The pension did not come immediately, but it came at last, and brought some tranquillity to a life in which great genius was repressed by constant cares and anxieties. In a Life of Carleton[1] recently published I find a letter which I wrote him at this time. I was in the habit of sending him a free copy of the Nation as a testimony of goodwill. It failed to reach him on one occasion, and he assumed that I had stopped it to punish some recent offence which I have forgotten, and wrote to me in a fury. I replied, disposing of the cause of quarrel peremptorily:—
"I never stopped your paper—never dreamed of stopping, and never intend to stop it. If I were displeased with you, I would not resort to so shabby a means of annoyance; on the contrary, that is the very time I would be most careful not to remind you of a trifling favour of this sort."
After dealing with the practical question, I probably fell upon him à l'outrance for his insensate rashness. The man of genius repented his violence, and I replied:—
"My dear Carleton,—You push my words past their legitimate meaning, and I probably wrote them stronger than I felt. For I was deeply wounded that you should treat me as if I were M'Glashan or James Duffy, or Fardorougha. … Still, my friend, there is a basis of truth in them. In a gust of passion you are one of the most unjust of men, and shut your eyes to everything but your wrath. That is one side of the account, but only one. No friend was ever firmer in adversity, not swayed a hair's breadth by fear, favour, or worldliness—utterly ignoring all the small, shabby motives that influence common men, impregnable against all things but the tempestuous fury of your own passion. You should be able, if anybody could, to make allowance for my position; but you were as merciless as Skinadre, and I had not the soft word that turneth away wrath, but was as angry as yourself. Well, well, with all our mutual sins, neither of us will find easily a man who likes him as well, and has been as ready to proclaim it in the face of friends or foes, as the man he was angry with last week.—Always yours,"C. G. D."
- ↑ "Life of William Carleton." By W. J. O'Donaghue. London: Downey and Co.
