The Rhine Hotel, Bonn.
MY dear Molly,--If my well-known hand did not strike you, the sight of
all the black around this letter, and the mourning seal, might suggest
the thought that your poor Jemima was no more. Your next impression
will be that Providence had sent for K. I. No, my dear Molly, I am still
reserved for more trials in this vale of tears. I must bear my burden
further! As for K. I., he's just as he used to be,--croaking away about
the pain in his toe, or a gouty cramp in his stomach. He's always taking
things that disagrees with him, and what he calls the "correctives"
makes him worse. I cannot give you the least notion of how irritable he
's grown. You know as well as anybody the blessings he has about him. I
don't speak of myself, nor the stock I came from. I don't want to
revive the dreadful mistake that I made in my youth, nor to mention
the struggles I 've had with him on every subject for more than
five-and-twenty years,--struggles, my dear Molly, that would have killed
any one that had n't the constitution of a horse; but that now, thanks
to the goodness of Providence, have become a part of my nature, so that
there is n't an hour of the day or night that I 'm not able and willing
to dispute and argue with him on any question whatsoever. I don't want
to mention these blessings,--but is n't there James and Mary Anne, and,
indeed, except for some things, Caroline,--was there ever a father with
more reason to be proud? And so you 'd say if you only saw them. As a
dear friend of mine, Mrs. Gore Hampton, said this morning, "Where
will you see such natural advantages?" And I must own, Molly, it's not
flattery; for the way they talk French and waltz, even how they come
into a room, salute, or sit down, has something in it that shows them to
be brought up in the top of fashion.
Any other man than K. I. would overflow with gratitude for all this, but
you 'd scarcely believe, Molly, he only ridicules it!
"If we meant her for the stage," says he,--this is the way he talks of
Mary Anne,--"if we meant her for the stage, I think she has effrontery
enough to stand before a full house, and I don't say it would discompose
her; but for the wife of some respectable man of the middle rank, I see
no use in all this flouncing about here, and flourishing there,
whisking through a room, upsetting small tables and crockery by way of
gracefulness, and never sitting down on a chair till she has spread out
her petticoats like a peacock!"
If I 've said it once to him, Molly, I 've said it fifty times, there's
nothing I despise so much as a respectable man in the middle rank.
There's no refinement about them,--no elegance! They may be what's
called estimable in their families; but what's the use of all that for
the world at large? A man can only have one wife, but he may have a
thousand acquaintances. We don't ask how amiable he is at home; what we
want is, that he should be delightful abroad. "That," says Lord George,
"is true, both socially and economically; it's the grand principle
that everybody stands up for, 'the greatest happiness of the greatest
number!'" And talking of this, I 'd strenuously advise your cultivating
your mind on matters of political economy. It appears dry and
uninteresting at first, but as you get on it improves wonderfully, and
takes a great hold of the mind. I don't think I was ever more unhappy
than since I read a chapter describing what would become of us when the
population got too thick; and if the unthinking creatures in Ireland
don't take warning, it's exactly what will happen. When my mind was full
of it, I ordered up Betty Cobb, and gave her such a lecture about it she
'll never forget.
But you 'll say it's not for this I 'm gone into black; neither is
it, Molly,--it's for my poor relative, the late Jones McCarthy, of the
Folly, one of the last surviving members of the great McCarthy stock, in
the west of Ireland. Grief and sorrow for the miserable condition of his
country preyed upon him, and made him seek obliteration in drink;
and more's the pity, for he was a man of enlarged understanding and
capacious mind. My heart overflows when I think of the beautiful
sentiments I 've heard from him at various times. He loved his country,
and it was a treat to hear him praise it. "Ah!" he would say, "there's
but one blot on her,--the judges is rogues, the Government 's rogues,
the grand jury's rogues, and the people is villains!"
He died as he lived, a little in drink, but a true patriot "Tell
Jemima," says he, "I forgive her. She was a child when she married, and
she never meant to disgrace us; but as she now succeeds to the estate, I
hope she 'll have the pride to resume the family name."
