Dear Tom,--It 's no use in talking; I can't go over to Ireland now, and
you know that as well as myself. Besides, what 's the good of me taking
a part in the elections? Who can tell which side will be uppermost,
after all? And if one is "to enter, it's as well to ride the winning
horse." Vickars has behaved so badly that I don't think I'd support him;
but there's a fortnight yet before the elections, and perhaps he may see
the errors of his ways before that!
I 've little heart or spirits for politics, for my life is fairly
bothered out of me with domestic troubles. James is going on very
slowly. There was a bit of glove-leather round the ball--a most
inexcusable negligence on the part of his second--that has given much
uneasiness; and he has a kind of night fever that keeps him low and
weak. With that, too, he has too many doctors. Three of them come every
morning, and never go away without a dispute.
It strikes me forcibly, Tom, that medical science is one of the things
that makes little progress, considering all the advantages of our
century. I don't mean to say that they don't know better what's inside
of you, what your bones are made of, that they have n't more hard names
for everything than formerly; but that when it comes to cure you of a
toothache, or a colic, or a fit of the gout, my sure belief is they made
just as good a hand of it two hundred years ago. I won't deny that they
'll whip off your leg, tie one of your arteries, or take your hip out
of the socket quicker than they used long ago; but how few of us, thank
God, have need of that kind of skill! and if we have, what signifies a
quarter of a minute more or less? Tim Hackett, that was surgeon to our
County Infirmary forty years, never used any other tools than an old
razor and a pair of pincers, and I believe he was just as successful as
Astley Cooper; and yet these fellows that come to see James cover
the table every day with instruments that would puzzle the Royal
Society,--things like patent corkscrews, scissors with teeth like a saw,
and one little crankum for all the world like a landing-net: James is
more afraid of that than all the rest When I saw it first, I thought it
was a new contrivance for taking the fees in. The Pharmacopoeia--I hope
I spell it right--is greater, to be sure, than long ago, but what's the
advantage of that? We never discover a new kind of beast for food, and
I see little benefit in multiplying what only disgusts you. 'T is
with medicine as with law, Tom; the more precedents we have, the more
confused we get; and where our ignorant ancestors saw their way clearly,
we, with all our enlightenment, never can hit on the right track at all.
The mill-owner and the engineer, the tanner, the dyer, the printer,
ay, even the fanner, picks up something every day that helps him in
his craft. It's only the learned professions that never learn anything;
maybe that's how they got the name "lucus à non," Tom, as Dr. Bell would
say.
You keep preaching to me about economy and making "both ends meet," and
all that kind of balderdash; and if you only saw the way we 're living,
you 'd be surprised at our cheapness. Whenever a five-pound note sees
me through our bill for the day, I give myself a bottle of champagne at
night out of gratitude! You remember all Mrs D.'s promises about thrift
and saving; and, faith, I must say that so far as cutting "down the
estimates" for the rest of the family, she 's worthy of the Manchester
school; but whenever it touches herself, her liberality becomes
boundless.
I believe it would be cheaper to give the milliner a room in the house
than pay her coach-hire, for she 's here every morning, and generally
in my room when I 'm shaving, sometimes before I 'm up. Not that this
trifling circumstance ever disconcerted her. On my conscience, I believe
she 'd have taken Eve's measure before Adam, without a blush at the
situation! So far as I have seen of foreign life, Tom, shamelessness
is the grand characteristic, and I grieve to say that one picks up the
indecency much easier than the irregular verbs. I wish, however, I had
nothing to complain of but this.
I told you in one of my late letters that I was getting into law here;
the plot is thickening since that, and I have now, I believe, four
actions--I hope it is not five--pending in four different courts; in
some I 'm the plaintiff, in some the defendant, and in another I 'm
something between the two; but what that may be, or what consequences
it entails, I know as much as I do about calculating the next eclipse!
Indeed, to distinguish between the several suits and the advocates I
have engaged is no small difficulty, and a considerable part of every
conference is occupied with purely introductory matter. These foreign
lawyers have a mysterious kind of way with them, too, that always gives
you the impression that a law-suit is something like the Gunpowder Plot!
