My dear Tom,--This may perchance be a lengthy despatch, for I have just
received a polite invitation from the authorities here to pack off, bag
and baggage, over the frontier; and as it is doubtful where our next
move may take us, I write this "in extenso," and to clear off all
arrears up to the present date.
At the conclusion of my last, if I remember aright, I was in
anxious expectation of a visit from Signor Giacomo Lamporeccho. That
accomplished gentleman, however, had been so fatigued by his labors in
the procession, and so ill from a determination of blood to the
head, brought on by being tied for two hours to a tree, with his legs
uppermost, to represent the saint's martyrdom, that he could not wait
upon me till the third day after the Festa; and then his streaked
eyeballs and flushed face attested that even mock holiness is a costly
performance.
"You are Giacomo?" said I, as he entered; and I ought to mention that
in air and appearance he was a large, full, fine-looking man, of about
eight-and-thirty or forty, dressed in very accurate black, and with
a splendid chain of mosaic gold twined and festooned across his
ample chest; opal shirt-studs and waistcoat buttons, and a very
gorgeous-looking signet-ring on his forefinger aided to show off a
stylish look, rendered still more imposing by a beard a Grand Vizier
might have envied, and a voice a semi-tone deeper than Lablache's.
"Giacomo Lamporeccho," said he; and though he uttered the words like a
human bassoon, they really sounded as if he preferred not to be himself,
but somebody else, in case I desired it.
"Well, Giacomo," said I, easily, and trying to assume as much
familiarity as I could with so imposing a personage, "I want you to
afford me some information about these accounts of mine."
"Ah! the house accounts!" said he, with a very slight elevation of
the eyebrows, but quite sufficient to convey to me an expression of
contemptuous meaning.
"Just so, Giacomo; they appear to me high,--enormously, extravagantly
high!"
"His Excellency paid, at least, the double in London," said he, bowing.
"That's not the question. We are in Lombardy,--a land where the price
of everything is of the cheapest. How comes it, then, that we are
maintaining our house at greater cost than even Paris would require?"
With a volubility that I can make no pretension to follow, the fellow
ran over the prices of bread, meat, fowls, and fish, showing that they
were for half their cost elsewhere; that his Excellency's table was
actually a mean one; that sea-fish from Venice, and ortolans, seldom
figured at it above once or twice a week; that it was rare to see a
second flask of champagne opened at dinner; that our Bordeaux was bad,
and our Burgundy bitter; in short, he thought his Excellency had come
expressly for economy, as great "milors" will occasionally do, and
that if so, he must have had ample reason to be satisfied with the
experiment.
Though every sentiment the fellow uttered was an impertinence, he
bowed and smiled, and demeaned himself with such an air of humility
throughout, that I stood puzzled between the matter and the manner
of his address. Meanwhile he was not idle, but running over with glib
volubility the names of all the "illustrissimi Inglesi" he had been
cheating and robbing for a dozen years back. To nail him to the fact
of the difference between the cost of the article and the gross sum
expended, was downright impossible, though he clearly gave to understand
that any inquiry into the matter showed his Excellency to be the
shabbiest of men,--mean, grasping, and avaricious, and, in fact, very
likely to be no "milor" at all, but some poor pretender to rank and
station.
I felt myself waxing wroth with a weak frame,--about as unpleasant a
situation as can be fancied; for let me observe to you, Tom, that the
brawny proportions of Signor Lamporeccho would not have prevented my
trying conclusion with him, had I been what you last saw me; but, alas!
the Italian doctor had bled me down so low that I was not even a match
for one of his countrymen. I was therefore obliged to inform my friend
that, being alone with him, and our interview having taken the form of a
privileged communication, he was a thief and a robber!
The words were not uttered, when he drew a long and glistening knife
from behind his back, under his coat, and made a rush at me. I seized
the butt-end of James's fishing-rod,--fortunately beside me,--and held
him at bay, shouting wildly, "Murder!" all the while. The room was
filled in an instant; Tiverton and the girls, followed by all the
servants and several peasants, rushing in pell-mell. Before, however,
I could speak, for I was almost choked with passion, Signor Giacomo had
gained Lord George's ear, and evidently made him his partisan.
Tiverton cleared the room as fast as he could, mumbling out something to
the girls that seemed to satisfy them and allay their fears, and then,
closing the door, took his seat beside me.
"It will not signify," said he to me, in a kind voice; "the thing is
only a scratch, and will be well in a day or two."