Yes, Molly, the M'Carthy property, that once extended from Gorramuck to
Knocksheedownie, with seventeen townlands and four baronies, descends
now to me. To be sure, it was all mortgaged over and over again, and
'tis little there's left but the parchments and the maps; and, except
the property in the funds, there 's not a great deal coming to me. This
is all that I know at present, for Waters, the attorney, writes in such
a confused way, I can make nothing of it, and I don't wish to show the
letter to K. I. That seems strange to you, Molly, but you 'll think it
stranger when I tell you that the bare notion of my succeeding to the
estate drives him half crazy. He thinks that all the money being on his
side makes up for his low birth, and makes a Dodd equal to a M'Carthy,
and that now when I get my fortune the tables will be turned. Maybe he
's right there; I won't say that he is not; but sure it would be time
enough to show this feeling when my manner was changed to him.
I suppose he must have heard something from Purcell about the matter,
for when I came into the room, with my eyes red from crying, he said,
"Is it for old Jones M'Carthy you 're crying? Begad, then, you must have
a feeling heart, for you never saw him since you were three years old!"
Did you ever hear a more barbarous speech, Molly, not to say a more
ignorant one? Twenty or thirty years might be a very long time in a
family called Dodd, but is it more than a week or so in one with the
name of M'Carthy? And so I told him.
"You don't pretend that you 're sorry after him?" says he. And I could
only answer him with my sobs. "If it was Giles Moore, the distiller,"
says he, "that went into mourning, one could understand the sense of it,
for _he_ has lost a friend indeed!"
"They're to bury him in Cloughdesman Abbey," says I, not wishing to let
his sarcastic remarks provoke me.
"They need n't take much trouble about embalming him, anyway," says he,
"for there's more whiskey soaked into him than could preserve a whole
family!"
You may think, Molly, how far I was overcome by grief when he ventured
to talk this way to me; and, indeed, I left the room in a flood of
tears. When I grew more composed, I went over Waters's letter again with
Mary Anne, but without any great success. There is so much law in it,
and so many words that we never saw before, and to which, indeed, our
pocket dictionary gave us little help: Administer being set down,--to
perform the duty of an administrator; and for Administrator, we are told
to see Administer,--a kind of hide-and-go-seek that one does n't expect
in books like this.
The lawyers and the doctors, my dear Molly, go on the same plan,--they
never let us know the hard names they have for everything. If we once
come to do that, we 'll know what's the matter with ourselves and our
affairs, and neither need one nor the other. Mary Anne thinks that
administering means going to show the will to somebody that's to pay the
money; but my private opinion is that it's something about Ministers'
Money, for I remember my poor cousin Jones never would consent to pay
it, nor, indeed, anything else that went to the Established Church.
It was against his conscience, he used to say; and the Government that
coerces a man's conscience is worthy of "Grim Tartary." My notion is,
then, that they 're coming against me for the arrears, as if I had n't
any conscience too!
At all events, Molly, the property is to come to _me_; and the very
thought of it gives me a feeling of independence and pride that is
really overwhelming. K. I.'s temper was, indeed, becoming a sore trial,
and how I was to go on bearing it was more than I could imagine. He may
now return to Ireland and his dear Dodsborough whenever he pleases. Mary
Anne and I are determined to live abroad. Fortunately for us we have
made acquaintance with a very distinguished English lady--a Mrs. Gore
Hampton--who can introduce us everywhere. She is in the very height of
the fashion, and knows all the great people of Europe. She took a sudden
liking--I might call it an affection--for me and Mary Anne, and actually
proposed our all travelling together as one party. There never was luck
like it, Molly! She has a beautiful barouche of her own, with the arms
on it, and a French maid and a courier, and such heaps of luggage, you
wouldn't believe it could be carried. K. I. was afraid of the expense,
and gave, as you may believe, every kind of opposition to the plan. He
said it would "lead us into this," and "lead us into that;" the great
thing he dreaded being led into--as I told him--being good society and
high company.
So far from costing us anything, I believe it will be a considerable
saving; for, as Lord George says, "You can always make a better bargain
at the hotels when you 're a strong party." And he has kindly taken the
whole of this on himself.
He is a wonderful young man, Lord George; and, considering his tip-top
rank and connections, he's never above doing anything to serve, or be
useful to us. He knows K. I. as well, too, as I do myself. "Let _me_
alone," says he, "to manage the governor; _I_ know him. He's always
grumbling about expense and moaning over his poverty; but you may remark
that he does get the money somehow." And the observation is remarkably
just, Molly; for no matter what distress or distraction he's in, he
does contrive to rub through it; and this convinces me that he is only
deceiving us in talking about his want of means, and so forth. Since I
have discovered this, I never fret the way I used about expense.
