Casa Dodd, Florence.
My dear Molly,--So you tell me that the newspapers is full of me, and
that nothing is talked of but "the case of Mrs. Dodd" and her "cruel
incarnation in the dungeons of Tuscany." I wish they 'd keep their
sympathies to themselves, Molly, for, to tell you a secret, this same
captivity has done us the greatest service in the world. Here we are,
my darling, at the top of the tree,--going to all the balls, dining
out every day, and treated with what they call the most distinguished
consideration. And I must say, Molly, that of all the cities ever I
seen, Florence is the most to my taste. There's a way of living here,--I
can't explain how it is done, exactly; but everybody has just what he
likes of everything. I believe it 's the bankers does it,--that they
have a way of exchanging, or discounting, or whatever it is called,
that makes every one at their ease; and, indeed, my only surprise is why
everybody does n't come to live in a place with so many advantages. Even
K. I. has ceased grumbling about money matters, and for the last three
weeks we have really enjoyed ourselves. To be sure, now and then, he
mumbles about "as well to be hanged for a sheep as a lamb;" and this
morning he said that he was "too old to beg," to "dig he was ashamed."
"I hope you are," says I; "it is n't in your station in life that you
can go out as a navvy, and with your two daughters the greatest beauties
in the town." And so they are, Molly. There isn't the like of Mary Anne
in the Cascini; and though Caroline won't give herself fair play in the
way of dress, there's many thinks she 's the prettiest of the two.
I wish you saw the Cascini, Molly, when the carriages all drive up, and
get mixed together, so that you would wonder how they 'd ever get out
again. They are full of elegantly dressed ladies; there's nothing too
fine for them, even in the morning, and there they sit, and loll
back, with all the young dandies lying about them, on the steps of
the carriages, over the splash-boards,--indeed, nearly under the
wheels,--squeezing their hands, looking into their eyes and under their
veils. Oh dear, but it seems mighty wicked till you 're used to it, and
know it 's only the way of the place, which one does remarkably soon.
The first thing strikes a stranger here, Molly, is that everybody knows
every other body most intimately. It's all "Carlo," "Luigi," "Antonio
mio," with hands clasped or arms about each other, and everlasting
kissing between the women. And then, Molly, when you see a newly arrived
English family in the midst of them, with a sulky father, a stiff
mother, three stern young ladies, and a stupid boy of sixteen, you think
them the ugliest creatures on earth, and don't rightly know whether to
be angry or laugh at them.
Lord George says that the great advantage of the Cascini is that
you hear there "all that's going on." Faith, you do, Molly, and nice
goings-on it is! The Florentines say they 've no liberty. I 'd like to
know how much more they want, for if they haven't it by right, Molly,
they take it at all events, and with everybody too. The creatures, all
rings and chains, beards and moustaches, come up to the side of your
carriage, put up their opera-glasses, and stare at you as if you was
waxwork! Then they begin to discuss you, and almost fall out about the
color of your hair or your eyes, till one, bolder than the rest, comes
up close to you, and decides what is maybe a wager! It's all very trying
at first,--not but Mary Anne bears it beautifully, and seems never to
know that she is standing under a battery of fifty pair of eyes!
As to James, it's all paradise. He knows all the beauties of the town
already, and I see him with his head into a brougham there, and his legs
dangling out of a phaeton here, just as if he was one of the family. You
may think, Molly, when they begin that way of a morning, what it is when
they come to the evening! If they 're all dear friends in the daylight,
it 's brothers and sisters--no, but husbands and wives--they become,
when the lamps are lighted! Whether they walk or waltz, whether they
hand you to a seat or offer you an ice, they 've an art to make it a
particular attention,--and, as it were, put you under an obligation for
it; and whether you like it or not, Molly, you are made out in their
debt, and woe to you when they discover you 're a defaulter!
I 'm sure, without Lord George's advice, we could n't have found the
right road to the high society of this place so easily; but he told K.
