This trip to London in the month of December did not do any service to Lever’s health or spirits. He complained on his return of being fagged and sea-sick, and “railroaded” nigh unto death, and of suffering from crushing headaches.
At the close of 1843 the novelist is to be found making one of his queer confessions--half-jest, half-earnest--to Canon Hayman. “No man, barring a dog, could live under the heap of abuse the daily post opens upon me, every letter of the alphabet indignantly asking why I haven’t published this or that tale, essay, poem, puff, song, review, or satire, and why I haven’t had the common politeness to reply,... while I labour on with fruitless apologies to rejected addresses. I have no time to write to my friends and disarm their disgust of the atrocities of my silent system. If I were an industrious fellow all would be well; but my rule of never doing to-day what can possibly be deferred till to-morrow is occasionally the source of some confusion. Latterly I have taken a fit of dining out, chiefly because I happen to have a new coat; and I really do nothing but grumble over the work before me, and wonder what I am to do for a new plot. I believe, however, that books write themselves; and that sitting down with a title before me and a well-nibbed pen are the only essentials. And on this I rely for the performance of my pledges for the year of grace 1844.”