The Dodd Family Abroad, Vol. I

And there isn't any good-nature in it; not a bit. It's not good-heartedness, nor kindness, nor amiability. I don't believe a word of it; because the chap that does it isn't thinking of you at all, – he 's only minding himself; he 's fancying how he 's delighting you, or captivating your wife or your sister-in-law; or, if it's a woman, she wants to fascinate or make a fool of you.

The real and essential difference between us and all foreigners is that they are always thinking of what effect they are producing; they never for a single moment forget that there is an audience. Now we, on the contrary, never remember it. Life with them is a drama, in all the blaze of wax-lights and a crowded house; with us, it's a day-rehearsal, and we slip about, mumbling our parts, getting through the performance, unmindful of all but our own share in it.

More than half of what is attributed to rudeness and unsociality in us, springs out of the simple fact that we do not care to obtrude even our politeness when there seems no need of it. Our civilities are like a bill of exchange, that must represent value one day or other. Theirs are like the gilt markers on a card-table: they have a look of money about them, but are only counterfeit. Perhaps this may explain why our women like the Continent so much better than ourselves. All this mock interchange of courtesy amuses and interests them; it only worries us.

To come back to Vickars. He 'll do nothing for James. His "own list is quite full;" he "has mentioned his name," he says, "to the Secretary for the Colonies," and will speak of him "at the Home Office." But I know what that means. The party is safe for the present, and don't need our dirty voices for many a day to come. It's distressing me to find out what to do with him. Can you get me any real information about the gold diggings? Is it a thing that would suit him? His mother, I know well, would never consent to the notion of his working with his hands; but, upon my conscience, if it's his head he's to depend on, he'll fare worse! He is very good-looking, six foot one and a half, strong as a young bull; and to ride an unbroken horse, drive a fresh team, to shoot a snipe, or book a salmon, I 'll back him against the field. I hear, besides, he 's a beautiful cue at billiards. But what's the use of all these at the Board of Trade, if he had even the luck to get there? Many 's the time I 've heard poor old Lord Kilmahon say that an Irish education was n't worth a groat for England; and I now see the force of the remark.

Not but he 's working hard every day, with French and fortification and military surveying, with a fine old officer that served in the wars of the Empire, – Captain de la Bourdonaye, – a regular old soldier of Bony's day, that hates the English as much as any Irishman going. He comes and sits with me now and then of an evening, but there 's not much society in it, since we can't understand each other. We have a bottle of rum and some cigars between us, and our conversation goes on somewhat in this fashion: —

"Help yourself, Mounseer."

A grin and bow, and something mumbled between his teeth.

"Take a weed?"

We smoke.

"James is getting on well, I hope? Mon fils James improving, eh? Grand general one of these days, eh?"

"Oui, oui." Fills and drinks.

"Another Bonaparte, I suppose?"

"Ah! le grand homme" Wipes his eyes, and looks up to the ceiling.

"Well, we thrashed him for all that! Faith, we made him dance in Spain and Portugal. What do you say to Talavera and Vittoria?"

Swears like a trooper, and rattles out whole volumes of French, with gestures that are all but blows. I wait till it 's over, and just say "Waterloo!"

This nearly drives him crazy, and he forgets to put water in his glass; and off he goes about Waterloo in a way that's dreadful to look at. I suppose, if I understood him, I 'd break his neck; but as I don't, I only go on saying "Waterloo" at intervals; but every time I utter it, he has to blow off the steam again. When the rum is finished, he usually rushes out of the room, gnashing his teeth, and screaming something about St. Helena. But it 's all over the next day, and he 's as polite as ever when we meet, – grins, and hands me his tin snuff-box with the air of an emperor. They 're a wonderful people, Tom; and though they 'd murder you, they 'd never forget to make a bow to your corpse.

You may imagine, from what I tell you, that I am very lonely here; and so I am. I never meet anybody I can speak to; I never see any newspaper I can read! I eat things without knowing the names of them, or, what's worse, what they are; and all this I must do for economy, while I could live for less than one-half the expense at Dodsburough!