I. at once what to do,--and for a wonder, Molly, he did it. Florence,
says he, is like no other capital in Europe. In all the others there is
a circle, more or less wide, of what assumes to be "the world;" there
every one is known, his rank, position, and even his fortune. Now in
Florence people mix as they do at a Swiss _table d'hote_; each talks to
his neighbor, perfectly aware that _he_ may be a blackleg, or she--if
it be a she--something worse. That society is agreeable, pleasant, and
brilliant is the best refutation to all the cant one hears about freedom
of manners, and so on. And, as Lord G. observes, it is manifestly a duty
with the proper people to mingle with the naughty ones, since it is
only in this way they can hope to reclaim them. "Take those two charming
girls of yours into the world here, Mrs. D.," said he to me the other
day; "show the folks that beauty, grace, and fascination are all
compatible with correct principles and proper notions; let them see that
you yourself, so certain of attracting admiration, are not afraid of
its incense; say to society, as it were, 'Here we are, so secure of
ourselves that we can walk unharmed through all the perils around us,
and enjoy health and vigor with the plague on every side of us.'" And
that's what we 're doing, Molly. As Lord George says, "we 're diffusing
our influence," and I 've no doubt we 'll see the results before long.
I wish I was as sure of K. I.'s goings-on; but Betty tells me that he
constantly receives letters of a morning, and hurries out immediately
after; that he often drives away late at night in a hackney-coach, and
does n't return till nigh morning! I 'm only waiting for him to buy us a
pair of carriage-horses to be at him about this behavior; and, indeed, I
think he 's trying to push me on to it, to save him from the expense of
the horses. I must tell you, Molly, that next to having no character,
the most fashionable thing here is a handsome coach; and, indeed,
without something striking in that way, you can't hope to take society
by storm. With a phaeton and a pair of blood bays, James says, you can
drive into Prince Walleykoffsky's drawing-room; with a team of four, you
can trot them up the stairs of the Pitti Palace.
After a coach, comes your cook; and is n't my heart broke trying them!
We've had a round of "experimental dinners," that has cost us a little
fortune, since each "chef" that came was free to do what he pleased,
without regard to the cost, and an eatable morsel never came to the
table all the while. Our present artist is Monsieur Chardron, who goes
out to market in a brougham, and buys a turkey with kid gloves on
him. He won't cook for us except on company days, but leaves us to his
"aide," as he calls him, whom K. I. likes best, for he condescends to
give us a bit of roast meat, now and then, that has really nourishment
in it. We 're now, therefore, in a state to open the campaign. We 've an
elegant apartment, a first-rate cook, a capital courier; and next week
we 're to set up a chasseur, if K. I. will only consent to be made a
Count.
You may stare, Molly, when I tell you that he fights against it as if it
was the Court of Bankruptcy; though Lord George worked night and clay
to have it done. There never was the like of it for cheapness; a trifle
over twenty pounds clears the whole expense; and for that he would be
Count Dodd, of Fiezole, with a title to each of the children. As many
thousands would n't do that in England; and, indeed, one does n't wonder
at the general outcry of the expense of living there, when the commonest
luxuries are so costly. Mary Anne and I are determined on it, and before
the month is over your letters will be addressed to a Countess.
In the middle of all this happiness, my dear, there is a drop of bitter,
as there always is in the cup of life, though you may do your best not
to taste it. Indeed, if it was n't for this drawback, Florence would be
a place I 'd like to live and die in. What I allude to is this: here we
are be-tween two fires, Molly,--the Morrises on one side, and Mrs. Gore
Hampton on the other,--both watching, scrutinizing, and observing us;
for, as bad luck would have it, they both settled down here for the
winter! Now, the Morrises know all the quiet, well-behaved, respectable
people, that one ought to be acquainted with just for decency's sake.
But Mrs. G. H. is in the fashionable and fast set, where all the fun is
going on; and from what I can learn them 's the very people would
suit us best. Being in neither camp, we hear nothing but the abuse and
scandal that each throws on the other; and, indeed, to do them justice,
if half of it was true, there's few of them ought to escape hanging!
That's how we stand; and can you picture to yourself a more embarrassing
situation? for you see that many of the slow people are high in station
and of real rank, while some of the fast are just the reverse. Lord
George says, "Cut the fogies, and come amongst the fast 'uns," and talks
about making friends with the "Mammoth of unrighteousness;" and if
he means Mrs. G. H., I believe he is n't far wrong: but even if we
consented, Molly, I don't know whether she 'd make up with us; though
Lord George swears that he 'll answer for it with his head. One thing is
clear, Molly, we must choose between them, and that soon too; for it's
quite impossible to be "well with the Treasury and the Opposition also."
