked I cannot accept, because such would at once influence my treatment by others. I’ll send him my first paper at once....

“We are about to move into Italy next month. I have taken a villa--a most beautifully situated thing--on the Lake of Como, where we have been last week, having crossed the Alps in twelve feet of snow,--a journey of more adventure and danger than you can well conceive.

“I intend to remain there till November--possibly the whole winter; but if not, we shall move down to Florence or Rome. Como, independent of its beauty, of which I really had formed no conception (it is Killarney with a tropical vegetation,--the aloe, the olive, the fig, pomegranate, with the cactus and magnolia growing wild), offers me the facility of visiting all the north of Italy by easy excursions,--Milan only four hours off, Padua, Verona, Vicenza, Venice itself--all available. We shall have ample time to exchange some letters before I leave, and I only mention my plans now as to the reasons of my prompt reply to M’G., wishing to make up my future contract before I place the High Alps between myself and the printing-press.”

_To Mr Alexander Spencer._

“Riedenburg, Bregenz, _April_ 16, 1847.

“It does not signify that Curry has not kept any separate a/cs of the cost of all copies above 10,000. It is easy to make the deduction requisite to such an understanding.

“M’G. and Chapman both concur in stating that I am only to be charged with the cost price and not the eleventh part of the whole original cost--that is, I am only chargeable with paper and press-work, and not with any of the cost of author, engraver, &c. These are M’G.’s words to me in a letter of last week. Chapman’s words are as follows:--

“‘By their own showing they owe you £280 to the end of Aug., but you have to dispute this, on the ground that only paper and print are to go to form the cost of the volumes, whereas they charge you authorship, engravings, in fact, everything from the beginning,--making the dry cost per vol. to be 4s. and a fraction.’

“I quote these words from his letter to me when last alluding to the transaction. So much, then, for the point on which I suppose, as M’G. has expressed his firm opinion, Curry can scarcely dissent.

“Secondly, in the account forwarded previously to me of cost of production, I was charged with my share of the expense of all the copies of ‘Hinton,’ ‘Burke,’ and ‘The O’Donoghue’ printed but still unsold--that is, I was made a party to the cost of producing so much stock,--of my interest in which we have not one syllable, and which, if I were to purchase to-morrow, I should be buying what I have paid the moiety of the charge of producing.

“This last feature of the affair it is, I opine, which makes Curry so eager for a final settlement,--at least, it was this _coup_ which Chapman stigmatised as an atrocious piece of cheating.

“My opinion is, then, this: If Curry’s a/c of the surplus ‘Hinton’ is fair, if he only charges me with what M’G. stipulated for and says I am responsible, and if I am not to pay for stock in which I hold a vested right, settle the a/c and let the transaction be finished.

“M’G. is quite right as to the relative advantages and disadvantages that Curry and I labour under. But it is quite clear _he_ will scarcely be able to sell his share in the three works so long as mine remain unpurchased,--first, because he cannot make out a title until I give him one; and secondly, that no bookseller would like to buy hampered with my lien. I do not in the least desire to buy or sell with Curry. ‘Hinton’ being once settled for, I’d rather lie patiently and wait for what may turn up.

“My proposition to Orr was this: and I would be very glad if you would communicate it to M’G., because if _he_ felt disposed to become a party in the compact I should be better pleased. Perhaps you would then read for him the following:--

“To enter into an arrangement with me to repurchase from Curry all the copyrights, as well those he owns entire as those in part, and then to commence from the stereotype plates a cheap weekly issue, with Notes and Prefaces by the Author. I would myself contribute ‘O’Leary’--which is entirely mine--to the new edition, and do my utmost to give the whole a new feature of interest.

“If M’G. would enter into the speculation, he, more than any other, could contribute to its success, and I would myself pledge that whatever I wrote in the way of story hereafter should be reserved for similar publication.

“I believe I have now gone through the whole matter save the expression of my never-ceasing gratitude to the friend who can devote of his few and scanty leisure hours nearly all in the cause of affectionate interest.

“The weather is again becoming wintry. Avalanches have fallen on every side of us--fifty feet of snow is lying in the Innspruck road; the mail for Italy is four days due, and even Switzerland--usually regular--is two days behind time. I do not venture to anticipate when we may be able to cross the Alps,--certainly not under six or eight weeks if present appearances last.

“If M’G. has not replied to my last when you see him, urge him to do so, as it regards the contributing of some papers which I should like to despatch before I left this.”

_To Mr Alexander Spencer._

“Riedenburg, _April_ 20, 1847.

“We are already busied with the stir and bustle of departure, though the time is still distant; but poor dear Germany is not a land of despatch, and to obtain a packing-box you must wait for a tree to be felled, barked, sawed, and planed, with all the vicissitudes attendant on these several processes, and the inevitable interruptions of saints’ days and festivals in honour of every grand duke and grand duchess that ever were chronicled in the ‘Almanac de Gotha.’

“Speed, therefore, is out of the question, and my impatience has already more than once jeopardised my character for prudence and good sense among this, the easiest-going nation that ever smoked away existence. 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.

“I have written to John a long prosy narrative of our Splugen journey--which really, albeit a novelist _par métier_, I have not exaggerated.”

_To Mr Alexander Spencer._

“Riedenburg, _May_ 10, 1847.

“Except Orr and M’G., there are no others in the trade sufficiently cognisant of the profits of my books to undertake on a grand scale a reissue; and for this reason--because I was an Irish author, printed and published and mostly sold in Ireland, branded with the nationality of blunder in type as well as errors in thought,--and the same professional reputation hangs to me still. Now Orr and M’G. hang back. The invariable answer I meet from them is: ‘We are so much suspected by Curry, that from us he would not accept a fair sum, whereas from you he would be likely to be restricted in his demand, because he would thereby by implication be setting a value on what _you_ might claim from _him_:

“Finally, the very qualified success of Dickens’s new and cheap issue for 1s. 1 1/2d. (and pub. 1s. 2d.)--the greatest trial of cheapness ever made in bookselling--has shown that the profits of a new edition cannot be reckoned on till after a considerable lapse of time. When an author’s popularity has lasted long enough to be more than a passing taste, and to stand the test of a new generation of readers, then--and only then--can successive editions be regarded as profitable [? experiments].