MISFORTUNES

Surely it is a pleasant thing that there are books, like other
enjoyments, for all ages. You would not have a boy prefer whist to
fives, nor tobacco to toffee, nor Tolstoi to Charles Lever. The ancients
reckoned Tyrtaecus a fine poet, not that he was particularly melodious or
reflective, but that he gave men heart to fight for their country.
Charles Lever has done as much. In his biography, by Mr. Fitzpatrick, it
is told that a widow lady had but one son, and for him she obtained an
appointment at Woolwich. The boy was timid and nervous, and she fancied
that she must find for him some other profession--perhaps that of
literature. But he one day chanced on Lever's novels, and they put so
much heart into him that his character quite altered, and he became the
bravest of the brave.

Lever may not do as much for every one, but he does teach contempt of
danger, or rather, delight in it: a gay, spontaneous, boyish kind of
courage--Irish courage at its best. We may get more good from that than
harm from all his tales of much punch and many drinking bouts. These are
no longer in fashion and are not very gay reading, perhaps, but his
stories and songs, his duels and battles and hunting scenes are as merry
and as good as ever. Wild as they seem in the reading, they are not far
from the truth, as may be gathered out of "Barrington's Memoirs," and
their tales of the reckless Irish life some eighty years ago.

There were two men in Charles Lever--a glad man and a sad man. The
gaiety was for his youth, when he poured out his "Lorrequers" and
"O'Malleys," all the mirth and memories of his boyhood, all the tales of
fighting and feasting he gleaned from battered, seasoned old warriors,
like Major Monsoon. Even then, Mr. Thackeray, who knew him, and liked
and laughed at him, recognised through his merriment "the fund of sadness
beneath." "The author's character is _not_ humour, but sentiment . . .
extreme delicacy, sweetness and kindliness of heart. The spirits are
mostly artificial, the _fond_ is sadness, as appears to me to be that of
most Irish writing and people." Even in "Charles O'Malley," what a
true, dark picture that is of the duel beside the broad, angry river on
the level waste under the wide grey sky! Charles has shot his opponent,
Bodkin, and with Considine, his second, is making his escape. "Considine
cried out suddenly, 'Too infamous, by Jove: we are murdered men!'"

"'What do you mean?'