K. I. affects neutrality, just to blind us to his real intentions; but
I know him well, and see plainly what he 's after. Cary fights hard for
her friends; though, to say the truth, they have n't taken the least
notice of her since they came to their fortune,--the very thing I
expected from them, Molly, for it's just the way with all upstarts! Now
you see some of the difficulties that attend even the highest successes
in life; and maybe it will make you more contented with your own
obscurity. Perhaps, before this reaches you, we'll have decided for one
or the other; for, as Lord G. says, you can't pass your life between
silly and crabbed.(1)
1 Does Mrs. D. mean Scylla and Charybdis?--Editor of
"Dodd Correspondence."
There 's another thing fretting me, besides, Molly. It is what this same
Lord George means about Mary Anne; for it's now more than six months
since he grew particular; and yet there 's nothing come of it yet. I see
it's preying on the girl herself, too,--and what's to be done? I am sure
I often think of what poor old Jones McCarthy used to say about this:
"If I 'd a family of daughters," says he, "I 'd do just as I manage with
the horses when I want to sell one of them. There they are,--look at
them as long as you like in the stable, but I 'll have no taking them
out for a trial, and trotting them here, and cantering them there; and
then, a fellow coming to tell me that they have this, that, and the
other." And the more I think of it, Molly, the more I'm convinced it's
the right way; though it's too late, maybe, to help it now.
As I mean to send you another letter soon, I 'll close this now, wishing
you all the compliments of the season, except chilblains, and remain
your true and affectionate friend,
Jemima Dodd.
P. S. You 'd better direct your next letter to us "Casa Dodd," for I
remark that all the English here try and get rid of the Italian names to
the houses as soon as they can.
LETTER XXVIII. JAMES DODD TO ROBERT DOOLAN, ESQ., TRINITY COLLEGE,
DUBLIN.
Florence.
My dear Bob,--If you only knew how difficult it is to obtain even five
minutes of quiet leisure in this same capital, you 'd at once absolve
me from all the accusations in your last letter. It is pleasure at a
railroad pace, from morning till night, and from night till morning.
Perhaps, after all, it is best there should be no time for reflection,
since it would be like one waiting on the rails for an express train to
run over him!
I can give you no better nor speedier illustration of the kind of
life we lead here, than by saying that even the governor has felt the
fascination of the place, and goes the pace, signing checks and drawing
bills without the slightest hesitation, or any apparent sense of a
coming responsibility. He plays, too, and loses his money freely,
and altogether comports himself as if he had a most liberal income,
or--terrible alternative--not a sixpence in the world. I own to you,
Bob, that this recklessness affrights me far more than all his former
grumbling over our expensive and wasteful habits. He seems to have
adopted it, too, with a certain method that gives it all the appearance
of a plan, though I confess what possible advantage could redound from
it is utterly beyond my power of calculation.
Meanwhile our style of living is on a scale of splendor that might well
suit the most ample fortune. Tiverton says that for a month or two this
is absolutely necessary, and that in society, as in war, it is the first
dash often decides a campaign. And really, even my own brief experience
of the world shows that one's friends, as they are conventionally
called, are far more interested in the skill of your cook than in the
merits of your own character; and that he who has a good cellar may
indulge himself in the luxury of a very bad conscience. You, of course,
suspect that I am now speaking of a class of people dubious both in
fortune and position, and who have really no right to scrutinize too
closely the characters of those with whom they associate. Quite the
reverse, Bob, I am actually alluding to our very best and most correct
English, and who would not for worlds do at home any one of the hundred
transgressions they commit abroad. For instance, we have, in this
goodly capital of debt and divorce celebrity, a certain house of almost
princely splendor; the furniture, plate, pictures, all perfection; the
cook, an artist that once pampered royal palates; in a word, everything,
from the cellar to the conservatory, a miracle of correct taste.