There's a fellow comes to me every morning for instructions, as he calls
it, muffled up in a great cloak, and using as many precautions
against being seen by the servants as if he were going to blow up the
Government. I 'd not be so sensitive on the subject, if it had n't
provoked a species of annoyance, at which, perhaps, you 'll be more
disposed to laugh than sympathize.
For the last week Mrs. D. has adopted a kind of warfare at which she,
I 'll be bound to say, has few equals and no superior,--a species of
irregular attack, at all times and on all subjects, by innuendo and
insinuation, so dexterously thrown out as to defy opposition; for you
might as well take your musket to keep off the mosquitoes! What she was
driving at I never could guess, for the assault came on every flank,
and in all manner of ways. If I was dressed a little more carefully than
usual, she called attention to my "smartness;" if less so, she hinted
that I was probably going out "on the sly." If I stayed at home, I was
"waiting for somebody;" if I went out, it was to "meet them." But
all this guerilla warfare gave way at last to a grand attack, when I
ventured to remonstrate about some extravagance or other. "It came well
from _me_," she burst forth, with indignant anger,--"it came well from
_me_ to talk of the little necessary expenses of the family,--the bit
they ate, and the clothes on their backs." She spoke as if they were
Mandans or Iraquois, and lived in a wigwam! "It came well from me,
living the life I did, to grudge them the commonest requirements
of decency!" "Living the life I did!" I avow to you, Tom, the words
staggered me. Warren Hastings tells us that when Burke concluded his
terrible invective, that he actually sat for five minutes overwhelmed
with a sense of guilt; and so stunning was this charge that it took me
full double as long to rally! for though Mrs. D.'s eloquence may not
possess all the splendor or sublimity of the great Edmund, there is a
homely significance, a kind of natural impressiveness, about it not to
be despised. "Living the life I did," rang in my ears like the words of
a judge in a charge. It sounded like--"Kenny Dodd, you have been fairly
convicted by an honest and impartial jury!" and I confess I sat there
expecting to hear "the last sentence of the law." It was only after some
interval I was able to ask myself, "what was really the kind of life I
had been leading." My memory assured me it was a very stupid, tiresome
existence,--very good-for-nothing and un instructive. It was by no
means, however, one of flagrant vice or any outrageous wickedness; and I
could n't help muttering with honest Jack,--
"If sack and sugar be a sin, God help the wicked!"
The only things like personal amusements I had indulged in being
gin-and-water and dominoes,--cheap pleasures, if not very fascinating
ones!
"Living the life I did!" Why, what does the woman mean? Is she
throwing in my teeth the lazy, useless, unprofitable course of my
daily existence, without a pursuit, except to hear the gossip of the
town,--without an object, except to retail it? "Mrs. D.," said I, at
last, "you are, generally speaking, comprehensible. Whatever faults may
attach to your parts of speech, it must be owned they usually convey
your meaning. Now, for the better maintenance of this characteristic,
will you graciously be pleased to explain the words you have just
spoken? What do you mean by the 'life I am leading'?" "Not before the
girls, certainly, Mr. D.," said she, in a Lady Macbeth whisper that made
my blood curdle.
The mischief was out at once, Tom,--I know you are laughing at it
already; it's quite true, she was jealous,--mad jealous! Ah, Tom, my
boy, it 's all very good fun to laugh at Keeley, or Buckstone, or any
other of those diverting vagabonds who can convulse the house with such
a theme; but in real life the farce is downright tragedy. There is not a
single comfort or consolation of your life that is not kicked clean from
under you! A system of normal agitation is a fine thing, they tell us,
in politics, but it is a cruel adjunct of domestic life! Everything
you say, every look you give, every letter you seal, or every note you
receive, are counts in a mysterious indictment against you, till at last
you are afraid to blow your nose, lest it be taken for a signal to the
fat widow lady that is caressing her poodle at the window over the way!
