The Dodd Family Abroad Volume I Part 44

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 t.i.tle, 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 a.s.sert 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 s.e.x, 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 gla.s.s of punch. Now we start with Madeira after the soup, if you have n't had oysters and chablis before, hock with your first _entre_, 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. Mot 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 embarra.s.sment and irretrievable ruin!

If you ask me how I am to pay for all this, or when, I tell you honestly and fairly, I don't know. As well as I can make out the last accounts you sent me, we 're getting deeper into debt every day; but as figures always distract and puzzle me, I'd rather you'd put the case into something like a statement in words, just saying when we may expect a remittance, and how much it will be. I find that I shall lose the mail if I don't cease at once; but I 'll send you a few lines by to-morrow's post, as I have something important to say, but can't remember it now.

Yours, ever sincerely,

Kenny James Dodd.

LETTER x.x.xVIII. KENNY JAMES DODD TO THOMAS PURCELL, ESQ., OF THE GRANGE, BRUFF.

My dear Tom,--The post hadn't left this five minutes yesterday, when I remembered what I wanted to say to you. Wednesday, the 26th, is fixed for the happy occasion; and if nothing should intervene, you may insert the following paragraph in the "Tipperary Press," under the accustomed heading of "Marriage in High Life": "The Baron Adolf Heinrich Conrad Hapsburg von Wolfenschafer, Lord of the Manors of Hohendeken, Kalbsbratenhausen, and Schweinkraut, to Mary Anne, eldest daughter of Kenny James Dodd, Esq., of Dodsborough, in this county." Faith, Tom, I was near saying "universally regretted by a large circle of afflicted survivors," for I was just wis.h.i.+ng myself dead and buried! But you must put it in the usual formula of "beautiful and accomplished," and take care it is not applied to the bridegroom, for, upon my conscience, his claim to the first epithet couldn't be settled by even a Parliamentary t.i.tle! My heart is heavy about it all, and I wish it was over!

If anything exemplifies the vanity of human wishes, it is our efforts to marry our daughters, and our regrets when the plans succeed. Tom goes to India, and Billy to sea, and there is scarcely a gap in the family circle. "The boys" were seldom at home,--they were shooting in Scotland, or hunting in England, or fis.h.i.+ng in Norway. They never, so to say, made part of the effective garrison of the house; they came and went with that rackety good-humor that even in quiet families is pleasurable; but your girls are household G.o.ds: lose _them_, even one of them, and the altar is despoiled. The thousand little un.o.btrusive duties, noiseless cares, that make home better a hundred-fold than anywhere else, be it ever so rich and splendid, the unasked solicitude, the watchful attention that provides for your little daily wants and habits, are all _their_ province. And just fancy, then, what scheming and intriguing we practise to get rid of them! You 'll say that this shows we are above the selfishness of only considering our own enjoyment, and that we sacrifice all for their happiness. There you mistake; our sole aim is a rich man,--our one notion of a good marriage is that the husband be wealthy. It's not a man like myself, who has sometimes paid fifty, ay, sixty per cent for money, that can afford to sneer at and despise it; but this I will say, that the mere possession of it will not suffice for happiness. I know fellows with fifteen thousand a year that have not the heart to spend five hundred. I know others that, with as much, are always over head and ears in debt, raising cash everywhere and anyhow!

What kind of life must a girl lead that marries either of these? And yet would you or I think of refusing such a match for a daughter? Let me tell you, Tom, that for people of small fortune, the nunneries were fine things! What signifies serge and simple diet to the wearisome drudgery of a governess! If I was a woman, I think I'd rather sit in my quiet cell, working an embroidered suit of body clothes for Father O'Leary, than I'd be snubbed by the family of some vulgar citizen, tortured by the brats, and insulted by the servants.

I don't suppose that it signifies a straw one way or other, but I feel some compunctions of conscience at the way I have been a.s.signing imaginary estates, mines, woods, and collieries to Mary Anne for the last three days. I know it's mere greed makes the Baron so eager on the subject, since he is enormously wealthy. James and I rode twelve miles, this morning, through a forest that belongs to the castle, and the arable land stretches more than that distance in another direction; but who knows how he 'll behave when he discovers she has nothing! To be sure, we can always ascribe our ruin to political causes, and, in verification, exhibit ourselves as poor as need be; but still I don't like it And this is one of the blessed results of a false position,--one step in a wrong direction very frequently necessitates a long journey.