The owner of all this magnificence is--what think you?--a successful
swindler!--the hero of a hundred bubble speculations,--the spoliator of
some thousands of shareholders,--a fellow whose infractions have been
more than once stigmatized by public prosecution, and whose rascalities
are of European fame! You 'd say that with all these detracting
influences he was a man of consummate social tact, refined manners, and
at least possessing the outward signs of good breeding. Wrong again,
Bob. He is coarse, uneducated, and vulgar; he never picked up any
semblance of the class from whom he peculated; and has lived on, as he
began, a "low comedy villain," and no more. Well, what think you, when
I tell you that is "_the_ house," _par excellence_, where all strangers
strive to be introduced,--that to be on the dinner-list here is a
distinction, and that even a visitor enjoys an envied fortune,--and that
at the very moment I write, the Dodd family are in earnest and active
negotiation to attain to this inestimable privilege? Now, Bob, there's
no denying that there must be something rotten, and to the core too,
where such a condition of things prevails. If this man fed the hungry
and sheltered the houseless, who had no alternative but his table or no
food, the thing requires no explanation; or if his hospitalities were
partaken of by that large floating class who in every city are to be
found, with tastes disproportionate to their fortunes, and who will
at any time postpone their principles to their palates, even then the
matter is not of difficult solution; but what think you that his company
includes some of the very highest names of our stately nobility, and
that the titles that resound through his _salon_ are amongst the most
honored of our haughty aristocracy! These people assuredly stand in no
want of a dinner. They are comfortably lodged, and at least reasonably
well fed at the "Italie" or the "Grande Bretagne." Why should they stoop
to such companionship? Who can explain this, Bob? Assuredly, I am not
the AEdipus!
I am nothing surprised that people like ourselves, for instance, seek
to enjoy even this passing splendor, and find themselves at a princely
board, served with a more than royal costliness. One of these grand
dinners is like a page of the Arabian Nights to a man of ordinary
condition; but surely his Grace the Duke, or the most Noble the Marquis
has no such illusions. With _him_ it is only a question whether the
Madeira over-flavored the soup, or that the ortolans might possibly have
been fatter. _He_ dines pretty much in the same fashion every day during
the London season, and a great part of the rest of the year afterwards.
Why then should he descend to any compromise to accept Count
"Dragonards's" hospitality? for I must tell you that "Dives" is a Count,
and has orders from the Pope and the Queen of Spain.
With the explanation, as I have said, I have nothing to do. It is beyond
and above me. For the fact alone I am guarantee; and here comes Tiverton
in a transport of triumph to say that "Heaven is won," or, in humbler
phrase, "Monsieur le Comte de Dragonards prie Phonneur," &c, and that
Dodd _pere_ and Dodd _mere_ are requested to dine with him on Tuesday,
the younger Dodds to assist at a reception in the evening.
Tiverton assures me that by accepting with a good grace the humbler part
of a "refresher," I am certain of promotion afterwards to a higher range
of character; and in this hope I live for the present.
It is likely I shall not despatch this without being able to tell you
more of this great man's house; meanwhile--"majora cantamus"--I am in
love, Bob! If I did n't dash into the confession at once, as one
springs into the sea of a chilly morning, I'd even put on the clothes of
secrecy, and walk off unconfessed. She is lovely, beyond anything I can
give you an idea of,--pale as marble; but such a flesh tint! a sunset
sleeping upon snow, and with lids fringed over a third of her cheek.
You know the tender, languid, longing look that vanquishes me,--that's
exactly what she has! A glance of timid surprise, like an affrighted
fawn, and then a downcast consciousness,--a kind of self-reproaching
sense of her own loveliness,--a sort of a--what the devil kind of
enchantment and witchery, Bob? that makes a man feel it's all no use
struggling and fighting,--that his doom is _there!_ that the influence
which is to rule his destiny is before him, and that, turn him which way
he will, his heart has but one road--and _will_ take it!
She was in Box 19, over the orchestra! I caught a glimpse of her
shoulder--only her shoulder--at first, as she sat with her face to the
stage, and a huge screen shaded her from the garish light of the lustre.
How I watched the graceful bend of her neck each time she saluted--I
suppose it was a salutation--some new visitor who entered! The drooping
leaves and flowers of her hair trembled with a gentle motion, as if to
the music of her soft voice. I thought I could hear the very accents
echoing within my heart! But oh! my ecstasy when her hand stole forth
and hung listlessly over the cushion of the box! True it was gloved,
yet still you could mark its symmetry, and, in fancy, picture the
rosy-tipped fingers in all their graceful beauty.
Night after night I saw her thus; yet never more than I have told you.