You may be sure, Tom, that I repelled the charge with all the
indignation of injured innocence. I invoked my thirty years' good
character, the gravity of my demeanor, the gray of my whiskers; I
confessed to twenty other minor misdemeanors,--a taste for practical
jokes, a love of cribbage and long whist; I went further,--I expressed a
kind of St. Kevenism about women in general; but she cut me short with,
"Pray, Mr. D., make one exception; do be gallant enough to say that
there is one, at least, not included in this category of horrors."
"What are you at now?" cried I, almost losing all patience.
"Yes, sir," said she, in a grand melodramatic tone that she always
reserves for the peroration,--as postilions keep a trot for
the town,--"yes, sir, I am well accustomed to your perfidy and
dissimulation. I know perfectly for what infamous purposes abroad your
family are treated so ignominiously at home; I'm no stranger to your
doings." I tried to stop her by an appeal to common-sense; she despised
it. I invoked my age,--egad! I never put my foot in it till then.
That was exactly what made me the greatest villain of all! Whatever
veneration attaches to white hairs, it must be owned they get mighty ill
treated in discussions like the present; at least, Mrs. D. assured me
so, and gave me to understand that one pays a higher premium for their
morality, as they do for their life-assurance, as they grow older.
"Not," added she, as her eyes glittered with anger, and she sidled near
the door for an exit,--"not but, in the estimation of others, you may be
quite an Adonis,--a young gentleman of wit and fashion,--a beau of the
first water; I have no doubt Mary Jane thinks so,--you old wretch!"
This, in all, and a bang of the door that brought down an oil picture
that hung over it, closed the scene.
"Mary Jane thinks so!" said I, with my hand to my temples to collect
myself. Ah, Tom! it would have required a cooler head than mine was at
that moment to go hunting through the old archives of memory! Nor will I
torment you with even a narrative of my struggles. I passed that evening
and the night in a state of half distraction; and it was only when I was
giving one of our lawyers a check the next morning that I unravelled the
mystery, for, as I wrote down his name, I perceived it was Marie Jean
de Rastanac,--a not uncommon Christian name for men, though, considering
the length and breadth of the masculine calendar; a very needless
appropriation.
This was "Mary Jane," then, and this the origin of as pretty a conjugal
flare-up as I remember for the last twelvemonth!
Mrs. D. reminds me of the Opposition, and the Opposition of Vickars. I
suppose he wants to be a Lord of the Treasury. It's very like what
old Frederick used to call making a "goat a gardener." What rogues the
fellows are! You write to them about your son or your nephew, and they
answer you with some tawdry balderdash about their principles, as if any
one of us ever believed they were troubled with principles! I'm all for
fair straightforward dealing. Put James in the Board of Trade, and you
may cut up the Caffres for ten years to come. Give us something in the
Customs, and I don't care if New Zealand never has a constitution! 'Tis
only the fellows that have no families ask questions at the hustings!
Show me a man that wants _pledges_ from his _representative_, and I 'll
show you one that has got none from his wife!
And there's Vickars writing to me, as if I was a fool, about all the old
clap-traps that we used to think were kept for the election dinner; and
these chaps, like him, always spoil a good argument when they get hold
of it. Now, when a parson has n't tact enough to write his sermons, he
buys a volume of Tillotson or Blair, or any other, and reads one out as
well as he can; but your member--God bless the mark!--must invent his
own nonsense. How much better if he 'd give you Peel, or Russell, or Ben
Disraeli in the original! There are skeleton sermons for drowsy curates;
I wish any one would compose skeleton speeches for the county members.