"What do you mean?" said I.
"Egad! you'll have to be cautious, though," said he, laughing. "It was
in a very awkward place; and that too is n't the handiest for minute
anatomy."
"Do you want to drive me mad, my Lord; for, if not, Just take the
trouble to explain yourself."
"Pooh, pooh!" said he; "don't fuss yourself about nothing. I understand
how to deal with these fellows. You 'll see, five-and-twenty Naps, will
set it all right."
"I see," said I, "your intention is to outrage me; and I beg that I may
be left alone."
"Come, don't be angry with me, Dodd," cried he, in one of his
good-tempered, coaxing ways. "I know well you 'd never have done it--"
"Done what,--done what?" screamed I, in an agony of rage.
He made a gesture with the fishing-rod, and burst out a-laughing for
reply.
"Do you mean that I stuck that scoundrel that has just gone out?" cried
I.
"And no great harm, either!" said he.
"Do you mean that I stuck him?--answer me that."
"Well, I 'd be just as much pleased if you had not," said he; "for,
though they are always punching holes into each other, they don't like
an Englishman to do it. Still, keep quiet, and I 'll set it all straight
before to-morrow. The doctor shall give a certificate, setting forth
mental excitement, and so forth. We 'll show that you are not quite
responsible for your actions just now."
"Egad, you 'll have a proof of your theory, if you go on much longer at
this rate," said I, grinding my teeth with passion.
"And then we 'll get up a provocation of some kind or other. Of course,
the thing will cost money,--that can't be helped; but we'll try to
escape imprisonment."
"Send Cary to me,--send my daughter here!" said I, for I was growing
weak.
"But had n't you better let us concert--"
"Send Cary to me, my Lord, and leave me!" and I said the words in a way
that he could n't misunderstand. He had scarcely quitted the room when
Cary entered it.
"There, dearest papa," said she, caressingly, "don't fret. It's a mere
trifle; and if he was n't a wretchedly cowardly creature, he 'd think
nothing of it!"
"Are you in the conspiracy against me too?" cried I; "have _you_ also
joined the enemy?"
"That I haven't," said she, putting an arm round my neck; "and I know
well, if the fellow had not grossly outraged, or perhaps menaced you,
you 'd never have done it! I 'm certain of that, pappy!"
Egad, Tom, I don't like to own it, but the truth is--I burst out
a-crying; that's what all this bleeding and lowering has brought me to,
that I have n't the nerve of a kitten! It was the inability to rebut
all this balderdash--to show that it was a lie from beginning to
end--confounded me; and when I saw my poor Cary, that never believed ill
of me before, that, no matter what I said or did, always took my part,
and, if she could n't defend at least excused me,--when, I say, I saw
that _she_ gave in to this infernal delusion, I just felt as if my heart
was going to break, and I sincerely wished it might.
I tried very hard to summon strength to set her right; I suppose that a
drowning man never struggled harder to reach a plank than did I to grasp
one thought well and vigorously; but to no use. My ideas danced about
like the phantoms in a magic lantern, and none would remain long enough
to be recognized.
"I think I 'll take a sleep, my dear," said I.
"The very wisest thing you could do, pappy," said she, closing the
shutters noiselessly, and sitting down in her old place beside my bed.
Though I pretended slumber, I never slept a wink. I went over all this
affair in my mind, and, summing up the evidence against me, I began to
wonder if a man ever committed a homicide without knowing it,--I
mean, if, when his thoughts were very much occupied, he could stick a
fellow-creature and not be aware of it. I could n't exactly call any
case in point to mind, but I did n't see why it might not be possible.
If stabbing people was a common and daily habit of an individual,
doubtless he might do it, just as he would wind his watch or wipe
his spectacles, while thinking of something else; but as it was not a
customary process, at least where I came from, there was the difficulty.
I would have given more than I had to give, just to ask Cary a few
questions,--as, for instance, how did it happen? where is the wound? how
deep is it? and so on,--but I was so terrified lest I should compromise
my innocence that I would not venture on a syllable. One sees constantly
in the police reports how the prisoner, when driving off to jail with
Inspector Potts, invariably betrays himself by some expression of
anxiety or uneasiness, such as "Well, nobody can say I did it! I was in
Houndsditch till eleven o'clock;" or, "Poor Molly, I did n't mean
her any harm, but it was she begun it." Warned by these indiscreet
admissions, I was guarded not to utter a word. I preserved my resolution
with such firmness that I fell into a sound sleep, and never awoke till
the next morning.