It was Lord George that arranged our compact with Mrs. G. "You had
better leave all to me," said he to K. I., "for Mrs. Gore Hampton is a
perfect child about money. She tells that old fool of a courier to put a
hundred pounds in his bag, and he pays away till it's all gone, or till
he says it's gone; and then she gives him another check for the same
amount. So that she's not bored with accounts, nor ever hears of them,
she never cares."
"Of course, then," said I, "her expenses are very great."
"I should say enormous," replied he; "for though personally the simplest
creature on earth, she never objects to the cost of anything."
I hinted that, with our moderate fortune, we should never be able to
maintain a style of living equal to hers; but he stopped me short,
saying, "Don't let that distress you; besides, she has taken such a
fancy for you and Miss Dodd that it would be a downright cruelty to
deny her your companionship; and at this moment, too, when really she
requires sympathy." I was dying to ask on what account, Molly,--was it
that she is a widow, or is she separated, and what?--but I had n't the
courage; nor, indeed, did he give me time, for he went on so fast: "Let
her pay half the expense, it's only fair; she has plenty of tin, and
nothing to do with it Even then she will be a gainer, for old Grégoire
pockets as much as he pays away."
You 'd suppose, Molly, that an arrangement so liberal as this might have
satisfied K. I. Not a bit of it His only remark was, "What 's to be the
amount of the other half?"
"Do you expect to travel about the Continent for nothing, K. I.?" said
I. "Does your experience say that it costs so little?"
"No, faith!" replied he, with that sardonic grin that almost kills me,
"I can't say that."
"Well, then," said I, "is it better for us to go about the world
unnoticed and unknown, or to be visited and received, and made much of
everywhere? The name of Dodd," said I, "is n't a great recommendation;
and there 's some of us, at least, that have n't the exterior of the
first fashion." I wish you saw how he fidgeted when I said this. "And as
the great question is, What did we come abroad for?--"
"Ay, that's exactly it!" cried he, thumping his clenched fist on the
table with a smash that made me scream out. "What did we come abroad
for?"
"There 's no need to drive all the blood to my head, Mr. Dodd," said I,
"to ask that. Though I am accustomed to your violence, my constitution
may sink under it at last; but if you wish to know seriously and calmly
why we came abroad, I 'll tell you."
"Do, then," said he, folding his arms in front of him, "and I'll be
mighty thankful for the information."
"We came abroad," said I, "first of all, for--"
"It was n't economy," said he, with a grin.
"No, not exactly."
"I'm glad of that," cried he. "I'm glad that we've got rid of one
delusion, at least. Now, then, go on."
"Maybe you 'll call refinement a delusion, Mr. Dodd," said I. "Maybe
politeness and good-breeding, the French language and music are
delusions? Is high society a delusion? Is the sphere we move in a
delusion?"
"I am disposed to think it is, Mrs. D.," said he, "and a very great
delusion too. It's like nothing we were ever used to. It is not social,
and it is not friendly. It has nothing to say, nor any concern with a
single topic, or any one theme that we can care for. Do you know one, or
can you even remember the names of any of the princes and princesses
you are always discussing? Do you really care whether Mademoiselle
Zephyrini's pirouette was steadier than Miss Angelina's? Does it concern
you that somebody with a hard name has given the first-class order of
the Pig and Whistle to somebody else, with a harder? Is it the meat
stewed to rags you like, or the reputations with morality boiled out of
them? Is it pleasant to think that, wherever you go, you meet nothing
wholesome for mind or for body? I can stand scandal and wickedness as
well as my neighbors, but I can't spend my life upon them, nor can I
give up the whole day to dominos. You ask me what are delusions, and I
tell you now some things that are not."
But I would n't listen to more, Molly. I stopped him short by saying,
"You, at least, Mr. D., have little reason for your regrets; for really,
in all that regards your manner, language, dress, and demeanor, no one
would ever suspect you had been a day out of Dodsborough."
"I wish to my heart my bank account could tell the same story," says he;
and with that he takes down a file of bills, and begins to read out some
of what he calls his anti-delusions.
"Do you know, Mrs. D.," says he, "that your milliner has got more money
in the last four months than I have spent on my estate for the last
eight years? That Genoa velvet and Mechlin lace have run away with what
would have drained the Low Meadows! Ay, the price of that red turban,
that made you look like Bluebeard, would have put a roof on the
school-house. The priest of our parish at home did n't get as much for
his dues as you gave for a seat to look at a procession in honor of
Saint--Saint--"
"If you 're going to blaspheme, Mr. D.," said I, "I 'll leave you;"and
so I did, Molly, banging the door after me in a way that I know well his
gouty ankle is not the better for.