You 'll say that I 'm unreasonably testy about these things; but I 've
got a letter this instant from Vickers, expressing his hope that I 'll
be satisfied with the view he has taken on the "question of free-labor
sugar." Did I ever dispute it, Tom? I drink no tea,--I hate sweet
things, and, except a lump, and that a small one, that I take in my
tumbler of punch, I never use sugar; and I care no more what 'a the
color of the man that raises it than I do for the name of the supercargo
that brought it over. Don't put cockroaches in it, and sell it cheap,
and I don't care a brass farthing whether it grew in Barbary or
Barbadoes! Not, my dear Tom, but it's all gammon, the way they discuss
the question; for the two parties are always debating two different
issues; one crying out cheap sugar, the other no slavery! and the
consequence is, they never meet in argument As to the preference Vickars
insists should be given to free-labor sugar, carry out the principle and
see what it comes to. I ought to receive eight or ten shillings a barrel
more for my wheat than old Joe M'Curdy, because _I_ always gave my
laborers eight-pence a day, and _he_ never went higher than sixpence,
more often fourpence. Is not that free labor and slavery, just as well
exemplified as if every man in the barony was a black?
They tell me the niggers won't work if you don't thrash them, and I
don't wonder, when I think of the heat of the climate; but sure if
they've more idleness, they ought to get less money; and lastly, I take
the Abolitionists--bother it for a long word!--on their own ground, and
are they prepared to say that if you impose a duty on slave sugar, the
Cubans and the rest of them won't only take more out of the niggers to
meet "the exigency of the market," as the newspapers call it? If they do
so, they 'll only be imitating our own farmers since the repeal of the
corn law. "You must bestir yourselves," says Lord Stanley; "competition
with the foreigner will demand all your activity. It won't do to go
on as you used. You must buy guano, take to drainage, study Smith of
Deanstown, and mind the rotation of your crops." Don't you think that
some enlightened Cuban will hit upon the same train of argument, and
make a fresh investment in whipcord? Ah, Tom! these are only party
squabbles, after all; and so I told Vickars. I don't know why, but it
always seemed to me that the blacks absorb a very unfair amount of our
loose sympathies; whether it's the color of them, or that they 're so
far away, or because they 're naked, I never knew; but certain it is,
we pity them far more than our own people, and I back myself to get up a
ladies' committee for a nigger question, before you collect three people
to hear you discuss a home grievance.
I have just been interrupted to receive Monsieur Jellicot, my defender
in action No. 3, a suit preferred by my late courier, "François
Tehetuer, born in the canton of Zug, aged thirty-seven years, single,
and a Protestant, against Monsieur Kenyidod, natif d'Irlande, près de
Dublin, dans le Royaume de la Grande Bretagne," &c., &c.; the demand
being for a year's wages, bed, board, and travelling expenses to his
native country. He, the aforesaid François, having been sent away for a
disgraceful riot in my house, in which he beat Pat, the other servant,
and smashed about five-and-twenty pounds' worth of glass and china. A
very pretty claim, Tom,--the preliminary resistance to which has already
cost me about one hundred and fifty francs to remove the litigation into
an upper court, where the bribery is higher, and consequently deemed
more within the reach of _my_ finances than those of honest Francis!
To tell you all that I think of the rascality of the administration of
justice here, would lead me into a diffusiveness something like that of
the pleasant "Mémoire" which my advocate has just left me to read, and
in which, as a measure of defence against an iniquitous demand, I 'm
obliged to give a short history of my life, with some account of my
father and grandfather. I made it as brief as I could, and said
nothing about the mortgages nor Hackett's bond; but even with all my
conciseness, the thing is very voluminous. The greatest difficulty of
all is the examination of Paddy Byrne, who, imagining that a law process
cannot have any other object than either to hang or transport _him_, has
already made two efforts at escape, and each time been brought back by
the police. His repugnance to the course of justice has already damaged
my case with my own defender, who, naturally enough, thinks if _my
own_ witnesses are so little to my credit, what will be the _opposite_
evidence? »
Another of my "causes célèbres," as Cary calls them,--she is the only
one of us has a laugh left in her,--is for the assault and battery of
a certain Mr. Cherry, a little rascal that came one day to tell me
that Mrs. D. 's appearance struck him as being more fascinating than
respectable! I kicked him downstairs into the street, and in return he
has dragged me into the Court of the Correctional Police, where I 'm
told they 'll maul _me_ far worse than I did him; besides this, I have
a small interlude suit for a breach of contract, in not taking a lodging
next an Anatomy School; and lastly, James's duel! I have compromised
fully double the number, and have received vague threats from different
quarters, that may either mean being waylaid or prosecuted, as the case
may be.