Before I acknowledged myself to be awake,--don't you know that state,
Tom, in which a man vibrates between consciousness and indolence, and
when he has not fully made up his mind whether he 'll not skulk his
load of daily cares a little longer?--I could perceive that there was
a certain stir and movement about me that betokened extraordinary
preparation, and I could overhear little scraps of discussions as to
whether "he ought to be awakened," and "what he should wear," Cary's
voice being strongly marked in opposition to everything that portended
any disturbance of me. Patience, I believe, is not my forte, though
long-suffering may be my fortune, for I sharply asked, "What the------
was in the wind now?"
"We'll leave him to Cary," said Mrs. D., retiring precipitately,
followed by the rest, while Cary came up to my bedside, and kindly
began her inquiries about my health; but I stopped her, by a very abrupt
repetition of my former question.
"Oh! it's a mere nothing, pappy,--a formality, and nothing more. That
creature, Giacomo, has been making a fuss over the affair of last night;
and though Lord George endeavored to settle it, he refused, and went off
to the Tribunal to lodge a complaint."
"Well, go on."
"The Judge, or Prefect, or whatever he is, took his depositions, and
issued a warrant--"
"To apprehend me?"
"Don't flurry yourself, dearest pappy; these are simply formalities, for
the Brigadier has just told me--"
"He is here, then,--in the house?"
"Why will you excite yourself in this way, when I tell you that all
will most easily be arranged? The Brigadier only asks to see you,--to
ascertain, in fact, that you are really ill, and unable to be removed--"
"To jail--to the common prison, eh?"
"Oh, I must not talk to you, if it irritates you in this fashion;
indeed, there is now little more to say, and if you will just permit the
Brigadier to come in for a second, everything is done."
"I 'm ready for him," said I, in a tone that showed I needed no further
information; and Cary left the room.
After about five minutes' waiting, in an almost intolerable impatience,
the Brigadier, stooping his enormous bearskin to fully three feet,
entered with four others, armed cap-a-pic, who drew up in a line behind
him, and grounded their carbines with a clank that made the room shake.
The Brigadier, I must tell you, was a very fine soldier-like fellow, and
with fully half a dozen decorations hanging to his coat. It struck me
that he was rather disappointed; he probably expected to see a man of
colossal proportions and herculean strength, instead of the poor remnant
of humanity that chicken broth and the lancet have left me. The room,
too, seemed to fall below his expectations; for he threw his eyes around
him without detecting any armory or offensive weapons, or, indeed, any
means of resistance whatever.
"This is his Excellency?" said he at last, addressing Cary; and she
nodded.
"Ask him his own name, Cary," said I. "I'm curious about it."
"My name," said he, sonorously, to her question,--"my name is Alessandro
Lamporeccho;" and with that he gave the word to his people to face
about, and away they marched with all the solemnity of a military
movement. As the door closed behind them, however, I heard a few words
uttered in whispers, and immediately afterwards the measured tread of a
sentry slowly parading the lobby outside my room.
"That's another _formality_, Cary," said I, "is n't it?" She nodded for
reply. "Tell them I detest ceremony, my dear," said I; "and--and "--I
could n't keep down my passion--"and if they don't take that fellow
away, I'll pitch him head and crop over the banisters." I tried to
spring up, but back I fell, weak, and almost fainting. The sad truth
came home to me at once that I had n't strength to face a baby; so I
just turned my face to the wall, and sulked away to my heart's content.
If I tell you how I spent that day, the same story will do for the rest
of the week. I saw that they were all watching and waiting for some
outbreak, of either my temper or my curiosity. They tried every means
to tempt me into an inquiry of one kind or other. They dropped hints, in
half-whispers, before me. They said twenty things to arouse anxiety, and
even alarm, in me; but I resolved that if I passed my days there, I 'd
starve them out: and so I did.
On the ninth day, when I was eating my breakfast, just as I had
finished my mutton-chop, and was going to attack the eggs, Cary, in a
half-laughing way, said, "Well, pappy, do you never intend to take the
air again? The weather is now delightful,--that second season they call
the summer of St. Joseph."
"Ain't I a prisoner?" said I. "I thought I had murdered somebody, and
was sentenced for life to this chamber."
"How can you be so silly!" said she. "You know perfectly well how these
foreigners make a fuss about everything, and exaggerate every trifle
into a mock importance. Now, we are not in Ireland--"
"No," said I, "would to Heaven we were!"
