Kenny James Dodd.
Tell Mrs. Gallagher to have fires in all the rooms, and to see that
Nelligan has a look to the roof where the rain used to come in. We must
try and make the old house comfortable, and if we cannot have the blue
sky without, we 'll at least endeavor to secure the means of an Irish
welcome within doors.
I suppose it must be a part of that perversity that pertains to human
nature in everything, but now that I have determined on going home
again, I fancy I can detect a hundred advantages to be derived from
foreign travel and foreign residence. You will, of course, meet me by
saying, "What are your own experiences, Kenny Dodd? Do they serve to
confirm this impression? Have you the evidences of such within the
narrow circle of your own family?" No, Tom, I must freely own I have not
But I am, perhaps, able to say why it has been so, and even that same is
something.
You can scarcely take up a number of the "Times" without reading of some
newly arrived provincial in London being "done" by sharpers, through the
devices of a very stale piece of roguery; his appearance, his dress, and
his general air being the signs which have proclaimed him a fit subject
for deception. So it is abroad; a certain class of travellers, the
"Dodds" for instance, ramble about Switzerland and the Rhine country,
John Murray in hand, speaking unintelligible French, and poking their
noses everywhere. So long as they are migratory, they form the prey of
innkeepers and the harvest of _laquais de place_; but when they settle
and domesticate, they become the mark for ridicule for some, and for
robbery from others. If they be wealthy, much is conceded to them for
their money,--that is, their house will be frequented, their dinners
eaten, their balls danced at; but as to any admission into "the society"
of the place, they have no chance of it. Some Lord George of their
acquaintance, cut by his equals, and shunned by his own set, will
undertake to provide them guests; and so far as their own hospitalities
extend, they will be "in the world," but not one jot further. The
illustrious company that honors your _soiree_ amuses itself with racy
stories of your bad French, or flippant descriptions of your wife's
"toilette;" nor is it enough that they ridicule these, but they will
even make laughing matter of your homely notions of right and wrong,
and scoff at what you know and feel to be the very best things in your
nature. Your "noble friend," or somebody else's "noble friend," has said
in public that you are "nobody;" and every marquis in his garret, and
every count with half the income of your cook, despises as he dines with
you. And you deserve it too; richly deserve it, I say. Had you come
on the Continent to be abroad what you were well contented to be at
home,--had you abstained from the mockery of a class you never belonged
to,--had you settled down amidst those your equals in rank, and often
much more than your equals in knowledge and acquirement,--your journey
would not have been a series of disappointments. You would have seen
much to delight and interest, and much to improve you. You would have
educated your minds while richly enjoying yourselves; and while forming
pleasant intimacies, and even friendships, widened the sphere of your
sympathies with mankind, and assuredly have escaped no small share of
the misfortunes and mishaps that befell the "Dodd Family Abroad."