“As to the future, let us, if he will, renew the old contract--£20 per sheet; and I will begin with the April quarter--if I don’t jump into the Arno before--a brand new serial as jocose and comical as can well be expected from a mind so thoroughly easy and well-to-do as mine. I will complete it in twelve or twenty parts monthly, and it shall be at his discretion to say which. I cannot yet give him the text, because I am vacillating between two themes,--and to predict a plan is with me to make the whole effort pall and disgust me. So much so is this the case, that when the children guess a _dénoûment_ that I intend, I am never able to write it after; and when you read this to M’Glashan he will recognise a fact that he knew well once, though he may have forgotten it. If I am to go to work, let him tell me this,--or, rather, let him tell you at once,--for our Carnival begins here next week, and for a month at least all quiet and repose is at an end, but still I could pick up some of the raw material for future fabrication.
“Now, my dear friend, for my first proposition, _l’affaire_ Tiernay. Get me something--anything--out of him. Let me know M’Glashan’s reply to the new Story proposal as soon as he can make up his mind, but _do not wait for the answer_ if you have any tidings for me _re_ ‘Tiernay.’
“My little people are all well,--and this, thank God, is a piece of good fortune that goes far to reconcile me to many a hard rub.”
Early in 1852 Lever heard of the tragic fate of his friend Eliot Warburton, who had perished in the Amazon, the ill-starred steamer which was burned on her voyage to the west coast of America. Warburton had made Lever’s acquaintance through sending to the editor of ‘The Dublin University’ some brilliant sketches of travel: these were published in the Magazine in 1843, under the title of ‘Episodes of Eastern Travel.’ Subsequently the author of ‘The Crescent and the Cross’ was a guest at Templeogue, and Lever entertained for him the warmest feelings. War-burton’s violent end, following closely upon the sudden death of Shiel,--who was to have dined with Lever the very day of his death,--gave the novelist a rude shock. He indulged in some very gloomy moralisings about the uncertainty of all human things, and engineered himself into a state in which work was impossible. In February he thought a journey southwards might give him a mental fillip which he sadly needed. He paid his first visit to Rome, his wife and children accompanying him. The daily expenditure increased seven-fold: but had he not forsworn small economies?