"Well, perhaps I might echo the prayer without doing any great violence
to my sincerity; but as we are not there, nor can we change the
venue--is n't that the phrase?--to our own country, what if we just were
to make the best of it, and suffer this matter to take its course here?"
"As how, Cary?"
"Simply by dressing yourself, and driving into Como. Your case will be
heard on any morning you present yourself; and I am so convinced
that the whole affair will be settled in five minutes that I am quite
impatient it should be over."
I will not repeat all her arguments, some good and some bad, but every
one of them dictated by that kind and affectionate spirit which, however
her judgment incline, never deserts her. The end of it was, I got up,
shaved, and dressed, and within an hour was skimming over the calm clear
water towards the little city of Como.
Cary was with me,--she would come,--she said she knew she did me good;
and it was true: but the scene itself--those grand, great mountains;
those leafy glens, opening to the glassy lake, waveless and still; that
glorious reach of blue sky, spanning from peak to peak of those Alpine
ridges--all soothed and calmed me; and in the midst of such gigantic
elements, I could not help feeling shame that such a reptile as I should
mar the influence of this picture on my heart by petty passions and
little fractious discontents an worthy of a sick schoolboy.
"Is n't it enough for you, K. I.," says I, "ay, and more than you
deserve, just to live, and breathe, and have your being in such a bright
and glorious world? If you were a poet, with what images would not these
swooping mists, these fleeting shadows, people your imagination? What
voices would you hear in the wind sighing through the olive groves, and
dying in many a soft cadence along the grottoed shore? If a painter,
what effects of sunlight and shadow are there to study? what tints
of color, that, without nature to guarantee, you would never dare to
venture on? But being neither, having neither gift nor talent, being
simply one of those 4 fruit consumers,' who bring back nothing to the
common stock of mankind, and who can no more make my fellow-man wiser or
better than I make myself taller or younger, is it not a matter of
deep thankfulness that, in all my common-place of mind and thought, I
too--even K. I. that I am--have an intense feeling of enjoyment in the
contemplation of this scene? I could n't describe it like Shelley, nor
paint it like Stan field, but I 'll back myself for a five-pound note
to feel it with either of them." And there, let me tell you, Tom, is the
real superiority of Nature over all her counterfeits. You need no study,
no cultivation, no connoisseurship to appreciate her: her glorious works
come home to the heart of the peasant, as, mist-begirt, he waits for
sunrise on some highland waste, as well as to the Prince, who gazes on
the swelling landscape of his own dominions. I could n't tell a Claude
from a Canaletti,--I 'm not sure that I don't like H. B. better than
Albert Durer,--but I 'd not surrender the heartfelt delight, the calm,
intense, deep-souled gratitude I experience from the contemplation of a
lovely landscape, to possess the Stafford gallery.
I was, then, in a far more peaceful and practicable frame of mind as we
entered Como than when I quitted the villa.
I should like to have lingered a little in the old town itself, with its
quaint little arched passages and curious architecture; but Cary advised
me to nurse all my strength for the "Tribunal." I suppose it must
be with some moral hope of discountenancing litigation that foreign
Governments always make the Law Courts as dirty and disgusting as
possible, pitch them in a filthy quarter, and surround them with every
squalor. This one was a paragon of its kind, and for rags and ruffianly
looks I never saw the equal of the company there assembled. I am not
yet quite sure that the fellow who showed us the way did n't purposely
mislead us; for we traversed a dozen dark corridors, and went up and
went down more staircases than I have accomplished for the last six
months. Now and then we stopped for a minute to interrogate somebody
through a sliding pane in a kind of glass cage, and off we went again.
At last we came to a densely crowded passage, making way through which,
we entered a large hall with a vaulted roof, crammed with people, but
who made room at the instance of a red-eyed, red-bearded little man in
a black gown, that I now, to my horror and disgust, found out was my
counsel, being already engaged by Lord George to defend me.
"This is treachery, Cary," whispered I, angrily.
"I know it is," said she, "and I 'm one of the traitors; but anything is
better than to see you pine away your life in a sick-room."
This was neither the time nor place for much colloquy, as we now had to
fight our way vigorously through the mob till we reached a row of seats
where the bar were placed, and where we were politely told to be seated.
Directly in front of us sat three ill-favored old fellows in black
gowns and square black caps, modelled after those brown-paper helmets
so popular with plasterers and stucco men in our country. I found it a
great trial not to laugh every time I looked at them!