I made superhuman efforts to obtain the box directly in front; but it
belonged to a Russian princess, and was therefore inaccessible. I bribed
the bassoon and seduced the oboe in the orchestra; but nothing was to
be seen from their inferno of discordant tunings. I made love to a
ballet-dancer, to secure the _entree_ behind the scenes; and on the
night of my success _she_--my adored one--had changed her place with a
friend, and sat with her back to the stage. The adverse fates had taken
a spite against me, Bob, and I saw that my passion must prove unhappy!
Somehow it is in love as in hunting, you are never really in earnest
so long as the country is open and the fences easy; but once that the
ditches are "yawners," and the walls "raspers," you sit down to your
work with a resolute heart and a steady eye, determined, at any cost and
at any peril, to be in at the death. Would that the penalties were alike
also! How gladly would I barter a fractured rib or a smashed collar-bone
for the wrecked and cast-away spirit of my lost and broken heart!
If I suffer myself to expand upon my feelings, there will be no end
of this, Bob. I already have a kind of consciousness that I could fill
three hundred and fifty folio volumes, like "Hansard's," in subtle
description and discrimination of sensations that were not exactly
"_this_," but were very like "_that_;" and of impressions, hopes,
fancies, fears, and visions, a thousand times more real than all
the actual events of my _bona fide_ existence. And, after all, what
balderdash it is to compare the little meaningless incidents of our
lives with the soul-stirring passions that rage within us! the thoughts
that, so to say, form the very fuel of our natures! These are, indeed,
the realities; and what we are in the habit of calling such are the
mere mockeries and semblances of fact! I can honestly aver that I
suffered--in the true sense of the word--more intense agony from the
conflict of my distracted feelings than I ever did when lying under the
pangs of a compound fracture; and I may add of a species of pain not to
be alleviated by anodynes and soothed by hot flannels.
To be brief, Bob, I felt that, though I had often caught slight attacks
of the malady, at length I had contracted it in its deadliest form,--a
regular "blue case," as they say, with bad symptoms from the start. Has
it ever struck you that a man may go through every stage of a love fever
without even so much as speaking to the object of his affections? I can
assure you that the thing is true, and I myself suffered nightly every
vacillating sense of hope, fear, ecstasy, despair, joy, jealousy, and
frantic delight, just by following out the suggestions of my own fancy,
and exalting into importance the veriest trifles of the hour.
With what gloomy despondence did I turn homeward of an evening, when
she sat back in the box, and perhaps nothing of her but her bouquet was
visible for a whole night!--with what transports have I carried away
the memory of her profile, seen but for a second! Then the agonies of
my jealousy, as I saw her listening, with pleased attention, to some
essenced puppy--I could swear it was such--who lounged into her box
before the ballet! But at last came the climax of my joy, when I saw
her "lorgnette" directed towards me, as I stood in the pit, and actually
felt her eyes on me! I can imagine some old astronomer's ecstasy, as,
gazing for hours on the sky of night, the star that he has watched and
waited for has suddenly shone through the glass of his telescope, and
lit up his very heart within him with its radiance. I 'd back myself to
have experienced a still more thrilling sense of happiness as the beams
of her bright eyes descended on me.
At first, Bob, I thought that the glances might have been meant for
another. I turned and looked around me, ready to fasten a deadly quarrel
upon him, whom I should have regarded at once as my greatest enemy. But
the company amidst which I stood soon reassured me. A few snuffy-looking
old counts, with brown wigs and unshaven chins,--a stray Government
clerk with a pinchbeck chain and a weak moustache, couldn't be my
rivals. I looked again, but she had turned away her bead; and save that
the "lorgnette" still rested within her fingers, I'd have thought the
whole a vision.
Three nights after this the same thing occurred. I had taken care to
resume the very same place each evening, to wear the same dress, to
stand in the very same attitude,--a very touching "pose," which I had
practised before the glass. I had not been more than two hours at my
post, when she turned abruptly round and stared full at me. There could
be no mistake, no misconception whatever; for, as if to confirm my
wavering doubts, her friend took the glass from her, and looked full and
long at me. You may imagine, Bob, somewhat of the preoccupation of my
faculties when I tell you that I never so much as recognized her friend.