So far, therefore, as economy goes, this Continentalizing has not
succeeded up to this. Instead of living rent free at Dodsborough, with
our own mutton and turnips, the ducks and peas, that cost us, I may
say, nothing, here we are, keeping up the price of foreign markets,
and feeding the foreigners at the expense of our own poor people. If,
instead of excluding British manufactures from the Continent, Bony had
only struck out the notion of seducing over here John Bull himself and
his family, let me assure you, Tom, that he'd have done us far more
lasting and irreparable mischief. We can do without their markets. What
between their Zollvereins, their hostile tariffs, and troublesome trade
restrictions, they have themselves taught us to do without them; and,
indeed, except when we get up a row at Barcelona, and smuggle five or
six hundred thousand pounds' worth of goods into Spain, we care little
for the old Continent; but I 'll tell you what we cannot do without,--we
cannot do without their truffled turkeys, their tenors, their men-cooks,
and their dancing-women. French novels and Italian knavery have got a
fast hold of us; and I doubt much if the polite world of England would
n't rather see this country cut off from all the commerce of America
than be themselves excluded from the wicked old cities of Europe!
When I think of myself holding these opinions, and still living abroad,
I almost fancy I was meant for a Parliamentary life; for assuredly my
convictions and my actions are about as contradictory as any honorable
or right honorable gentleman on either side of the House. But so it is,
Tom. Whatever 's the reason of it I can't tell, but I believe in my
heart that every Irishman is always doing something or other that he
doesn't approve of; and that this is the real secret of that want of
conduct, deficient steadiness, uncertainty of purpose, and all the other
faults that our polite neighbors ascribe to us, and what the "Times" has
a word of its own for, and sets shortly down as "Celtic barbarism." And
between ourselves, the "Times" is too fond of blackguarding us. What's
the use of it? What good does it ever do? I may throw mud at a man every
day till the end of the world, but I 'll never make his face the cleaner
for it!
The same system we used to follow once with America; and at last, what
with sneering and jibing, we got up a worse feeling between the two
countries than ever existed in the heat of the war. No matter how stupid
the writer, how little he saw, or how ill he told it, let a fellow
come back from the United States with a good string of stories about
whittling, spitting, and chewing, interlard the narrative with a full
share of slang, show up Jonathan as a vulgar, obtrusive, self-important
animal, boastful and ignorant, and I 'll back the book to run through
its two or three editions with a devouring and delighted public. But
what would you think of a man that went down to Leeds or Manchester, to
look at some of our great factories at full work; who saw the evidences
of our enterprise and industry, that are felt at the uttermost ends
of the earth; who knew that every bang of that big piston had its
responsive answer in some far-away land over the sea, where British
skill and energy were diffusing comfort and civilization,--what, I say,
would you think of him if, instead of standing amazed at the future
before such a people, he sat down to chronicle how many fustian jackets
had holes in them, how many shaved but twice a week, whether the
overseer made a polite bow, or the timekeeper talked with a strong
Yorkshire accent?
I tell you, Tom, our travellers in the States did little other than
this. I don't mean to say that it wouldn't be pleasanter and prettier to
look at, if all the factory-folk were dressed like Young England,
with white waistcoats and cravats, and all the young ladies wore silk
petticoats and white satin shoes; but I'm afraid that, considering the
work to do, that's scarcely practicable; and so with regard to America,
considering the work to do,--ay, Tom, and the way they are doing it,--I
'm not over-disposed to be critical about certain asperities that are
sure to rub off in time, particularly if we don't sharpen them into
spikes by our own awkward attempts to polish them.
If I was able, I'd like to write a book about America. I'd like to
inquire, first, if, seeing the problem that the Yankees are trying to
solve, the way they have set about it is the best and the shortest? I'd
like, too, to study what secret machinery combines a weak government
and a strong people,--the very reverse of what we see in the Old World,
where the governments are strong and the people weak? I'd like to find
out, if I could, why people that, for the most part, have formed the
least subordinate populations of the Old World, behave so remarkably
well in the New?