There was no case "on" at the moment, but a kind of wrangle was going
forward about whose was to be the next hearing, in which I could hear
my own name mingled. My lawyer, Signor Mastuccio, seemed to make a
successful appeal in my favor; for the three old "plasterers" put up
their eyeglasses, and stared earnestly at Cary, after which the chief
of them nodded benignly, and said that the case of Giacomo Lamporeccho
might be called; and accordingly, with a voice that might have raised
the echoes of the Alps, a fellow screamed out that the "homicidio"--I
have no need to translate the word--was then before the Court If I
only were to tell you, Tom, of the tiresome, tedious, and unmeaning
formalities that followed, your case in listening would be scarcely
more enviable than was my own while enduring them. All the preliminary
proceedings were in writing, and a dirty little dog, with a vile odor
of garlic about him, read some seventy pages of a manuscript which I
was informed was the accusation against me. Then appeared another
creature,--his twin brother in meanness and poverty,--who proved to be
a doctor, the same who had professionally attended the wounded man,
and who also read a memoir of the patient's sufferings and peril.
These occupied the Court till it was nigh three o'clock, when, being
concluded, Giacomo himself was called. I assure you, Tom, I gave a start
when, instead of the large, fine, burly, well-bearded rascal with the
Lablache voice, I beheld a pale, thin, weakly creature, with a miserable
treble, inform the Court that he was Giacomo Lamporeccho.
Cary, who translated for me as he spoke, told me that he gave an account
of our interview together, in which it would appear that my conduct was
that of an outrageous maniac. He described me as accusing everybody of
roguery and cheating,--calling the whole country a den of thieves,
and the authorities their accomplices. He detailed his own mild
remonstrances against my hasty judgment, and his calm appeals to my
better reason. He dwelt long upon his wounded honor, and, what he felt
still more deeply, the wounded honor of his nation; and at last he
actually began to cry when his feelings got too much for him, at which
the Court sobbed, and the bar sobbed, and the general audience, in a
mixture of grief and menace, muttered the most signal vengeance against
your humble servant.
I happened to be--a rare thing for me, latterly--in one of my old moods,
when the ludicrous and absurd carry away all my sympathies; and faith,
Tom, I laughed as heartily as ever I did in my life at the whole scene.
"Are we coming to the wound yet, Cary," said I, "tell me that," for the
fellow had now begun again.
"Yes, papa, he is describing it, and, by his account, it ought to have
killed him."
"Egad," said I, "it will be the death of _me_ with laughing;" and I
shook till my sides ached.
"Does his Excellency know that he is in a Court of Justice?" said
Plasterer No. 1.
"Tell him, my dear, that I quite forgot it. I fancied I was at a play,
and enjoyed it much."
I believe Cary did n't translate me honestly, for the old fellow seemed
appeased, and the case continued. I could now perceive that my atrocious
conduct had evoked a very strong sentiment in the auditory, for
there was a great rush forward to get a look at me, and they who were
fortunate enough to succeed complimented me by a string of the most
abusive and insulting epithets.
My advocate was now called on, and, seeing him rise, I just whispered to
Cary, "Ask the judge if we may see the wound?"
"What does that question mean?" said the chief judge, imperiously.
"Would the prisoner dare to insinuate that the wound has no existence?"
"You've hit it," said I. "Tell him, Cary, that's exactly what I mean."
"Has not the prisoner sworn to his sufferings," repeated he, "and the
doctor made oath to the treatment?"
"They 're both a pair of lying scoundrels. Tell him so, Cary."
"You see him now. There is the man himself in his true colors, most
illustrious and most ornate judges," exclaimed Giacomo, pointing to me
with his finger, as I nearly burst with rage.
"Ah! che diavolo! che demonio infernale!" rang out amidst the waving
crowd; and the looks bestowed on me from the bench seemed to give hearty
concurrence to the opinion.
Now, Tom, a court of justice, be its locale ever so humble, and its
procedure ever so simple, has always struck me as the very finest
evidence of homage to civilization. There is something in the fact of
men submitting, not only their worldly interests and their characters,
but even their very passions, to the arbitration of their fellow-men,
that is indescribably fine and noble, and shows--if we even wanted such
a proof--that this corrupt nature of ours, in the midst of all its worst
influences, has still some of that divine essence within, unsullied and
untarnished. And just as I reverence this, do I execrate, with all my
heart's indignation, a corrupt judicature. The governments who employ,
and the people who tolerate them, are well worthy of each other.