I had thoughts, eyes, ears, and senses for one,--and one only. Judge,
then, my astonishment when she saluted me, giving that little gesture
with the hand your Florentines are such adepts in,--a species of
salutation so full of most expressive meaning.
Short of a crow-quilled billet, neatly endorsed with her name, nothing
could have spoken more plainly. It said, in a few words, "Come up here,
Jim, we shall be delighted to see you." I accepted the augury, Bob,
as we used to say in Virgil, and in less than a minute had forced my
passage through the dense crowd of the pit, and was mounting the box
stairs, five steps at a spring. "Whose box is No. 19?" said I to an
official. "Madame de Goranton," was the reply. Awkward this; never had
heard the name before; sounded like French; might be Swiss; possibly
Belgian.
No time for debating the point, tapped and entered,--several persons
within barring up the passage to the front,--suddenly heard a well-known
voice, which accosted me most cordially, and, to my intense surprise,
saw before me Mrs. Gore Hampton! You know already all about her, Bob,
and I need not recapitulate.
"I fancied you were going to pass your life in distant adoration yonder,
Mr. Dodd," said she, laughingly, while she tendered her hand for me to
kiss. "Adeline, dearest, let me present to you my friend Mr. Dodd." A
very cold--an icy recognition was the reply to this speech; and Adeline
opened her fan, and said something behind it to an elderly dandy beside
her, who laughed, and said, "Parfaitement, ma foi!"
Registering a secret vow to be the death of the antiquated tiger
aforesaid, I entered into conversation with Mrs. G. H., who,
notwithstanding some unpleasant passages between our families, expressed
unqualified delight at the thought of meeting us all once more; inquired
after my mother most affectionately; and asked if the girls were looking
well, and whether they rode and danced as beautifully as ever. She made,
between times, little efforts to draw her friend into conversation by
some allusion to Mary Anne's grace or Cary's accomplishments; but all
in vain. Adeline only met the advances with a cold stare, or a little
half-smile of most sneering expression. It was not that she was distant
and reserved towards me. No, Bob; her manner was downright contemptuous;
it was insulting; and yet such was the fascination her beauty had
acquired over me that I could have knelt at her feet in adoration of
her. I have no doubt that she saw this. I soon perceived that Mrs. Gore
Hampton did. There is a wicked consciousness in a woman's look as she
sees a man "hooked," there's no mistaking. Her eyes expressed this
sentiment now; and, indeed, she did not try to hide it.
She invited me to come home and sup with them. She half tried to make
Adeline say a word or two in support of the invitation; but no, she
would not even hear it; and when I accepted, she half peevishly declared
she had got a bad headache, and would go to bed after the play. I
tell you these trivial circumstances, Bob, just that you may fancy how
irretrievably lost I was when such palpable signs of dislike could not
discourage me. I felt this all--and acutely too; but somehow with no
sense of defeat, but a stubborn, resolute determination to conquer them.
I went back to sup with Mrs. G. H., and Adeline kept her word and
retired. There were a few men--foreigners of distinction--but I sat
beside the hostess, and heard nothing but praises of that "dear angel."
These eulogies were mixed up with a certain tender pity that puzzled me
sadly, since they always left the impression that either the angel had
done something herself, or some one else had done it towards her, that
called for all the most compassionate sentiments of the human heart.
As to any chance of her history--who she was, whence she came, and so
on--it was quite out of the question; you might as well hope for the
private life of some aerial spirit that descends in the midst of canvas
clouds in a ballet. She was there--to be worshipped, wondered at, and
admired, but not to be catechised.
I left Mrs. H.'s house at three in the morning,--a sadder but scarcely a
wiser man. She charged me most solemnly not to mention to any one where
I had been,--a precaution possibly suggested by the fact that I had lost
sixty Napoleons at lansquenet,--a game at which I left herself and her
friends deeply occupied when I came away. I was burning with impatience
for Tiverton to come back to Florence. He had gone down to the Maremma
to shoot snipe. For, although I was precluded by my promise from
divulging about the supper, I bethought me of a clever stratagem by
which I could obtain all the counsel and guidance without any breach
of faith, and this was, to take him with me some evening to the pit,
station him opposite to No. 19, and ask all about its occupants; he
knows everybody everywhere, so that I should have the whole history of
my unknown charmer on the easiest of all terms.
