The Dodd Family Abroad, Vol. I

What an elegant blunder we 'd have made if we 'd took his advice! It's all very fine saying he does n't "look like this " – or he has n't an "air of that;" sure nobody can be taken by his appearance abroad. The scrubbiest old snuffy creatures that go shambling about with shoes too big for them, airing their pocket-handkerchiefs in the sun, are dukes or marquises, and the elegantly dressed men in light blue frocks, all frogs and velvet, are just bagmen or watering-place doctors. It takes time, and great powers of discriminality, Molly, to divide the sheep from the goats; but I have got to that point at last, and I 'm proud to say that he must be a really shrewd hand that imposes upon your humble servant.

Long as this letter is, I 'd have made it longer if I had time, for though we 're only a short time here, I have made many remarks to myself about the ways and manners of foreign country life. The post, however, only goes out once a week, and I don't wish to lose the occasion of giving you the first intelligence of where we are, what we are doing, and what's – with the Virgin's help – before us!

Up to this, it has been all hospitalities and the honors of the house, and I suppose, until the old Baron is up and able to see us, we 'll hear no more about the marriage. At all events, you may mention the matter in confidence to Father John and Mrs. Clancey; and if you like to tell the Davises, and Tom Kelly, and Margaret, I 'm sure it will be safe with them. You can state that the Baron is one of the first families in Europe, and the richest. His great-grandfather, or mother, I forget which, was half-sister to the Empress of Poland, and he is related, in some way or other, to either the Grand Turk, or the Grand-Duke of Moravia, – but either will do to speak of.

All the cellars under the castle are, they say, filled with gold, in the rough, as it came out of his mines, and as he lives in what might be called an unostensible manner, his yearly savings is immense. I suppose while the old man lives the young couple will have to conform to his notions, and only keep a moderate establishment; but when the Lord takes him, I don't know Mary Anne if she 'll not make the money fly. That I may be spared to witness that blessed day, and see my darling child in the enjoyment of every happiness, and all the pleasures of wealth, is the constant prayer of your faithful friend,

Jemima Dodd.

P. S. If Mary Anne has finished her sketch of the castle, I'll send it with this. She 'd have done it yesterday, but, unfortunately, she had n't a bit of red she wanted for a fisherman's small-clothes, – for it seems they always wear red in a picture, – and had to send down to the town, eleven miles, for it.

Address me still here when you write, and let it be soon.

LETTER XXXVII. KENNY JAMES DODD TO THOMAS PURCELL, ESQ., OF THE GRANGE,

BRUFF

The Castle of Wolfenfels.

My dear Tom, – I 'm glad old Molly has shown you Mrs. D.'s epistle, which, independent of its other claims, saves me all the trouble of explaining where we are, and how we came there. We arrived on Wednesday last, and since that have been living in a very quiet, humdrum kind of monotonous life, which, were it in Ireland, we should call, honestly, tiresome; but as the scene is Germany and the Black Forest, I suppose should be chronicled as highly romantic and interesting. To be plain, Tom, we inhabit a big house – they call it a castle – in the midst of a large expanse of maize and turnips, backed by a dense wood of pines. We eat and drink in a very plain sort of over-abundant and greasy fashion. We sleep in a thing like the drawer of a cabinet, with a large pincushion on our stomachs for covering. We smoke a home-grown weed, that has some of the bad properties of tobacco; and we ponder – at least I do – of how long it would take of an existence like this to make a man wish himself a member of the vegetable creation. Don't fancy that I'm growing exorbitant in my demands for pleasure and amusement, nor believe that I have forgotten the humdrum uniformity of my life at home. I remember it all, and well. I can recall the lazy hours passed in the sunshine of our few summer days; I can bring back to mind the wearisome watching of the rain as it poured down for a spell of two months together, when we asked each other every morning, "What's to become of the wheat? How are we to get in the turf, if this lasts?" The newspapers, too, only alternated their narratives of outrage with flood, and spoke of bridges, mills, and mail-coaches being carried away in all directions. I mention these to show you that, though "far from the land," not a trait of it is n't green in my memory. But still, Tom, there was, so to say, a tone and a keeping in the picture which is wanting here. Our home dulness impressed itself as a matter of necessity, not choice. We looked out of our window at a fine red-brick mansion, two miles away, – where we 've drunk many a bottle of claret, and in younger days danced the "White Cockade" till morning, – and we see it a police-station, or mayhap a union. A starved dog dashes past the door with a hen in his mouth; we recognize him as the last remnant of poor Fetherstone's foxhounds, now broken up and gone. The smoke does n't rise from the midst of the little copses of beech and alder, along the river side; no, the cabins are all roofless, and their once inhabitants are now in Australia, or toiling to enrich the commonwealth of America.