I mention these particulars to show you the difficulties I have to
contend against, and the struggles it costs me to give my children the
benefits of the Continent. I intended to tell you something about this
place where we are stopping, too; but my head is rambling now on other
matters, so that, maybe, I'll not be able to say much.
It's a university, just like Trinity College in Dublin, only they don't
wear gowns, nor keep within certain buildings, but scatter about over
the whole town. We know several of the young men who are princes, and
more or less related to crowned heads; but for all that, very simple,
quiet, inoffensive creatures as ever you met. Billy Davis, after he was
articled to that attorney in Abbey Street, had more impudence in him
than them all put together.
The place itself is pretty, but I think it does n't suit my
constitution. Maybe it's the running water, for there's a big river
under the windows, but I am never free from cold in my head, and weak
eyes. To be sure, we are always doing imprudent things, such as sitting
out till after midnight in a summer-house, where the young Germans come
to sing for us,--for singing and smoking, Molly, is their two passions.
It's a melancholy kind of music they have, that has no tune whatever,
nor anything like a tune in it; but as Mrs. G. and my daughters agree
that it's beautiful, why, of course, I give in, and say the same. But,
in confidence to you, Molly, I own that it puts me to sleep at once;
and, indeed, most of our other amusements here are of the same kind. We
are either botanizing, or looking for stones and shells, to tell us the
age of the world. Faith! you may well stare, Molly, but it 's truth I 'm
saying, that is what they pretend to find out. They got an elephant's
jawbone the other day, that gave them great delight, and K. I. said, "I
could tell a horse's age by his teeth, but for guessing how old the
earth is by an elephant's grinders is clear beyond me."
[Illustration: 232]
When it rains and we can't go out, we have chemistry at home; but I 'm
always in a fright about the combustibles, and I 'm sure one of these
days we 'll pay for our curiosity. That man that comes to lecture has
n't a bit of eyebrows, and only two fingers on one hand, and half a
thumb on the other; not to say that he sat down one day on a pocketful
of crackers, and blew himself up in a dreadful manner.
If the weather be fine,--and I was near saying, God grant it may n't--we
are to have a course of astronomy every night next week. I can stand
everything, however, better than "moral philosophy and economics." As
to the first of the two, it's not even common-sense. It was only two
evenings ago, they laughed at me for twenty minutes about a remark
that's as true as the Bible.
"What relations does Locke say are least regarded?" says the professor
to me.
"Faith! I know nothing about Locke," says I; "but I know well that the
relations least regarded are poor relations."
As to the economics, if they could enliven it a bit by experiments, as
they do the chemistry, I could bear it well enough; but it's awfully dry
to be always listening to what you can't understand.
This is the way we live at Bonn; and though it's very elevating, I find
it's very depressing to the spirits. But I don't think we'll remain much
longer here, for K. I. is beginning to find out that the sciences are
just as dear as silks and satins; and, as he remarked the other day,
"it would be cheaper to have a dish of asparagus on the table than them
dirty weeds that they are gathering only for the sake of their hard
names."
Of course, when all is settled about the legacy, I 'll not be obliged
to submit to his humors, as I have been up to this. I'll have a voice,
Molly, and I'll take care that it is heard too. I suppose it will come
to a separation yet between us. I own to you, Molly, the "impossibility"
of our tempers will do it at last. Well, when the time comes, I'll be,
as Mrs. G. says, equal to the occasion. I can say, "I brought you
rank, name, and fortune, Kenny Dodd, and I leave you with my character
unvarnished; and maybe both is more than you deserved!"
When I think of where and what I might be, Molly, and see what I am,
I fret for a whole livelong day. And now a word about home before I
conclude. Don't mention a syllable about the legacy to Mat, or he 'll
be expecting a present at Candlemas, and I really can spare nothing.
You can say to Father John that Jones McCarthy is dead, but that nobody
knows how the estate will go. He'll maybe say some masses for him, in
the hope of being paid hereafter by the heir. I'd advise you to keep the
wool back, for they say prices will rise in Ireland, by reason of all
the people leaving it, just as it's described in the Book of Genesis,
Molly, only that Ireland is not Paradise,--that *s the difference.