Constance.
My dear Tom,--I got the papers all safe. I am sure the account is
perfectly correct. I only wish the balance was bigger. I waited here to
receive these things, and now I discover that I can't sign the warrant
of attorney except before a consul, and there is none in this place,
so that I must keep it over till I can find one of those pleasant
functionaries,--a class that between ourselves I detest heartily. They
are a presumptuous, under-bred, consequential race,--a cross between
a small skipper and smaller Secretary of Legation, with a mixture
of official pedantry and maritime off-handedness that is perfectly
disgusting. Why our reforming economists don't root them all out I
cannot conceive. Nobody wants, nobody benefits by them; and save that
you are now and then called on for a "consular fee," you might never
hear of their existence.
I don't rightly understand what you say about the loan from that Land
Improvement Society. Do you mean that the money lent must be laid out on
the land as a necessary condition? Is it possible that this is what I am
to infer? If so, I never heard anything half so preposterous! Sure, if I
raise five hundred pounds from a Jew, he has no right to stipulate that
I must spend the cash on copper coal-scuttles or potted meats! I want
it for my own convenience; enough for him that I comply with his demands
for interest and repayment. Anything else would be downright tyranny and
oppression, Tom,--as a mere momentary consideration of the matter will
show you. At all events, let us get the money, for I 'd like to contest
the point with these fellows; and if ever there was a man heart and
soul determined to break down any antiquated barrier of cruelty or
domination, it is your friend Kenny Dodd! As to that printed paper, with
its twenty-seven queries, it is positive balderdash from beginning
to end. What right have they to conclude that I approve of subsoil
draining? When did I tell them that I believed in Smith of Deanstown?
Where is it on record that I gave in my adhesion to model cottages,
Berkshire pigs, green crops, and guano manure? In what document do these
appear? Maybe I have my own notions on these matters,--maybe I keep them
for my own guidance too!
You say that the gentry is all changing throughout the whole land, and
I believe you well, Tom Purcell. Changed indeed must they be if they
subscribe to such preposterous humbug as this! At all events, I repeat
we want the money, so fill up the blanks as you think best, and remit me
the amount at your earliest, for I have barely enough to get to the end
of the present month. I don't dislike this place at all. It is quiet,
peaceful,--humdrum, if you will; but we've had more than our share of
racket and row lately, and the reclusion is very grateful. One day is
exactly like another with us. Lord George--for he is back again--and
James go a-fishing as soon as breakfast is over, and only return for
supper. Mary Anne reads, writes, sews, and sings. Mrs. D. fills up the
time discharging Betty, settling with her, searching her trunks for
missing articles, and being reconciled to her again, which, with
occasional crying fits and her usual devotions, don't leave her a single
moment unoccupied! As for me, I'm trying to learn German, whenever I'm
not asleep. I've got a master,--he is a Swiss, and maybe his accent
is not of the purest; but he is an amusing old vagabond,--an
umbrella-maker, but in his youth a travelling-servant. His time is not
very valuable to him, so that he sits with me sometimes for half a day;
but still I make little progress. My notion is, Tom, that there's no use
in either making love or trying a new language after you're five or six
and twenty. It's all up-hill work after that, believe me. Neither your
declensions nor declarations come natural to you, and it's a bungling
performance at the best. The first condition of either is to have
your head perfectly free,--as little in it as need be. So long as
your thoughts are jostled by debts, duns, mortgages, and marriageable
daughters, you 'll have no room for vows or irregular verbs! It's lucky,
however, that one can dispense both with the love and the learning,
and indeed of the two,--with the last best, for of all the useless,
unprofitable kinds of labor ever pursued out of a jail, acquiring
a foreign language is the most. The few words required for daily
necessaries, such as schnaps and cigars, are easily learnt; all beyond
that is downright rubbish.