Mary Anne has just come to say that the doctors are agreed Mrs. D. must be removed; the noise of the town will destroy her. My only surprise is that she did n't discover it sooner. They speak of a place called Chaude Fontaine, seven miles away, and of a little watering-place called Spa. But I 'll not budge an inch till I have all the particulars, for I know well they 're all dying to be at the old work again, – tea-parties, and hired horses, and polkas, in the evening, and the rest of it. Lord George has arrived at Liège, and I would n't be astonished if he was at the bottom of it all; not but he behaved well in James's business. To deal with a Jew there 's nothing in the world like one of your young sprigs of nobility! Moses does n't care a bulrush for you or me; but when he hears of a Lord Charles or Lord Augustus, he alters his tone. It is that class which supplies his customers, and he dares not outrage them.

I wish you saw the way he managed our friend Lazarus! He would n't look into his statement, read one of his accounts, or even bestow a glance at the bills.

"I 'm up to all those dodges, Lazzy," said he; "it's no use coming that over me. What 'll you do it for?"

"Ah, my good Lord Shorge, you know better as me, that we cannot give away our moneys. Here are all the bills – "

"Don't care for that, Lazzy, – won't look at 'em. What 'll you do it for?"

"If I lend my moneys at a fair per shent – "

"Well, what's the figure to be? Say it at once, or I'm off."

"You 'll shurely look at my claims – "

"Not one of them."

"Nor the bills."

"No."

"Nor the vouchers?"

"No."

"Oh dear! oh dear! how hard you are grown; and you so young and so handsome, so little like – "

"Never mind the resemblance, but answer me. How much?"

"It 's impossible, my Lord Shorge!" "Will two hundred do? Well, two fifty?" "No, nor twelve fifty, my Lord. I will have my claim." "That 's what I want to come at, Lazzy. How much?" This process goes on for half an hour, without any apparent result on either side; when, at last, Lord George, taking out his pocket-book, proceeds to count various bank-notes on the table. The effect is magical; the sight of the money melts Lazarus, – he hesitates, and gives in. Of course his compliance does not cost him much; fifty per cent is the very lowest we escape for! But even at this, Tom, our bargain is a good one.

I see it all, Tom; they are bent on getting to a watering-place, and that's exactly the very thing I won't stand. Our Irish notions on these subjects are all taken from Bundoran, or Kilkee, or Dunmore, or some such localities; and where, to say the least, there is not a great deal to find fault with. Tiresome they are enough; and, after a week or so, one gets wearied of always walking over ankles in deep sand, listening to the plash of the tide, or the less musical squall of some half-drowned baby, or sitting on a rock to watch some miraculous draught of fishes, that is sure to be sent off some twenty miles into the interior. These, and occasional pictorial studies of your acquaintances, in all the fascinations of oil-skin caps and wet drapery, tire at last. But they are cheap pleasures, Tom; and, as the world goes, that is something.

Now, from all I can learn, for I know nothing of them myself, your foreign watering-place is just a big city taking an airing. The self-same habits of dress, late hours, play, dancing, debt, and dissipation; the great difference being that wickedness is cultivated in straw hats and Russia-duck, instead of its more conventional costume of black coat and trousers! From my own brief experience of life, I think a garden by moonlight is just as dangerous as a conservatory with colored lamps; and a polka in public is less perilous than a mountain excursion, even on donkeys! They 'll not catch me at that game, Tom!

I have just discovered in "Cochrane's Guide" – for I have burned my "John Murray" – the very place to suit me, – Bonn on the Rhine. He says it has a pleasant appearance, and contains 1,300 houses and 15,000 inhabitants, and that the Star, kept by one Schmidt, is reasonable, and that he speaks English, and takes in the "Galignani," – two evidences of civilization not to be despised.

I think I see you smile; but that's the fact, – we come abroad to hunt after somebody we can talk to, or find a newspaper we can read, making actual luxuries of what we had every day at home for nothing.

Besides these, Bonn has a university, and that will be a great thing for James, and masters of various kinds for the girls; but, better than all this, there's no society, no balls, no dinners, no theatre. The only places of public amusement are the Cathedral and the Anatomy House; and even Mrs. D. will be puzzled to get up a jinketing in them.