Yesterday I protested to my affluence; to-day I vouched for the n.o.bility of my family. Heaven only can tell what I won't swear to to-morrow! And again I am interrupted by Mrs. D., who has just come to inform me that though the bride's finery can all be had at Paris,--whither the happy couple are to repair for the honeymoon,--there are certain indispensables must be obtained at once from Baden; and she begs that I will privately write a few lines to Morris, who will, of course, undertake the commission. It is not without shame that I enclose a list of purchases to make, which, to a man who knew what we were in Ireland, will appear preposterous; but the false position we have attained to is surrounded with interminable mortifications of the same kind.

Ah, Tom! I remember the time when, if a bride changed her smart white silk and muslin that she wore at the altar for a good brown or blue satin pelisse to travel in, we thought her a miracle of fas.h.i.+on and finery; but now the millinery of a wedding is the princ.i.p.al thing. There is a stereotyped formula, out of which there is no hope of conjugal happiness; and the bride that begins life without Brussels lace enters upon her career with gloomy omens! Now, a scarf of this alone costs thirty guineas; you may, if you like, go as high as a hundred and fifty.

Why can't people wait for the ruin that is so sure to overtake them, without forestalling it in this way? Twenty pounds for clothes, and a trip to Castle Connel or Kilkee for the honeymoon, would have satisfied every wish of Alary Anne's heart in Ireland; and if she drove away in a post-chaise with four horses for the first stage, she 'd have been the envy of all the marriageable girls for miles round.

But now I have had to ask Morris to buy a travelling-carriage, because Mrs. D., in one of those expansions of splendor that occasionally attack her, said to the Baron, "Oh, take one of our carriages, we have left several of them at Baden." The excellent woman cannot be brought to perceive that romance of this kind is a most expensive amus.e.m.e.nt. I have drawn a bill on you for four hundred at three months, to meet these, and sent it to Morris to "get done." I hope he 'll succeed, and I hope you 'll pay it when it comes due; so that come what will, Tom, my intentions are honorable!

If Mrs. D. and myself had been upon better terms, we might have discussed this marriage question more fully and confidentially, but there are now so many cabinet difficulties that we rarely hold a council, and when we do, we are sure to disagree. This is another blessed result of our continentalizing. Home had its duties, and with them came that spirit of concord and agreement so essential to family happiness; but in this vagabond kind of existence, where every-thing is feigned, unreal, and unnatural, all concert and confidence is completely lost.

Now I have told you frankly and fairly everything about us, and don't take advantage of my candor by giving advice, for there is nothing in this world I have so little taste for. There's no man above the condition of an idiot that is n't thoroughly aware of his failings and shortcomings, but all that knowledge does n't bring him an inch nearer the cure of them. Do you think I 'm not fully alive to everything you could say of my wasteful habits, my improvidence, indolence, irritability, and so forth? I know them all better than you do,--ay, and I feel them acutely, too, for I know them to be incurable! Reformation, indeed! Do you know when a man gives up dancing, Tom? When he's too stiff in the knees for it. There's the whole philosophy of life. When we grow wiser, as they are pleased to call it, it is always in spite of ourselves!

I find that by enclosing this to Morris, he can forward it to you by the bag of the Legation. Once more let me remind you of our want of cash, and believe me, very faithfully your friend,

Kenny I. Dodd.

P. S. Address me "Freyburg, to be forwarded to the Schloss, Wolfenfels."

LETTER x.x.xIX. BETTY COBB TO MRS. SHUSAN O'SHEA, PRIEST'S HOUSE, BRUFF.

Dear Mrs. Shusan,--I was meaning to write to you for the last week, but could n't by reason of the conflagration I was in, for sure any poor girl might feel it, seeing that I was far away among furriners, and had n.o.body to advise, barrin' the evil counsels of my wicked heart. We cam here two weeks gone, on a visit to the father of the young man that 's going to marry "Mary Anne." It's a great big ould place, like the jail at Limerick, only darker, with little windows, and a flite of stairs out of every corner in it. And the furnis.h.i.+ng is n't a bit newer. It's a bit of rag here and a rag there, an ould cabbinet, a hard sofa, and maybe four wooden chairs that would take a ladder to get into! Eatin' and drinkin' likewise the same. Biled beef--biled first for the broth, and sarved afterwards with cow-comers, sliced and steeped in oil--the Heavens preserve us! Then a dish of roast vale, with rasberry jam and musheroons, for they tries the human stomich with every ingradiant they can think of! But the great favorite of all is a salad made out of potatoes, biled bard, sliced and pickled the same way as the cow-comers!