In running off into these topics, Tom, I suppose I'm like every one
else, who, in proportion as his own affairs become embarrassed, takes a
wonderful interest in those of his neighbors. Half the patriotism in the
world comes out of the bankruptcy courts.
And, here's Monsieur Gabriel Dulong "for my instructions _in re_
Cherry," as if to recall me from foreign affairs, and once more bring
back my wandering thoughts to the Home Office.
Write to me, Tom, and send me money. You have no idea how it goes here;
and as for the bankers, I never met the like of them! The exchange is
always against you, and if you want a ten-pound English note, they'll
make you smart for it.
The more I see of this foreign life, the less I like it. I know that we
have been unfortunate in one or two respects. I know that it is rash in
me to speak on so brief an acquaintance with it, but I already dread
our being more intimate. Mrs. D. is not the woman you knew her. No
more thrift, no more saving,--none of that looking after trifles that,
however we may laugh at in our wives, we are right glad to profit by.
She has taken a new turn, and fancies, God forgive her! that we have
an elegant estate, and a fine, thriving, solvent tenantry. Wherever the
delusion came from, I cannot guess; but I 'm certain that the little
slip of sea between Dover and Calais is the origin of more false notions
and extravagant fancies than the wide Atlantic.
I have been thinking for some days back that you ought to write me
a strong letter,--you know what I mean, Tom,--a strong letter about
matters at home. There's no great difficulty, when a man lives in
Ireland, to make out a good list of grievances.
Give it to us, then, and let us have our fill of rotten potatoes,
blighted wheat, runaway tenants, and workhouse riots. Throw in a murder
if you like, and make it "strong," Tom. Say that, considering the
cheapness of the Continent, we draw a terrible sight of money, and add
that you can't imagine what we do with the cash. Put "Strictly private
and confidential" on the outside, and I 'll take care to be out of the
way when it comes. You can guess that Mrs. D. will soon open it, and
perhaps it may give her a shock. Is n't it hard that I have to go about
the bush in this way? but that's what we 're come to. If I hint a word
about expense, they look on me as if I was Shylock; and I believe they
'd rather hear me blaspheme than say the phrase "economy." I think, from
what I see in James, that he's fretting about this very same thing. He
did n't say exactly _that_, but he dropped a remark the other day that
showed me he was grieved by the turn for dress and finery that Mrs. D.
and Mary Anne have taken up; and one of the nurses that sat up with
him told me that he used to sigh dreadfully at times, and mutter broken
expressions about money.
To tell you the truth, Tom, I 'd go back to-morrow, if I could. "And why
can't you?--what prevents you, Kenny?" I hear you say. Just this, then,
I haven't the pluck! I couldn't stand the attack of Mrs. D. and her
daughter. I 'm not equal to it. My constitution is n't what it used to
be, and I'm afraid of the gout. At my time of life, they say it always
flies to the heart or to the head,--maybe because there 's a vacancy in
these places after fifty-six or seven years of age! I see, too, by the
looks Mrs. D. gives Mary Anne occasionally, that they know this; and she
often gives me to understand that she does n't wish to dispute with me,
for reasons of her own. This is all very well, and kindly meant, Tom,
but it throws me into a depression that is dreadful.
I see by the papers that you've taken up all kinds of "Sanitary
Questions" at home. As for the health of towns, Tom, the grand thing
is not to suffer them to grow too big. You're always crying out about
twelve people sleeping in one room somewhere, and you gave the ages of
each of them in the "Times," and you grow moral and modest, and I don't
know what else, about decency, destitution, and so forth; but what's
London itself but the very same thing on an enlarged scale? It's
nonsense to fret about a wart, when you have a wen in the same
neighborhood. Not that I'm sorry to see fine folk taking trouble about
what concerns the poor, particularly when they go about it sensibly and
quietly, without any balderdash of little books, and, above all, without
a ladies' committee. If there 's anything chokes me, it's a
ladies' committee. Three married women on bad terms with
their husbands, four widows, and five old maids, all prying,
pedantic, and impertinent,--going loose about the world with little
subscription-cards, decrying innocent pleasures, and decoying your
children's pocket-money,--turning benevolence into a house-tax, and
making charity like the "Pipe-water." You remark, too, that the pretty
women won't join these gangs at all. Now and then you may see one take
out a letter of marque, and cruise for herself, but never in company.