There is a stir and a movement going forward, it is true; but, unlike that which betokens the march of prosperity and gain, it only implies transition. Ay, Tom, all is changing around us. The gentry are going, the middle classes are going, and the peasant is going, – some of their free will, more from hard necessity. I know that the general opinion is favorable to all this, – in England, at least The cry is ever, "Ireland is improving, – Ireland will be better." But my notion is that by Ireland we should understand not alone the soil, the rocks, and the rivers, but the people, – the heart and soul and life-blood that made the island the generous, warm-hearted, social spot we once knew it. Take away these, and I no longer recognize it as my country. What matters it to me if the Scotchman or the Norfolk farmer is to prosper where we only could exist? My sympathies are not with him. You might as well try and console me for the death of my child by showing me how comfortably some other man's boy could sleep in his bed. I want to see Ireland prosper with Irishmen; and I wish it, because I know in my heart the thing is possible and practicable.

I 'm old enough – and, indeed, so are you – to remember when the English used to be satisfied to laugh at our blunders and our bulls, and ridicule our eccentricities; but the spirit of the times is changed, and now they 've taken to rail at us, and abuse us, as if we were the greatest villains in Europe. They assume the very tone the Yankee adopts to the Red Man, and frankly say, "You must be extirpated!" Hence the general flight that you now witness. Men naturally say, "Why cling to a land that is no longer secure to us? Why link our destinies to a soil that may be denied to us to-morrow?" And the English will be sorry for this yet. Take my word for it, Tom, they 'll rue it! Paddy, by reason of his poverty and his taste for adventure, and a touch of romance in his nature, was always ready to enlist. He did n't know what might not turn out of it. He knew that Wellington was an Irishman, and, faith, he had only to read very little to learn that most of the best men came from the same country. Luck might, then, stand to him, and, at all events, it was n't a bad change from four-pence a day, stone-breaking!

Now, John Bull took another view of it. He was better off at home. He had n't a spark of adventure about him. His only notion of worldly advancement led through money. You 'll not catch him becoming a soldier. Every year will make him less and less disposed to the life. Cheapen food and luxuries, reduce tariffs and the cost of foreign produce, and the laborer will think twice before he 'll give up home and its comforts, to be, as the song says, —

"Proud as a goat,With a fine scarlet coat,And a long cap and feather."

Turn over these things in your mind, Tom, and see if England has not made a great mistake in eradicating the very class she might have reckoned upon in any warlike emergency. Take my word for it, it is a fine thing to have at your disposal a hundred thousand fellows who can esteem a shilling a day a high premium, and who are not too well off in the world to be afraid of leaving it! How did I come here at all? What has led me into this digression? I protest to you solemnly, Tom, I don't know. I can only say that my hand trembles, and my head throbs with indignation, as I think over this insolent cant that tells us that Ireland has no chance of prosperity save in ceasing to be Irish. It is worse than a lie, – it is a mean, cowardly slander!

I must leave off this till my brain is calmer: besides, whether it is the light wines I 'm drinking, or my anger has brought it on, but I 've just got a terrible twinge of gout in my right foot.

Tuesday Evening.

I have passed a miserable twenty-four hours. They 've all the incentives to gout in this country, and yet they don't appear to have the commonest remedies against it. I sent Belton's recipe to be made up at the apothecaries', and they had never as much as heard of one of the ingredients! They told me to regulate my diet, and be careful to avoid acids, – and this, while I was bellowing like a bull with pain. It was like replying to my request for a shirt, by saying that they were going to sow flax in August It 's their confounded cookery, and the vinegar we wash it down with, has given me this!