From that day and that hour, I became a changed creature. The gay
follies of my fashionable friends gave me no pleasure. I detested balls.
I abhorred theatres. _She_ ceased to frequent the opera. In fact, I
gave the most unequivocal proof of my devotion to one by a most sweeping
detestation of all the rest of mankind. Amidst my other disasters, I
could not remember where Mrs. Gore Hampton lived. We had driven to her
house after the theatre; it was a long way off, and seemed to take a
very circuitous course to reach, but in what direction I had not the
very vaguest notion of. The name of it, too, had escaped me, though she
repeated it over several times when I was taking my leave of her. Of
course, my omitting to call and pay my respects would subject me to
every possible construction of rudeness and incivility, and here was,
therefore, another source of irritation and annoyance to me.
My misanthropy grew fiercer. I had passed through the sad stage, and
now entered upon the combative period of the disease. I felt an intense
longing to have a quarrel with somebody. I frequented _cafe's_,
and walked the streets in a battle, murder, and sudden-death
humor,--frowning at this man, scowling at that. But, have you never
remarked, the caprice of Fortune is in this as in all other things? Be
indifferent at play, and you are sure to win; show yourself regardless
of a woman, and you are certain to hear she wants to make your
acquaintance. Go out of a morning in a mood of universal love and
philanthropy, and I'll take the odds that you have a duel on your hands
before evening.
There was one man in Florence whom I especially desired to fix a quarrel
upon,--this was Morris, or, as he was now called, Sir Morris Penrhyn. A
fellow who unquestionably ought to have had very different claims on
my regard, but who now, in this perversion of my feelings, struck me as
exactly the man to shoot or be shot by. Don't you know that sensation,
Bob, in which a man feels that he must select a particular person, quite
apart from any misfortune he is suffering under, and make _him_ pay
its penalty? It is a species of antipathy that defies all reason,
and, indeed, your attempt to argue yourself out of it only serves to
strengthen and confirm its hold on you.
Morris and I had ceased to speak when we met; we merely saluted coldly,
and with that rigid observance of a courtesy that makes the very easiest
prelude to a row, each party standing ready prepared to say "check"
whenever the other should chance to make a wrong move. Perhaps I am
not justified in saying so much of _him_, but I know that I do not
exaggerate my own intentions. I fancied--what will a man not fancy in
one of these eccentric stages of his existence?--that Morris saw my
purpose, and evaded me. I argued myself into the notion that he was
deficient in personal courage, and constructed upon this idea a whole
edifice of absurdity.
I am ashamed, even before you, to acknowledge the extent to which my
stupid infatuation blinded me; perhaps the best penalty to pay for it is
an open confession.
I overtook our valet one morning with a letter in my governor's hand
addressed to Sir Morris Penrhyn, and on inquiring, discovered that
he and my father had been in close correspondence for the three days
previous. At once I jumped to the conclusion that I was, somehow or
other, the subject of these epistles, and in a fit of angry indignation
I drove off to Morris's hotel.
When a man gets himself into a thorough passion on account of some
supposed injury, which even to himself he is unable to define, his state
is far from enviable. When I reached the hotel, I was in the hot stage
of my anger, and could scarcely brook the delay of sending in my card.
The answer was, "Sir Morris did not receive." I asked for pen and ink to
write a note, and scribbled something most indiscreet and offensive. I
am glad to say that I cannot now remember a line of it. The reply came
that my "note should be attended to," and with this information I issued
forth into the street half wild with rage.
I felt that I had given a deadly provocation, and must now look out for
some "friend" to see me through the affair. Tiverton was absent, and
amongst all my acquaintances I could not pitch upon one to whose keeping
I liked to entrust my honor. I turned into several _cafes_, I strolled
into the club, I drove down to the Cascini, but in vain; and at last was
walking homeward, when I caught sight of a friendly face from the window
of a travelling-carriage that drove rapidly by, and, hurrying after,
just came up as it stopped at the door of the Hotel d'Italie.
You may guess my astonishment as I felt my hand grasped cordially by no
other than our old neighbor at Bruff, Dr. Belton, the physician of our
county dispensary. Five minutes explained his presence there. He had
gone out to Constantinople as the doctor to our Embassy, and by some
piece of good luck and his own deservings to boot, had risen to the post
of Private Secretary to the Ambassador, and was selected by him to carry
home some very important despatches, to the rightful consideration of
which his own presence at the Foreign Office was deemed essential.