Take all the vices that degrade a nation, "bray them in a mortar," and
they 'll not eat so deep into the moral feeling of a people as a tainted
administration of the law.
You may fancy that, in my passionate warmth, I have forgotten all about
my individual case: no such thing. I have, however, rescued myself
from the danger of an apoplexy by opening this safety-valve to my
indignation. And now I cannot resume my narrative. No, Tom, "I have lost
the scent," and all I can do is to bring you "in at the death." I was
sentenced to pay seven hundred zwanzigers,--eight-pences,--all the costs
of the procedure, the doctor's bill, and the maintenance of Giacomo
till his convalescence was completed. I appealed on the spot to an upper
court, and the judgment was confirmed! I nearly burst with indignant
anger, and asked my advocate if he had ever heard of such iniquity.
He shrugged his shoulders, smiled slightly, and said, "The law is
precarious in all countries."
"Yes,--but," said I, "the judges are not always corrupt. Now, that old
president of the first court suggested every answer to the witness--"
"Vincenzio Lamporeccho is a shrewd man--"
"What! How do you call him? Is he anything to our friend Giacomo?"
"He is his father!"
"And the Brigadier who arrested me?"
"Is his brother. The junior judge of the Appeal Court, Luigi
Lamporeccho, is his first cousin."
I did n't ask more questions, Tom. Fancy a country where your butler
is brother to the chief baron, and sues you for wages in the Court of
Exchequer!
"And you, Signor Mastuccio," said I. "I hope I have not exposed you to
the vengeance of this powerful family by your zeal in my behalf?"
"Not in the least," said he; "my mother was a Lamporeccho herself."
Now, Tom, I think I need not take any more pains to explain the issue of
my lawsuit; and here I'll leave it.
My parting benediction to the Court was brief: "Goodbye, old gentlemen.
I 'm glad you have the Austrians here to bully you; and not sorry that
_you_ are here to assassinate _them_." This speech was overheard by
some learned linguist in court, and on the same evening I received an
intimation to quit the Imperial dominions within twenty-four hours.
Tiverton was for going up to Milan to Radetzky, or somebody, else, and
having it all "put straight," as he calls it; but I would not hear of
this.
"We 'll write to the Ambassador at Vienna?" said he.
"Nor that either," said I.
"To the 'Times,' then."
"Not a word of it."
"You don't mean to say," said he, "that you 'll put up with this
treatment, and that you'll lower the name of Briton before these
foreigners by such a tame submission?"
"My view of the case is a very simple one, my Lord," said I; "and it
is this. We travelling English are very prone to two faults; one is,
a bullying effort to oppose ourselves to the laws of the countries we
visit; and then, when we fail, a whining appeal to some minister
or consul to take up our battle. The first is stupid, the latter is
contemptible. The same feeling that would prevent me trespassing on the
hospitality of an unwilling host will rescue me from the indignity of
remaining in a country where my presence is distasteful to the rulers of
it."
"Such a line of conduct," said he, "would expose us to insult from one
end of Europe to the other."
"And if it teach us to stay at home, and live under laws that we
understand, the price is not too high for the benefit."
He blustered away about what he would n't do in the Press, and in his
"place" in Parliament; but what's the use of all that? Will England go
to war for Kenny James Dodd? No. Well, then, by no other argument is the
foreigner assailable. Tell the Austrian or the Russian Government that
the company at the "Freemasons'" dinner were shocked, and the ladies at
Exeter Hall were outraged at their cruelty, and they 'll only laugh at
you. We can't send a fleet to Vienna; nor--we would n't if we could.
I did n't tell Lord George, but to you, in confidence, Tom, I will say,
I think we have--if we liked it--a grand remedy for all these cases. Do
you know that it was thinking of Tim Ryan, the rat-catcher at Kelly's
mills, suggested it to me. Whenever Tim came up to a house with his
traps and contrivances, if the family said they did n't need him, "for
they had no rats," he 'd just loiter about the place till evening,--and,
whatever he did, or how he did it, one thing was quite sure, they had
never to make the same complaint again! Now, my notion is, whenever we
have any grudge with a foreign State, don't begin to fit out fleets or
armaments, but just send a steamer off to the nearest port with one of
the refugees aboard. I 'd keep Kossuth at Malta, always ready;
Louis Blanc and Ledru Rollin at Jersey; Don Miguel and Don Carlos at
Gibraltar; and have Mazzini and some of the rest cruising about for
any service they may be wanted on. In that way, Tom, we 'd keep these
Governments in order, and, like Tim Ryan, be turning our vermin to a
good account besides!