Seeing the importunity of these old damsels, I often wondered why the
Government never thought of employing ladies as tax-collectors. He 'd be
a hardy man who 'd make one or two I could mention call twice.
I have been turning over in my mind what you said about Dodsborough; and
though I don't like the notion of giving a lease, still it's possible we
might do it without much danger. "He is an Englishman," you say, "that
has never lived in Ireland." Now, my notion is, Tom, that if he be
as old as you say, it's too late for him to try. They're a mulish,
obstinate, unbending kind of people, these English; and wherever you
see them, they never conform to the habits of the people. After thirty
years' experience of Ireland, you'll hear them saying that they cannot
accustom themselves to the "lies and the climate "! If I have heard that
same remark once, I've heard it fifty times. And what does it amount to
but a confession that they won't take the world as they find it. Ireland
is rainy, there's no doubt, and Paddy is fond of telling you what he
thinks is agreeable to you,--a kind of native courtesy, just like his
offering you his potato when he knows in his heart that he can't spare
it,--but he gives it, nevertheless.
I 'd say, then, we might let him have Dodsborough, on the chance that he
'd never stay six months there, and perhaps in the mean while we 'd find
out another Manchester gentleman to succeed him. I remember poor old
Dycer used to sell a little chestnut mare every Saturday,--nobody ever
kept her a fortnight,--and when she died, by jumping over Bloody Bridge
into the Liffey, and killed herself and her rider, Dycer said, "There's
four-and-twenty pounds a year lost to _me,_"--and so it was too! Think
over this, and tell me your mind on it.
I believe I told you of the Polish Count that we took with us to
Waterloo. I met him yesterday with my cloak on him; but really the
number of my legal embroilments here is so great that I was shy of
arresting him. We hear a great deal of talk about the partition of
Poland, and there is an English lord keeps the subject for his own
especial holdings forth; but I am convinced that the greatest evil
of that nefarious act lies in having thrown all these Polish fellows
broadcast over Europe. I wish it was a kingdom to-morrow, if they
'd only consent to stay there. To be well rid of them and their
sympathizers, whom I own I like even less, would be a great blessing
just now. I wish the "Times" would stop blackguarding Louis Napoleon. If
the French like being bullied, what is that to us? My own notion is that
the people and their ruler are well met; besides, if we only reflect
a little on it, we 'll see that anything is better for _us_ than a
Bourbon,--I don't care what branch! They are under too deep obligations
to us, and have too often accepted of English hospitality, not to hate
us; and hate us they do. I believe the first Frenchman that cherishes an
undying animosity to England is your Legitimist; next to him comes the
Orleanist.
It's a strange thing, but the more I have to think of about my own
affairs, and the worse they are going with me, the more my thoughts run
after politics and the newspapers. I suppose that's all for the best,
and that if people dwelled too much on their own troubles, their heads
would n't stand it. You've seen a trick the horse jockeys have when a
horse goes lame of one foot,--to pinch him a little with the shoe of the
opposite one; and it's not bad philosophy to practise mentally, and you
may preserve your equanimity just by putting on the load fairly. And
so it is I try to divert my thoughts from mortgages, creditors, and
Chancery, by wondering how the King of Naples will contrive to keep his
throne, and how the Austrians will save themselves from bankruptcy! I
know it would be more to the purpose if I turned my thoughts to getting
Mary Anne married, and James into the Board of Trade; at least, so Mrs.
D. tells me, and although she is always repeating the old saw about
"marriages being made in heaven," she evidently does n't wish to give
too much trouble in that quarter, and would like to lend a hand herself
to the work.