Great as was the difference between, his former and his present station,
it was insignificant in comparison with the change worked in himself.
The country doctor, of diffident manners and retiring habits, grateful
for the small civilities of small patrons, cautiously veiling his
conscious superiority under an affected ignorance, was now become a
consummate man of the world,--calm, easy, and self-possessed. His very
appearance had undergone an alteration, and he held himself more erect,
and looked not only handsomer but taller. These were the first things
that struck me; but as we conversed together, I found him the same
hearty, generous fellow I had ever known him, neither elated by his good
fortune, nor, what is just as common a fault, contemptuously pretending
that it was only one-half of his deserts.
One thing alone puzzled me, it was that he evinced no desire to come and
see our family, who had been uniformly kind and good-natured to him; in
fact, when I proposed it, he seemed so awkward and embarrassed that I
never pressed my invitation, but changed the topic. I knew that there
bad been, once on a time, some passages between my sister Mary Anne
and him, and therefore supposed that possibly there might have been
something or other that rendered a meeting embarrassing. At all events,
I accepted his half-apology on the ground of great fatigue, and agreed
to dine with him.
What a pleasant dinner it was! He related to me all the story of his
life, not an eventful one as regarded incident, but full of those traits
which make up interest for an individual. You felt as you listened that
it was a thoroughly good fellow was talking to you, and that if he were
not to prove successful in life, it was just because his were the very
qualities rogues trade on for their own benefit. There was, moreover, a
manly sense of independence about him, a consciousness of self-reliance
that never approached conceit, but served to nerve his courage and
support his spirit, which gave him an almost heroism in my eyes, and I
own, too, suggested a most humiliating comparison with my own nature.
I opened my heart freely to him about everything, and in particular
about Morris; and although I saw plainly enough that he took very
opposite views to mine about the whole matter, he agreed to stop in
Florence for a day, and act as my friend in the transaction. This being
so far arranged, I started for Carrara, which, being beyond the Tuscan
frontier, admits of our meeting without any risk of interruption,--for
that it must come to such I am fully determined on. The fact is, Bob, my
note is a "stunner," and, as I won't retract, Morris has no alternative
but to come out.
I have now given you--at full length too--the whole history, up to the
catastrophe,--which perhaps may have to be supplied by another hand.
I am here, in this little capital of artists and quarry men, patiently
waiting for Bel-ton's arrival, or at least some despatch, which may
direct my future movements. It has been a comfort to me to have the
task of this recital, since, for the time at least, it takes me out of
brooding and gloomy thoughts; and though I feel that I have made out a
poor case for myself, I know that I am pleading to a friendly Court and
a merciful Chief Justice.
They say that in the few seconds of a drowning agony a man calls up
every incident of his life,--from infancy to the last moment,--that a
whole panorama of his existence is unrolled before him, and that he sees
himself--child, boy, youth, and man--vividly and palpably; that all his
faults, his short-comings, and his transgressions stand out in strong
colors before him, and his character is revealed to him like an
inscription. I am half persuaded this may be true, judging from what I
have myself experienced within these few hours of solitude here. Shame,
sorrow, and regret are ever present with me. I feel utterly disgraced
before the bar of my own conscience. Even of the advantages which
foreign travel might have conferred, how few have fallen to my
share!--in modern languages I have scarcely made any progress, with
respect to works of art I am deplorably ignorant, while in everything
that concerns the laws and the modes of government of any foreign State
I have to confess myself totally uninformed. To be sure, I have acquired
some insight into the rogueries of "Rouge-et-Noir," I can slang a
courier, and even curse a waiter; but I have some misgivings whether
these be gifts either to promote a man's fortune or form his character.
In fact, I begin to feel that engrafting Continental slang upon home
"snobbery" is a very unrewarding process, and I sorely fear that I have
done very little more than this.
I am in a mood to make a clean breast of it, and perhaps say more than
I should altogether like to remember hereafter, so will conclude for
the present, and with my most sincere affection write myself, as ever,
yours,
Jim Dodd.
P. S. It is not impossible that you may have a few lines from me by
to-morrow or next day,--at least, if I have anything worth the telling
and am "to the fore" to tell it.