I thought that Mrs. D. and Mary Anne displayed a degree of attachment to
this place rather surprising, considering that I have heard of nothing
but its inconvenience till this moment, when we are ordered to quit it.
Now, however, they suddenly discover it to be healthful, charming, and
economical. I have questioned Cary as to the secret of this change, but
she does not understand it. She knows that Lord George received a
large packet by the post this morning, and instantly hurried off to
communicate its contents to Mary Anne. By George! Tom, I have come to
the notion that to rule a family of four people, one ought to have
a "detective officer" attached to the household. Every day or so,
something puzzling and inexplicable occurs, the meaning of which never
turns up till you find yourself duped, and then it is too late to
complain. Now, this same letter Cary speaks of is at this very instant
exercising a degree of influence here, and I am to remain in ignorance
of the cause till I can pick it out from the effect. This, too, is
another blessed result of foreign travel! When we lived at home the
incidents of our daily life were few, and not very eventful; they were
circumscribed within narrow limits, and addressed themselves to the
feelings of every one amongst us. Concealment would have been absurd,
even were it possible; but the truth was, we were all so engaged with
the same topics and the same spirit, that we talked of them constantly,
and grew to think that outside the little circle of ourselves the world
was a mere wilderness. To be sure, all this sounds very narrow-minded,
and all that. So it does; but let me tell you, it conduces greatly to
happiness and contentment.
Now, here, we have so many irons in the fire, some one or other of us is
always burning his fingers!
I continue to be very uneasy about James. Not a line have we had from
him, and he 's now several weeks gone! I wrote to Vickars, but have not
yet heard from him in reply. Cary endeavors to persuade me that it is
only his indolent, careless habit is in fault; but I can see that she is
just as uncomfortable and anxious as myself.
You will collect from the length of this document that I am quite myself
again; and, indeed, except a little dizziness in my head after dinner,
and a tendency to sleep, I 'm all right. Not that I complain of the
latter,--far from it, Tom. Sancho Panza himself never blessed the
inventor of it more fervently than I do.
Sometimes, however, I think that it is the newspapers are not so amusing
as they used to be. The racy old bitterness of party spirit is dying
out, and all the spicy drollery and epigrammatic fun of former days gone
with it. It strikes me, too, Tom, that "Party," in the strong sense,
never can exist again amongst us. Party is essentially the submission of
the many to the few; and so long as the few were pre-eminent in ability
and tactical skill, nothing was more salutary. Wal-pole, Pelham, Pitt,
and Fox stood immeasurably above the men and the intelligence of
their time. Their statecraft was a science of which the mass of
their followers were totally ignorant, and the crew never dreamt of
questioning the pilot as to the course he was about to take. Whereas
now--although by no means deficient in able and competent men to
rule us--the body of the House is filled by others very little their
inferiors. Old Babbington used to say "that between a good physician and
a bad one, there was only the difference between a pound and a guinea."
In the same way, there is not a wider interval now between the Right
Honorable Secretary on the Treasury Bench and the Honorable Member below
him. Education is widely disseminated,--the intercourse of club life is
immense,--opportunities of knowledge abound on every hand,--the Press is
a great popular instructor; and, above all, the temper and tendency of
the age favors labor of every kind. Idleness is not in vogue with any
class of the whole community. What chance, then, of any man, no matter
how great and gifted he be, imposing, his opinions--_as such_--upon
the world of politics! A minister, or his opponent, may get together a
number of supporters for a particular measure, just as you or I could
muster a mob at an election or a fair; but there would be no more
discipline in the one case than in the other. They'd come now, and go
when they liked; and any chance of reducing such "irregulars" to the
habits of an army would be downright impossible!
There is another cause of dulness, too, in the newspapers. All the
accidents--a most amusing column it used to be--are now entirely caused
by railroads; and there is a shocking sameness about them. They were
"shunting" wagons across the line when the express came up, or the
pointsman did n't turn the switch, or the fog obscured the danger
signal. With these three explanations, some hundreds of human beings are
annually smashed, smothered, and scalded, and the survivors not a whit
more provident than before.