I 'll write to Schmidt this evening about rooms, and I 'll show him that we are not to be "done," like your newly arrived Bulls; for I won't pay more than "four-and-six" a head for dinner; and plenty it is too. I wish we could have remained here; but now that the doctors have decided against it, there's no help. It is not that I liked the place, – Heaven knows I have no right to be pleased with it, – but I 'll tell you one great advantage about it: it was actually "breaking them all in to hate the Continent;" another month of this tinkering din, this tiresome table d'hote, and wearisome existence, and I 'd wager a trifle they 'd agree to any terms to get away. You 'd not believe your eyes if you saw how they are altered. The girls so thin, and no color in their cheeks; James as lank as a greyhound, and always as if half asleep; and myself, pluffy and full and short-winded, irascible about everything, and always thirsty, without anything wholesome to drink. But I 'd bear it all, Tom, for the result, or for what I at least expect the result would be. I 'd submit to it like a course of physic, looking to the cure for my recompense.

Shall I now tell you, Tom, that I have my misgivings about Mrs. D.'s illness? I was passing the lobby last night, and I heard her laughing as heartily as ever she did in her life, though it was only two hours before she had sent down for the man of the house to witness her will. To be sure, she always does make a will whenever she takes to bed; but this time she went further, and had a grand leave-taking of us all, which I only escaped by being wrapped up in blankets, under the "influence," as the doctors call it, of "tartarized antimony," of which I partook, to satisfy her scruples, before she would taste it. If I have to perform much longer as a pilot balloon, Tom, I 'm thinking I 'm very likely to explode.

As for one word of truth from the doctors, I 'm not such a fool as to expect it. The priest or the physician that attends your wife always seems to regard you as a natural enemy. If he happen to be well bred, he conducts himself with all the observance due to a distinguished opponent; but no confidence, Tom, – nothing candid. He never forgets that he is engaged for the "opposite party."

Your foreign doctor, too, is a dreadful animal. He has not the bland look, the soft smile, the noiseless slide, the snowy shirt-frill, and the tender squeeze of the hand, of our own fellows, every syllable of whose honeyed lips seems like a lenitive electuary made vocal. He is a mean, scrubby, little, damp-looking chap, not unlike the bit of dirty cotton in the bottom of an ink-bottle, the incarnation of black draught and a bitter mixture. He won't poison you, however, for his treatment ranges between dill-water and syrup of gum; in fact, to use the expressive phrase of the French, he only comes to "assist" at your death, and not to cause it. I have remarked that homoopathic fellows are more attentive to the outward man than the others, whatever be the reason. Their beards and whiskers are certainly not cut on the infinitesimal principle, and, assuredly, flattery is one of the medicaments they never administer in small doses. By the way, Tom, I wish this same theory could be applied to the distresses of a man's estate as well as that of his body. It would be a right comfortable thing to pay off one's mortgagees with fractional parts of a halfpenny, and get rid of one's creditors on the "decillionth" scale.

I have now finished my paper, and I have just discovered that I have not answered one of your questions about home affairs; but, after all, does it matter much, Tom? Things in Ireland go their own way, however we may strive to direct and control them. In fact, I am half disposed to think we ought to manage our business on the principle that our countryman drove his pig, – turning his head towards Cork because he wanted him to go to Fermoy! Look at us at this moment. We never were so thoroughly divided as since we have enjoyed the benefits of a united education!

If Tullylicknaslatterley must be sold, see that it is soon done; for if we put it off till November, the boys will be shooting somebody, or doing some infernal folly or other, that will take five years off the purchase-money. These Manchester fellows are always so terrified at what is called an outrage! Sure, if they had the least knowledge of the doctrine of chances, they 'd see that the estate where a man was shot was exactly the place there would be no more mischief for many a year to come. The only spot where accidents are always recurring is the drop in front of a jail.

Try and persuade the Englishman to take Dodsborough for another year. Tell him Ireland is looking up, prices are improving, &c. If he be Hibernian in his leanings, show him how teachable Paddy is, – how disposed to learn, and how grateful for instruction. If he be bitten by the "Times," tell him that the Irish are all emigrating, and that in three years there will neither be a Pat, a priest, nor a potato to be seen. As old Fitzgibbon used to say on our circuit, "I wish I had a hundred pounds to argue it either way!"

I can manage to keep afloat for a couple of weeks, but be sure to remit me something by that time.