The old housekeeper at last took compassion on my sufferings, and made me up a kind of broth of herbs that nearly finished me. She assured me that they all grew wild in the fields, and were freely eaten by the cattle. I can only say it's well that Nebuchadnezzar was n't put out to graze here! Sea-sickness was a mild nausea compared to it I 'm better now; but so low and so depressed, and with such loss of energy, that in a discussion with Mrs. D. about Mary Anne's "trousseau," as they call it, I gave in to everything!

Since this attack seized me, events have made a great progress; indeed, a suspiciously minded person would n't scruple to say that a mild poison had been administered to me to forward the course of negotiations; and in my heart and soul I believe that another bowl of the same broth would make me consent to my daughter's union with the Bey of Tunis! The poor old Dean of Lurra used to say of the Baths of Kreutznach, "I 've lost enough flesh in three weeks to make a curate!" – and, indeed, when I look at myself in the glass, I turn involuntarily around to see where's the rest of me!

Meanwhile, as I said, all has been arranged and settled, and the marriage is fixed for an early day in the coming week. I suppose it's all for the best I take it that the match is a very great one; but I own to you frankly, Tom, I 'd have fewer misgivings if the dear child was going to be the wife of some respectable man of her own country, though he had neither a castle to live in nor a title to bestow.

Foreigners are essentially and totally different from us in everything; and marrying one of them is, to my thinking, the very next thing to being united to some strange outlandish beast, as one reads of in fairy tales. I suppose that my prejudice is a very mean and narrow-minded one; but I can't get rid of it. It looks churlish and cold-hearted in me that I cannot show the same joy on the occasion that the others display; but, with all my efforts, and the very best will, I can't do it, Tom. The bridegroom, too, is not to my taste: he is one of those moping, dreamy, moonstruck fellows, that pass their lives in an imaginary sphere of thought and action; and, to my thinking, these people are distasteful to the world at large, and insufferable to their wives.

I think I see that Mary Anne already anticipates he will prove a stubborn subject. Her mother, however, gives her courage and support. She gently insinuates, too, that worse cases have been treated successfully. Lord help us, it's a strange world!

As to the material features of the affair, – I mean as regards means and fortune, – he appears to have more than enough, yet not so much as to prevent his giving a very palpable hint to me about what I intended to give my daughter. He made the overture with a most laudable candor, though, I own, with no excess of delicacy. James, however, had in a manner prepared me for it, and mentioned that I was indebted for this gratification, as I am for a variety of others, to Mrs. D. It seems that, by way of giving a very imposing notion of our possessions, she had cut the county map out of O'Kelly's old Gazetteer, and passed it off for the survey of our estate. Of course I could n't disavow the statement, and have been reduced to the pleasant alternative of settling on my daughter about five baronies and twenty townlands of Tipperary, with no inconsiderable share of villages and hamlets. Some old leases, an insurance policy, and a writ against myself have served me for title-deeds; and though the young Baron pores over them for hours with a dictionary, thanks to the figurative language of the law, they have defied detection!

The father is still too ill to receive me, but each day I am promised an interview with him. Of what benefit to either of us it is to prove, may be guessed from the fact that we cannot speak to each other. You will perceive from all this, Tom, that I am by no means enamored of our approaching greatness; and it is but fair to state that James is even less so. He calls the Baron a "snob;" and probably, in all the fashionable vocabulary of an enlightened age, a more depreciatory epithet could not be discovered. What a sham and a humbug is all the parade we make of our parental affection, and what a gross cheat, too, do we practise upon ourselves by it! We train up a girl from infancy with every care and devotedness, – we surround her with all the luxuries our means can compass, and every affection of our hearts, – and we give her away, for "better and for worse," to the first fellow that offers with what seems a reasonable chance of being able to support her!