A bowl of that, Mrs. Shusan, after a long dinner, makes you feel as full as a tick, and if the house was afire I could n't run! To be sure, when the meal is over everybody sits down to coffee, and does n't distress themselves about anything for a matter of two hours. And, indeed, I must make the remark that "manials" isn't as badly treated anywhere in the whole 'versal globe as in Ireland, and if it was n't that I hear the people is runnin' away o' themselves, I 'd write a letter to the papers about it! 'T is exactly like pigs you are, no better; potatoes and b.u.t.ter-milk all the year round! deny it if you can. Could you offer a pig less wages than four pound a year?

I must say, too, Shusan, that eatin' one's fill molly-fies ther nature, and subdues ther hasty dispositions in a wonderful way; I know it myself; and that after a strong supper now I can bear more from the mistress than I used at home, only giving a sigh now and then out of the fulness of my heart. But it's not them things I wanted to tell you, but of the state of my infections. Don't be angry with me, Mrs. Shusan. I don't forget the iligant lessons you gave me long ago, about thrusting the men; I know well how thrue every word you said is. They 're base, and wicked, and deceatful! Flatterin' us when we 're young and beautiful, and gibin' and jeerin' when we 're ould as yourself! But what's the use of fiting agin the will of Providence? Sure, if he intended us to have better husbands it's not them craytures he'd have left us to! My sentiments is these, Shusy: 'Tis a way of chastezin'

us is marriage! The throubles and tumults we have with a man are our crosses, and it's only cowardly to avoid them. Meet your feat, say I, whatever it be,--whether it be a man or the measles, don't be afraid!

I 'm shure and sartain it's nothing but fear makes young girls go and be nuns; they're afraid, and no wonder, of the wickedness of the world; but somehow, Shusan, like everything else in this life, one gets used to it.

I know it well, there 's many a thing I see now, without minding, that long ago I dared not look at. "Live and learn," they say, and there's nothing so thrue! And talking of that, you 'd be shocked to see how Mary Anne goes on wid the young Baron. She, that would scarce let poor Doctor Belton spake to her alone. We meet them walk in' in the lonesomest places together; and Taddy and I never goes into the far part of the wood without seeing them! And that's not all of it, my dear, but she must get the mistress to give me a lecture about going off myself with a man.

"Does n't your daughter do it, ma'am?" says I. "Is all the wickedness of this world," says I, "to be kept for one's betters?"

"Do you call marriage wickedness?" says she.

"Sometimes it is, ma'am," says I, with a look she understood well.

"You 're a huzzy," says she; "and I 'll give you warnin' next Sat.u.r.day."

"I'll take it now," says I, "ma'am, for I'm going to better myself."

If ye saw her face, Shusy, as I said this! She knows in her heart that she could n't get on at all without me. Not a word of a furrin lingo can she say; and I 'm obleeged to traduce her meanin' to all the other sarvants! And, indeed, that's the way I become such an iligant linguist; and it's no differ to me now between talkin' French and Jarman,--I make them just the same!

I was n't in my room when Mary Anne was after me.

"Ain't you a fool, Betty?" says she, puttin' a hand on my shoulder.

"Maybe I am, miss," says I; "but there 's others fools as well as me!"

"But I mean," says she, "isn't it silly to fall out with mamma,--that was always so good, and so kind, and so fond of you?"

I saw at once, Shusy, how the wind was, and so I just went on folding up my collars and settling my things without a word.

"I 'm sure," says she, "you could n't leave her in a faraway country like this!"

"The dearest friends must part, miss," says I.

"Not to speak of your own desolate and deserted condition," says she.

"There's them that won't lave me dissolute and disconsoled, miss,"

says I. And with that, Shusy, I told her that Taddy Hetzler had made me honorable proposals.

"But you 'd not think of Taddy," says she. "He 's only a herd," says she.

"We must take what we can get, miss," says I, "and be thanklul in this life."

And she blushed red up to the eyes, Shusy; for she knew well what I meant by _that!_