Yours, ever sincerely,

Kenny I. Dodd.

LETTER XIV. JAMES DODD TO ROBERT DOOLAN, ESQ., TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN

Liège, Tuesday Morning

My dear Bob, – A thousand pardons for not answering either of your two last letters. It was not, believe me, that I have not felt the most sincere interest in all that you tell me about yourself and your doings. Far from it: I finished two bottles of Hock in honor of your Science Premium, and I have called a short-tailed hack Bob, after you, though, unfortunately, she happens to be a mare.

Mine has been rather a varied kind of existence since I wrote last. A little in the draught-board style, only that the black checkers have rather predominated! I got "hit hard" at the Brussels races, lost twelve hundred at écarté, and had some ugly misadventures arising out of a too liberal use of my autograph. The governor, however, has stumped up, and though the whole affair was serious enough at one time, I fancy that we are at length over the stiff country, and with nothing but grass fields and light cantering laud before us.

The greatest inconvenience of the whole has been that we 've been laid up here, "dismasted and in ordinary," for the last three weeks, during which my mother has made a steeple-chase through the Pharmacopoeia, and the governor finished all the Schiedam in the town. In fact, there has been nothing very serious the matter with her; but as we left the capital under rather unpleasant circumstances, we came in here to "blow off our steam," and cool down to a reasonable temperature. To reduce the budget and retrench expenditure, the choice was probably not a bad one, since we are housed, fed, and done for on the most reasonable terms; but the place is a perfect disgust, and there is actually nothing for a man to do, except to poke into steam-engines and prove gun-barrels.

As for me, I never leave my room from breakfast till table d'hôte hour. My French master comes at eleven and stays till four. This sounds all very diligent and studious, and so thinks the governor, Bob. The real state of the case is, however, different. The distinguished officer of the Old Guard engaged to instruct me in military science and mathematics is an old hairdresser, who combines with his functions of barber the honorable duties of laquais de place and police spy, occasionally taking a turn at the "scholastic" whenever he is lucky enough to find any English illiterate enough to be his dupes. The governor heard of him from the master of the hotel, and took him especially for his cheapness. Such is the Captain de la Bourdonaye, who swaggers upstairs every morning with a red ribbon in his button-hole, and a curling-iron in his pocket; for I take good care, Bob, that as he cannot furnish the inside of my head, he shall at least decorate it without.

I must say this is a most nefarious old rascal, and I have heard of more villany from him than I ever knew before. He knows all the scandal and gossip of the town, and retails it with an almost diabolical raciness. As I have already made use of him in various ways, we are bound to each other in the very heaviest of recognizances. He brought me yesterday a note from Lord George, who had just arrived here, but judged better not to see me till he had called on the governor. The Captain was once Lord G.'s courier, and, I believe, the chief mentor of his earlier Continental experiences.

Lord George has behaved like a trump to me. He has brought away from Brussels all my traps, which, in the haste of my retreat, I had fancied fallen into the hands of the enemy. The brown mare Bob, a neatish dennet, two sets of single harness, a racing saddle, a lady's ditto, three chests of toggery, all my pipes and canes, and a bull-terrier, – the whole of which would have to-day been the chattels of Lazarus, had not Lord G. made out a bill of sale of them to himself, and got two "respectable" advocates to swear they were witnesses to it. The fun of this is, Lazarus saw all the knavery, and Tiverton never denied it! The most rascally transactions are dashed with such an air of frankness and candor, that, hang me! if one can regard them as transportable offences! I know all this would be infamous in England, – it would n't be quite right even in Ireland, Bob, – but here we are abroad, and the latitude warps morality just as the vicinity to the pole affects the compass.