Many of us would n't take a butler with the scanty knowledge we accept a son-in-law. His moral qualities, his disposition, the habits he has been reared in, – what do we know of them? Less than nothing! And yet, while we ask about these, and twenty more, of the man to whom we are about to confide the key of our cellar, we intrust the happiness of our child to an unknown individual, the only ascertained fact about whom – if even that be so – is his income!

As I should like to tell you every step I take in this affair, I'll not send off my letter till I can give you the latest information. Meanwhile let me impress upon you that it is now three months since I received a shilling from Ireland. James has just informed me that there is not fifty pounds left of the McCarthy legacy, of which his mother only gave him permission to draw for three hundred. The debate upon this, when it comes, will be strong. What I intend is that immediately after Mary Anne's marriage we should return to Ireland; but of course I reserve the declaration for a fitting opportunity, since I well know how it will be received. Cary would never marry a foreigner, nor would anything induce me to consent to her doing so. James is only frittering away his best years here in idleness and dissipation; and if I can get nothing for him from the Government, he must emigrate to Australia or New Zealand. As for Mrs. D., the sooner she gets home to Dodsborough the better for her health, her means, and her morals!

I am afraid to say a word about Ireland and Irish affairs, for as sure as I do I stick fast there; still I must say that I think you 're wrong for abusing those members that have accepted office from Government. Put it to yourself, my dear Tom; if anybody offered you fifty pounds for the old gray mare you drive into market of a Saturday, would you set about explaining that she was blind of an eye, and a roarer, with a splint before, and a spavin behind? Would n't you rather expatiate upon her blood and breeding, her endurance of fatigue, and her fine trotting action? I don't know you if you would n't! Well, it's just the same with these fellows. Briefless lawyers and distressed gentlemen as they are, why should they say to the Ministry, "You're giving too much for us; we can neither speak for you nor write for you; we have neither influence at home, nor power abroad; we are a noisy, riotous, disorderly set of devils, always quarrelling amongst ourselves, and never agreeing, except when there 's a bit of robbery or roguery to be done; don't think of buying us; it is a clear waste of public money; we 'd only disgrace and not benefit you"? If anybody is to be blamed, it is the Ministers that bought them, Tom.

As to all your disputed questions of education, tenant-right, and taxation, take my word for it you have no chance of settling them amicably; and for this reason: a great number of excellent men, on both sides, have pledged themselves so strongly to particular opinions that they cannot decently recant, and yet they begin to see many points in a different view, and would, were the matter to come fresh before them, treat it in another fashion. If you really wish to see Ireland better, try and get people to let her alone for some fifteen or twenty years. She is nearly ruined by doctoring. Just wait a bit, and see if the natural goodness of constitution won't do more for her than all your nostrums.

James has just interrupted me, to say that he has shot "the partridge," for it seems there was only one in the country. That's the fruits of revolution. Before the year '48, this part of Germany abounded in game of every sort – partridges, hares, and quails, in immense abundance, besides plenty of deer on the hills, and that excellent bird the "Auer-Hahn," which is like the black-cock we have at home. When the troubles came, the peasants shot everything; and now the whole breed of game is extinct. They tell me it is the same throughout Bohemia and Hungary, – the two best sporting countries in all Europe. Foreigners were never oppressed with game-laws as we are; there was a far wider liberty enjoyed by them in this respect, and, in consequence, the privileges were less abused; so that really the wholesale destruction is much to be regretted. But is it not exactly what always follows in every case of popular domination? The masses love excess, and are never satisfied with anything short of it. I don't pretend to say that the Germans had not good and valid reasons for being dissatisfied with their Governments. I believe, in my heart, it would be difficult to imagine a more stupid piece of ingenuous blundering than a German Administration; and this is the less excusable when one thinks of the people over whom they rule.