For what can a man express his thoughts in so well as his mother tongue?
with whom does he want to talk but his countrymen? Of course you come
out with the old cant about "intelligent natives," "information derived
at the fountain head," "knowledge obtained by social intimacy with
people of the country." To which I briefly reply, "It's all gammon
and stuff from beginning to end;" and what between _your_ blunders in
grammar and your informant's ignorance of fact, all such information is
n't worth a "trauneen." Now, once for all, Tom, let me observe to
you that ask what you will of a foreigner, be it an inquiry into the
financial condition of his country, its military resources, prison
discipline, law, or religion, he 'll never acknowledge his inability to
answer, but give you a full and ready reply, with facts, figures, dates,
and data, all in most admirable order. At first you are overjoyed with
such ready resources of knowledge. You flatter yourself that even
with the most moderate opportunities you cannot fail to learn much; by
degrees, however, you discover errors in your statistics, and at last,
you come to find out that your accomplished friend, too polite to deny
you a reasonable gratification, had gone to the pains of inventing a
code, a church, and a coinage for your sole use and benefit, but without
the slightest intention of misleading, for it never once entered his
head that you could possibly believe him! I know it will sound badly.
I am well aware of the shock it will give to many a nervous system; but
for all that I will not blink the declaration--which I desire to record
as formally and as flatly as I am capable of expressing it--which is,
that of one hundred statements an Englishman accepts and relies upon
abroad, as matter of fact, ninety-nine are untrue; full fifty being lies
by premeditation, thirty by ignorance, ten by accident or inattention,
and the remainder, if there be a balance, for I 'm bad at figures, from
any other cause you like.
It is no more disgrace for a foreigner not to tell the truth than to
own that he does not sing, nor dance the mazurka; not so much, indeed,
because these are marks of a polite education. And yet it is to
hold conversation with these people we pore over dictionaries, and
Ollendorfs, and Hamiltonian gospels. As for the enlargement and
expansion of the intelligence that comes of acquiring languages, there
never was a greater fallacy. Look abroad upon your acquaintances: who
are the glib linguists, who are the faultless in French genders, and the
immaculate in German declensions? the flippant boarding-school miss, or
the brainless, unpaid attache, that cannot, compose a note in his own
language. Who are the bungling conversera that make drawing-rooms blush
and dinner-tables titter? Your first-rate debater in the Commons, your
leader at the bar, your double first, or your great electro-magnetic
fellow that knows the secret laws of water-spouts and whirlpools, and
can make thunder and lightning just to amuse himself. Take my word for
it, your linguist is as poor a creature as a dancing-master, and just as
great a formalist.
If you ask me, then, why I devote myself to such unrewarding labor, I
answer, "It is true I know it to be so, but my apology is, that I make
no progress." No, Tom, I never advance a step. I can neither conjugate
nor decline, and the auxiliary verbs will never aid me in anything. So
far as my lingual incapacity goes, I might be one of the great geniuses
of the age; and very probably I am, too, without knowing it!
I have little to tell you of the place itself. It is a quaint old town
on the side of the lake; the most remarkable object being the minster,
or cathedral. They show you the spot in the aisle where old Huss stood
to receive his sentence of death. Even after a lapse of centuries, there
was something affecting to stand where a man once stood to bear that he
was to be burned alive. Of course I have little sympathy with a heretic,
but still I venerate the martyr, the more since I am strongly disposed
to think that it is one of those characters which are not the peculiar
product of an age of railroads and submarine telegraphs. The expansion
of the intelligence, Tom, seems to be in the inverse ratio of the
expansion of the conscience, and the stubborn old spirit of right that
was once the mode, would nowadays be construed into a dogged, stupid
bull-headedness, unworthy of the enlightenment of our glorious era.
Take my word for it, there's a great many eloquent and indignant
letter-writers in the newspapers would shrink from old Huss's test for
their opinions, and a fossil elk is not a greater curiosity than would
be a man ready to stake life on his belief. When a fellow tells you of
"dying on the floor of the House," he simply means that he'll talk till
there's a "count out;" and as for "registering vows in heaven," and
"wasting out existence in the gloom of a dungeon," it's just balderdash,
and nothing else.