I have learned from Lord George that there are to be races at a place called Spa, about twelve miles off, and that if Bob were in training we might do a good thing among "les gentlemen riders," who certainly ride like neither gents nor jocks. George slipped his knee-cap at a gate the other day, and cannot ride; and how I am to get away from this for an entire day without the governor's knowledge, is more than I can see. I have told the Captain, however, that he must manage it somehow, or I 'll turn king's evidence and betray him; so that the case is not yet hopeless. Bob is exactly the kind of thing to walk into these fellows. She 's very nearly thoroughbred, but has a cock-tailed look about her, and, with a hogged mane and a short dock, is only, to all appearance, a clever hackney. I know well that these foreigners have got first-rate cattle, – they buy the very best of horses, and the smartest carriages of London; but what avails it? They can neither ride nor drive! They curb up a thoroughbred so that he 's thrown clean out of his stride, and they clap the saddle on his withers so that he is certain to come smash down if he tries to cross a furrow. You can imagine what hands they have, when I tell you that they all hold on by the head! Lord G., however, who knows them well, says that there 's no use in bringing over a good horse against them. They are confoundedly cautious, and what they lack in skill they make up in cunning; and if they heard of anything that ran second at Goodwood or Chester, they 'd "shut up" at once. It's only a "dodge" will do, he says, and I am certain nobody knows better than he does.

Whenever they get pluck enough for hurdle-racing, there will be some money to be picked up abroad; but the prosperity won't last, for when one fellow breaks his neck there will be an end of it.

I 'll not close this till I can tell you the success of our scheme for the races. Meanwhile to your questions, which, to make short work of, I 'll answer all at once. It's all very fine to talk about studying, and the learned professions; but how many succeed in them? Three or four swells carry off the stakes, and the rest are nowhere! Let me tell you, Bob, that the fellows that really do best in life never knew trade nor profession, except you can call Tattersall's yard a lecture-room, and short-whist a calling. There 's Collingwood 's got two hundred thousand with his wife; Upton, he 's netted thirty on the last Derby, and stands to win at least twelve more on the Spring Meeting. Brook – Shallow Brook, as you used to call him at school – has been deep enough to break the bank at Hamburg! I just wish you 'd show me one of your University dons who could do any one of the three! If it came to a trial of wits, the heads of houses would n't have houses over their heads. Believe me, Bob, the poet was right, – "The proper study of mankind is man!" and if he add thereto a little knowledge of horseflesh, there's no fear of him in this life!

Look at the thing in another light too. The Church is only open to the Protestants; the bar is, then, the sole profession with great rewards; for as to the army and navy, they may do to spend money in and leave when you 're sick of them, but nothing else. Now the bar is awful labor, – ten or twelve hours a day for three or four years, as many more in a special pleader's office, six years after that reporting for the newspapers; and, perhaps, after three or four struggling terms you drop off out of the course altogether, and are only heard of as writing a threatening letter to Lord John Russell, or as our "own Correspondent at Tahiti"!

As to physic, "I throw it to the dogs." It's not a gentlemanly calling! So long as a fellow can rout you out of bed at night for a guinea, it's all nonsense to talk about independence. Your doctor has n't even the cabman's privilege to higgle for a trifle more. Real liberty, Bob, consists in having no craft whatsoever. Like the free lances in the sixteenth century, take a turn of service wherever it suits you, but wear no man's livery. As Lord George remarks, whenever a fellow takes to that line of life the men are all afraid, and the women all delighted with him; he's so sure with his pistol and so lax in his principles, nothing obstructs his progress.

This same glorious independence I am like enough to attain, since up to this moment I am a perfect gentleman, according to Lord George's definition; nor could I, by any means that I know of, support myself for twenty-four hours. You would probably remark that so blank a prospect ought to alarm me. Not a bit of it! I never felt more thoroughly confident and at ease than now as I write these lines. George's theory is this: Life is a round game, with some skill and a vast amount of hazard; the majority of the players are dupes, who, some from inattention, some from deficient ability, and others, again, from utter indifference, are easy victims to the few shrewd and clever fellows that never neglect a chance, and who know when to back their luck. "Do not be too eager," says George, – "do not be over-anxious to play, but just walk about and watch the game for a year or so, and only cut in when it suits you. By that time you have mastered the peculiar style of every man's play. You are up to all their weaknesses, and aware of where their strength lies; and if you can only afford to lose a little cash yourself at the start, and pass for a pigeon, your fortune is made!" This, of course, is but a sorry sketch of his system; for, after all, it requires his own dashing description, his figurative manner, and his flow of illustration, to make the thing intelligible. He is, in reality, a first-rate fellow, and may be what he chooses. All that I know of life I owe to his teaching; and I own to you I was in the "lowest form" when he began with me.