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قراءة كتاب Charles Lever, His Life in His Letters, Vol. II

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Charles Lever, His Life in His Letters, Vol. II

Charles Lever, His Life in His Letters, Vol. II

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
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CHARLES LEVER

His Life in His Letters


By Edmund Downey

With Portraits

In Two Volumes, Vol. II.


WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS

EDINBURGH AND LONDON

MCMVI





Early_Portrait (66K)







Contents

XIV. FLORENCE AND SPEZZIA 1864
XV. FLORENCE AND SPEZZIA 1865
XVI. FLORENCE AND SPEZZIA 1866
XVII. FLORENCE AND TRIESTE 1867
XVIII.   TRIESTE 1868
XIX. TRIESTE 1869
XX. TRIESTE 1870
XXI. TRIESTE 1871
XXII. TRIESTE 1872
XXIII. LOOKING BACKWARDS 1871-1872
XXIV. THE END










XIV. FLORENCE AND SPEZZIA 1864




To Mr John Blackwood.

"Casa Capponi, Florence, Jan. 2,1863 [? 1864].

"I am not sure—so much has your criticism on 'Tony' weighed with me, and so far have I welded his fortunes by your counsel—that you'll not have to own it one of these days as your own, and write 'T. B. by J. B.' in the title. In sober English, I am greatly obliged for all the interest you take in the story,—an interest which I insist on believing includes me fully as much as the Magazine. For this reason it is that I now send you another instalment, so that if change or suppression be needed, there will be ample time for either.

"Whenever Lytton says anything of the story let me have it. Though his counsels are often above me, they are always valuable. You will have received O'D. before this, and if you like it, I suppose the proof will be on the way to me. As to the present envoy of 'Tony,' if you think that an additional chapter would be of advantage to the part for March, take chapters xxv. and xxvi. too if you wish, for I now feel getting up to my work again, though the ague still keeps its hold on me and makes my alternate days very shaky ones.

"I am sorry to say that, grim as I look in marble, I am more stern and more worn in the flesh. I thought a few days ago that it was nearly up, and I wrote my epitaph—

     "For fifty odd years I lived in the thick of it,
     And now I lie here heartily sick of it.

"Poor Thackeray! I cannot say how I was shocked at his death. He wrote his 'Irish Sketch-Book,' which he dedicated to me, in my old house at Templeogue, and it is with a heavy heart I think of all our long evenings together,—mingling our plans for the future with many a jest and many a story.

"He was fortunate, however, to go down in the full blaze of his genius—as so few do. The fate of most is to go on pouring water on the lees, that people at last come to suspect they never got honest liquor from the tap at all.

"I got a strange proposal t'other day from America, from The New York Institute, to go out and give lectures or readings there. As regards money it was flattering enough, but putting aside all questions as to my ability to do what I have never tried, there is in America an Irish element that would certainly assail me, and so I said 'No.' The possibility of doing the thing somewhere has now occurred to me. Would they listen to me in Edinburgh, think you? I own to you frankly I don't like the thought,—it is not in any way congenial to ma Ma che voleté? I'd do it, as I wear a shabby coat and drink a small claret, though I'd like broadcloth and Bordeaux as well as my neighbours. Give me your opinion on this. I have not spoken of it to any others.

"My very best wishes for you and all yours in the year to come."




To Mr William Blackwood.

"Casa Capponi, Florence, Jan. 11, 1864.

"I thank you sincerely for your kind note, and all the hopeful things you say of T. B. I am not in the least ashamed to say how easily elated I feel by encouragement of this sort, any more than I am to own how greatly benefited I have been by your uncle's criticisms.

"I also send O'D. The next thing I mean to do after I return from Spezzia, where I go to-day, will be a short O'D. for March, and by that time I think it not improbable we shall be in the midst of great events here to record.

"Tell your uncle to cut out my Scotch ad lib. All my recollections of the dialect date from nigh thirty years ago in the N. of Ireland.

"Believe me with what pleasure I make your acquaintance, and with every good wish of the good season," &c.




To Mr John Blackwood.

"Casa Capponi, Florence, Jan. 22.

"I was right glad to get your letter, and gladder to find the 'Tony' No. 7 pleased you. You know so much of that strange beast the public, which for so many a year I have only known by report, that when you tell me the thing will do I gain fresh courage; and what between real calamities and the small rubs of life administered to me of late years in a severer shape than I ever felt before, I do need courage.

"Most men who had written so long and so much as I have done would have become thick-hided, but if I am so, it is only to attack—aggressive attack. To anything like reproof, remonstrance, or appeal, I am more open than I ever was in my earlier days, not merely because with greater knowledge of my own shortcomings I feel how much I need it, but that the amount of interest it implies, the sympathy for which it vouches, warms my heart, and gives me renewed vigour and the wish and the hope to do better.

"Now I only inflict all this egotism upon you the better to thank you for your

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