The simple fact is this, Tom Purcell: we live in an age of universal
cant, and I swallow all _your_ shams on the easy condition that you
swear to _mine_, and whenever I hear people praising the present age,
and extolling its wonderful progress, and all that, I just think of all
the quackery I see advertised in the newspapers, and sigh heartily to
myself at our degradation! Why, man, the "Patent Pills for the Cure of
Cancer," and the Agapemone, would disgrace the middle ages! And it is
not a little remarkable that England, so prone to place herself at the
head of civilization, is exactly the very metropolis of all this humbug!
To come back to ourselves, I have to report that James arrived here a
couple of days ago. He followed that scoundrel "the Baron" for thirty
hours, and only desisted from the pursuit when his horse could go no
farther. The police authorities mainly contributed to the escape of the
fugitive, by detaining James on every possible occasion, and upon any
or no pretext. The poor fellow reached Freyburg dead beat, and without a
sou in his pocket; but good luck would have it that Lord George Tiverton
had just arrived there, so that by his aid he came on here, where they
both made their appearance at breakfast on Tuesday morning.
Lord George, I suspect, had not made a successful campaign of it lately;
though in what he has failed--if it be failure--I have no means of
guessing. He looks a little out at elbows, however, and travels without
a servant. In spirits and bearing I see no change in him; but these
fellows, I have remarked, never show depression, and india-rubber
itself is not so elastic as a bad character! I don't half fancy his
companionship for James; but I know well that this opinion would be
treated by the rest of the family as downright heresy; and certainly he
is an amusing dog, and it is impossible to resist liking him; but there
lies the very peril I am afraid of. If your loose fish, as the
slang phrase calls them, were disagreeable chaps,--prosy, selfish,
sententious,--vulgar in their habits, and obtrusive in their manners,
one would run little risk of contamination; but the reverse is the case,
Tom,--the very reverse! Meet a fellow that speaks every tongue of the
Continent, dresses to perfection, rides and drives admirably, a dead
shot with the pistol, a sure cue at billiards,--if he be the delight of
every circle he goes into,--look out sharp in the "Times," and the odds
are that there's a handsome reward offered for him, and he's either
a forger or a defaulter. The truth is, a man may be ill-mannered as a
great lawyer or a great physician; he may make a great figure in
the field or the cabinet; there may be no end to his talents as a
geometrician or a chemist; it's only your adventurer must be well-bred,
and swindling is the soldiery profession to which a man must bring
fascinating manners, a good address, personal advantages, and the power
of pleasing. I own to you, Tom Purcell, I like these fellows, and
I can't help it! I take to them as I do to twenty things that are
agreeable at the time, but are sure to disagree with me--afterwards.
They rally me out of my low spirits, they put me on better terms with
myself, and they administer that very balmy flattery that says, "Don't
distress yourself, Kenny Dodd. As the world goes, you 're better than
nine-tenths of it. You'd be hospitable if you could; you'd pay your
debts if you could; and there would n't be an easier-tempered, more
good-natured creature breathing than yourself, if it was only the will
was wanting!" Now, these are very soothing doses when a man is scarified
by duns, and flayed alive by lawsuits; and when a fellow comes to my
time of life, he can no more bear the candid rudeness of what is called
friendship than an ex-Lord Mayor could endure Penitentiary diet!
I must confess, however, that whenever we come to divide on any
question, Lord George always votes with Mrs. D. He told me once that
with respect to Parliament he always sided with the Government, whatever
it was, when he could, and perhaps he follows the same rule in private
life. Last night, after tea, we discussed our future movements, and I
found him strongly in favor of getting us on to Italy for the winter.
I did n't like to debate the matter exactly on financial grounds, but I
hazarded a half-conjecture that the expedition would be a costly one.
He stopped me at once. "Up to this time," said he, "you have really not
benefited by the cheapness of Continental living,"--that was certainly
true,--"and for this simple reason, you have always lived in the beaten
track of the wandering cockney. You must go farther away from England.
You must reach those places where people settle as residents, not ramble
as tourists; you will then be rewarded, not only economically, but
socially. The markets and the morals are both better; for our countrymen
filter by distance, and the farther from home the purer they become."