Jellicot has sent his clerk here to tell me that I have been pronounced
"Contumacious," for not appearing somewhere, and before somebody that I
never heard of! Egad! these kind of proceedings are scarcely calculated
to develop the virtues of humanity! They sent me something I thought
was a demand for a tax, and it turns out a judge's warrant; for aught I
know, there may be an order to seize the body of Kenny James Dodd, and
consign him to the dungeons of the Inquisition! Write to me at once,
Tom, and above all don't forget the money.
Yours, most faithfully,
K. I. Dodd.
Why does Molly Gallagher keep pestering me about Christy? She wants me
to get him into the "Grand Canal." I wish they were both there, with all
my heart.
I open this to say that Vickars has just sent me a copy of his address
to the "Independent Electors of Bruff." I'd like to see one of them,
for the curiosity of the thing. He asks me to give him my opinion of the
document, and the "benefit of my advice and counsel," as if I had not
been reading the very same productions since I was a child. The very
phraseology is unaltered. Why can't they hit on something new? He "hopes
that he restores to them, unsullied, the high trust they had committed
to his keeping." Egad! if he does so, he ought to get a patent for
taking out spots, stains, and discolorations, for a dirtier garment than
our representative mantle has been, would be hard to find. Like all our
patriots that sit in Whig company, he is sorely puzzled between his love
for Ireland and his regard for himself, and has to limit his political
line to a number of vague threats about overgrown Church Establishments
and Landlord tyranny, not being quite sure how far his friends in power
are disposed to worry the Protestants and grind the gentry.
Of course be batters up the pastors of the people; but he might as well
leave _that_ alone; the priests are too cunning for all that balderdash
nowadays. They'll insist on something real, tangible, and substantial.
What they say is this: "The landlords used to have it all their own
way at one time. _Our_ day is come now." And there they're right, Tom;
there's no doubt of it. O'Connell said true when he told the English,
"Ye're always abusing me,--and call me the 'curse of Ireland' and the
destroyer of the public peace,--but wait a bit. I 'll not be five years
in my grave till you 'd wish me back again." There never was anything
more certain. So long as you had Dan to deal with, you could make your
bargain,--it might be, it often was, a very hard one,--but when it was
once made, he kept the terms fairly and honestly! But with whom will you
treat _now?_ Is it with M'Hale, or Paul Cullen, or Dr. Meyler? Sure each
of them will demand separate and specific conditions, and you might as
well try to settle the Caffre war by a compact with Sandilla, who, the
moment he sells himself to you, enters into secret correspondence with
his successor.
I'm never so easy in my mind as when I see the English in a row with the
Catholics. I don't care a brass farthing how much it may go against
us at first,--how enthusiastically they may yell "No Popery," burn
cardinals in effigy, and persecute the nuns. Give them rope enough, Tom,
and see if they don't hang themselves! There never came a fit of rampant
Protestantism in England that all the weak, rash, and ridiculous
zealots did n't get to the head of the movement. Off they go at score,
subsidizing renegade vagabonds of our Church to abuse us, raking up bad
stories of conventual life, and attacking the confessional. There
never were gulls like them! They swallow all the cases of cruelty
and persecution at once,--they foster every scoundrel, if he's only
a deserter from us,--ay, and they even take to their fireplaces the
filthiest novels of Eugene Sue, if he only satisfies their rancorous
hate of a Jesuit. And where does it end? I'll tell you. Their converts
turn out to be scoundrels too infamous for common contact; their
prosecutions fail,--why would n't they, when we get them up
ourselves?--John Bull gets ashamed of himself; round comes the Press,
and that's the moment when any young rising Catholic barrister in the
House can make his own terms, whether it be to endow the true Church or
to smash the false one!
As for John Bull, he never can do mischief enough when he 's in a
passion, but he's always ready to pay double the damage in the morning.
And as for putting "salt on our tails," let him try it with the "Dove of
Elphin," that 's all.
I was forgetting to tell you that I sent back Vickars's address, only
remarking that I was sorry not to know his sentiments about the Board of
Trade. _Ver. sap._