Cruel assaults upon women--usually the wives of the ruffians
themselves--are, I perceive, becoming a species of popular custom in
England. Every "Times" I see has its catalogue of these atrocities; and
I don't perceive that five shilling fines nor even three weeks at the
treadmill diminishes the number. One of the railroad companies announces
that it will not hold itself responsible for casualties, nor indemnify
the sufferers. Don't you think that we might borrow a hint from them,
and insert some cause of the same kind into the marriage ceremony, and
that the woman should know all her "liabilities" without any hope
of appeal? Ah! Tom Purcell, all our naval reviews, and industrial
exhibitions, and boastful "leading" articles about our national
greatness come with a very ill grace in the same broad sheet with these
degrading police histories. Must savage ferocity accompany us as we grow
in wealth and power? If so, then I 'd rather see us a third-rate power
to-morrow than rule the world at the cost of such disgrace!
Ireland, I see, jogs on just as usual, wrangling away. They can't even
agree whether the potatoes have got the rot or not. Some of the papers,
too, are taking up the English cry of triumph over the downfall of our
old squirearchy; but it does not sound well from _them_. To be sure,
some of the new proprietors would seem not only to have taken our
estates, but tasted the Blarney-stone besides; and one, a great man too,
has been making a fine speech with his "respected friend, the Reverend
Mr. O'Shea," on his right hand, and vowing that he 'll never turn out
anybody that pays the rent, nor dispossess a good tenant! The stupid
infatuation of these English makes me sick, Tom. Why, with all their
self-sufficiency, can't they see that we understand our own people
better than they do? We know the causes of bad seasons and short
harvests better; we know the soil better, and the climate better, and if
we haven't been good landlords, it is simply because we couldn't afford
it. Now, they are rich, and can afford it; and if they have bought up
Irish estates to get the rents out of them, I 'd like to know what's to
be the great benefit of the change. "Pay up the arrears," says I; but if
my Lord Somebody from England says the same, I think there 's no use in
selling _me_ out, and taking _him_ in my place. And this brings me to
asking when I'm to get another remittance? I _am_ thinking seriously of
retrenchment; but first, Tom, one must have something to retrench upon.
You must possess a salary before you can stand "stoppages." Of course
we mean "to come home again." I have n't heard that the Government have
selected me for a snug berth in the Colonies; so be assured that you'll
see us all back in Dodsborough before--
Mrs. D. had been looking over my shoulder, Tom, while I was writing the
last line, and we have just had what she calls an "explanation," but
what ordinary grammarians would style--a row. She frankly and firmly
declares that I may try Timbuctoo or the Gambia if I like, but back to
Ireland she positively will not go! She informs me, besides, that she
is quite open to an arrangement about a separate maintenance. But my
property, Tom, is like poor Jack Heffernan's goose,--it would n't bear
carving, so he just helped himself to it all! And, as I said to Mrs. D.,
two people may get some kind of shelter under one umbrella, but they 'll
infallibly be wet through if they cut it in two, and each walk off with
his half. "If you were a bit of a gentleman," said she, "you 'd give it
all to the lady." That's what I got for my illustration.
But now that I 'm safe once more, I repeat, you shall certainly see us
back in our old house again, and which, for more reasons than I choose
to detail here, we ought never to have quitted.
I have been just sent for to a cabinet council of the family, who are
curious to know whither we are going from this; and as I wish to appear
prepared with a plan, and am not strong in geography, I 'll take a
look at the map before I go. I've hit it, Tom,--Parma. Parma will do
admirably. It's near, and it's never visited by strangers. There 's a
gallery of pictures to look at, and, at the worst, plenty of cheese to
eat. Tourists may talk and grumble as they will about the dreary aspect
of these small capitals, without trade and commerce, with a beggarly
Court and a ruined nobility,--to me they are a boon from Heaven. You can
always live in them for a fourth of the cost of elsewhere. The head
inn is your own, just as the Piazza is, and the park at the back of the
palace. It goes hard but you can amuse yourself poking about into old
churches, and peeping into shrines and down wells, pottering into the
market-place, and watching the bargaining for eggs and onions; and when
these fail, it's good fun to mark the discomfiture of your womankind at
being shut up in a place where there's neither opera nor playhouse,--no
promenade, no regimental band, and not even a milliner's shop.
From all I can learn, Parma will suit me perfectly; and now I 'm off
to announce my resolve to the family. Address me there, Tom, and with a
sufficiency of cash to move further when necessary.
I 'm this moment come back, and not quite satisfied with what I 've
done. Mrs. D. and Mary Anne approve highly of my choice. They say
nothing could be better. Some of us must be mistaken, and I fervently
trust that it may not be
Your sincere friend,
Kenny James Dodd.