The excesses of that same year of '48 will be the stock-in-trade for these grinding Governments for many a day to come. It is like a "barring out" to a cruel schoolmaster; the excuse for any violence he may wish to indulge in. At the same time I say this, I tell you frankly that none of the foreigners I have yet seen are fit for the system of a representative Government. From whatever causes I know not, but they are less patient, less given to calm investigation, than the English. Their perceptions are as quick – perhaps quicker – but they will not weigh the consequences of conflicting interests, and, above all, they will not put any restrictions upon their own liberty for the benefit of the community at large. Their origin, climate, traditions, and so forth, of course influence them greatly; but I have a notion, Tom, that our domesticity has a very considerable share in the formation of that temperate and obedient spirit so observable amongst us. I think I see the sly dimple that 's deepening in the corner of your mouth as you murmur to yourself, "Kenny James is thinking of his Mrs. D. He's pondering over the natural results of home discipline." But that is not what I mean, at least it is not the whole of it. My theory is that a family is the best training-school for the virtues that prosper in a well-ordered State, and that the little incidents of home life have a wonderful bearing upon, and similarity to, the great events that stir mankind.

I was going to become very abstruse and incomprehensible, I've no doubt, on this theme, but Mrs. D. just dropped in with a small catalogue of some three hundred and twenty-one articles Mary Anne requires for her wedding.

I ventured to hint that her mother entered the connubial state with a more modest preparation; and hereupon arose one of those lively discussions now so frequent between us, in which, amidst other desultory and miscellaneous remarks, she drew a graphic contrast between marrying a man of rank and title, and "making a low connection that has forever served to alienate the affection of one's family."

Will you tell me what peculiarity there is in the atmosphere, or the food, or the electric influences abroad, that have made a woman that was at least occasionally reasonable at home a most unmanageable fury on the Continent? I don't want to deny that we had our little differences at Dodsborough, but they were "tiffs," – mere skirmishes, – but here they are downright pitched battles, Tom. She will have it so, too. She won't exchange a few shots and retire, but she comes up in line, with her heavy artillery, and seems resolved to have a day of it! If this blessed tour brought me no other pleasures than these, I 'd have reason to thank it! You, of course, are quite ready to assert that the fault is as much mine as hers, – that I provoke contradiction, – that I even invite conflict! There you are perfectly in the wrong! I do, I acknowledge, intrench myself in a strong position, and only fire an occasional shot at any tempting exposure of the enemy; but she comes on by storm and escalade, and, sparing neither age nor sex, never stops till she's in the very heart of the citadel. That I come out maimed, crippled, and disabled from such encounters, is not to be wondered at.

Amongst the other signs of progress of our enlightened age, a very remarkable one is the habit, now become a law, for everybody with any pretensions to the rank of a gentleman, to live in the same style, or, at least, with as close an imitation as he can of it, as persons of large fortune. Men like myself were formerly satisfied with giving their friends a little sherry and port at dinner, continued afterwards, till some considerate friend begged, "as a favor," for a glass of punch. Now we start with Madeira after the soup, if you have n't had oysters and chablis before, hock with your first entrée, and champagne afterwards, graduating into Chambertin with "the roast," and Pacquarete with the dessert, claret, at double the price it costs in Ireland, closing the entertainment. Why, a duke cannot do more than Kenny Dodd at this rate! To be sure the cookery will be more refined, and the wines in higher condition. Moët will be iced to its due point, and Chateau Margaux will be served in a carefully aired decanter; but the cost, the outlay, will be fully as much in one case as the other. Have we – that is to say, humble men like myself – gained by this in an intellectual or social point of view? Not a bit of it! We have lost all that easy cordiality that was native to us in our former condition, and we have not become as coldly polite and elegantly tiresome as the grand folk.

The same system obtains in other matters. My daughter must be dressed on her wedding-day like Lady Olivia or Lady Jemima, who has a father a marquis, and fifty thousand pounds settled on her for pin-money.

The globe has to become tributary to the marriage of Mary Anne! Cashmere sends a shawl; Lyons, silk; and Genoa, velvet; furs from Hudson's Bay, and feathers from Mexico; Valenciennes and Brussels contribute lace; Paris reserving for her peculiar snare the architectural skill that is to combine these costly materials, and construct out of them that artistic being they call a "bride." Taking a wife with nothing "but the clothes on her back" used to be the expression of a most disinterested marriage. Now it might mean anything between Swan and Edgar's and Howell and James's, or, to state it differently, between moderate embarrassment and irretrievable ruin!