To Mrs. D. and Mary Anne he gave a glowing description of Trans-Alpine
existence, and rapturously pictured forth the fascinations of Italian
life. I can only give you the items, Tom; you must arrange them for
yourself. So make what you can of starry skies, olives, ices, tenors,
volcanoes, music, mountains, and maccaroni. He appealed to _me_ by the
budget. Never was there such cheapness in the known world. The Italian
nobility were actually crashed down with house-accommodation, and only
entreated a stranger to accept of a palace or a villa. The climate
produced everything without labor, and consequently without cost. Fruit
had no price; wine was about twopence a bottle; a strong tap rose to
two and a half! Clothes one scarcely needed; and, except for decency,
"nothing and a cocked hat" would suffice. These were very seductive
considerations, Tom; and I own to you that, even allowing a large margin
for exaggeration, there was a great amount of solid advantage remaining.
Mrs. D. adduced an additional argument when we were alone, and in this
wise: What was to be done with the wedding finery if we should return
to Ireland; for all purposes of home life they would be totally
inapplicable. You might as well order a service of plate to serve up
potatoes as introduce Paris fashions and foreign elegance into our
provincial circle. "We have the things now," said she; "let us have the
good of them." I remember a cask of Madeira being left with my father
once, by a mistake, and that was the very reason he gave for drinking
it. She made a strong case of it, Tom; she argued the matter well,
laying great stress upon the duty we owed our girls, and the necessity
of "getting them married before we went back." Of course, I did n't
give in. If I was to give her the notion that she could convince me
of anything, we 'd never have a moment's peace again; so I said I 'd
reflect on the subject, and turn it over in my mind. And now I want you
to say what disposable cash can we lay our hands on for the winter. I
am more than ever disinclined to have anything to say to these Drainage
Commissioners. It's our pockets they drain, and not our farms. I 'd
rather try and raise a trifle on mortgage; for you see, nowadays, they
have got out of the habit of doing it, and there's many a one has money
lying idle and does n't know what to do with it. Look out for one of
these fellows, Tom, and see what you can do with him. Dear me, is n't it
a strange thing the way one goes through life, and the contrivances one
is put to to make two ends meet!
I remember the time, and so do you too, when an Irish gentleman could
raise what he liked; and there was n't an estate in my own county wasn't
encumbered, as they call it, to more than double its value. There's
fellows will tell you "that's the cause of all the present distress."
Not a bit of it. They 're all wrong! It is because that system has come
to an end that we are ruined; that's the root of the evil, Tom Purcell;
and if I was in Parliament I'd tell them so. Where will you find any one
willing to lend money now if the estate would n't pay it? We may thank
the English Government for that; and, as poor Dan used to say, "They
know as much about us as the Chinese!"
I can't answer your question about James. Vickars has not replied to my
last two letters; and I really see no opening for the boy whatever. I
mean to write, however, in a day or two to Lord Muddleton, to whom Lord
George is nearly related, and ask for something in the Diplomatic way.
Lord G. says it's the only career nowadays does n't require some kind of
qualification,--since even in the army they've instituted a species of
examination. "Get him made an Attache somewhere," says Tiverton, "and
he must be a 'Plenipo' at last." J. is good-looking, and a great deal of
dash about him; and I 'm informed that's exactly what's wanting in the
career. If nothing comes of this application, I 'll think seriously
of Australia; but, of course, Mrs. D. must know nothing about it; for,
according to _her_ notions, the boy ought to be Chamberlain to the
Queen, or Gold-stick at least.
I don't know whether I mentioned to you that Betty Cobb had entered the
holy bonds with a semi-civilized creature she picked up in the Black
Forest. The orang-outang is now a part of our household,--at least so
far as living at rack and manger at my cost,--though in what way to
employ him I have not the slightest notion. Do you think, if I could
manage to send him over to Ireland, that we could get him indicted
for any transportable offence? Ask Curtis about it; for I know he
did something of the kind once in the case of a natural son of Tony
Barker's, and the lad is now a judge, I believe, in Sydney.
Cary is quite well. I heard from her yesterday, and when I write, I 'll
be sure to send her your affectionate message. I don't mean to leave
this till I heat from you. So write immediately and believe me,
Very sincerely your friend,
Kenny James.