The Dodd Family Abroad.
Vol. I.
by Charles James Lever.
PREFACE.
Although the faulty judgment of authors on their own productions has a.s.sumed something like the force of a proverb, I am ready to incur the hazard of avowing that the present volume is, to my own thinking, better than anything else I have done. I am not about to defend its numerous shortcomings and great faults. I will not say one word in extenuation of a plan which, to many readers, forms an insuperable objection,--that of a story in letters. I wish simply to record the fact that the book afforded me much pleasure in the writing, and that I felt an amount of interest in the character of Kenny Dodd such as I have never before nor since experienced for any personage of my own creation.
The reader who is at all acquainted with the incidents of foreign travel, and the strange individuals to be met with on every European highway, will readily acquit me of exaggeration either in describing the mistaken impressions conceived of Continental life, or the difficulties of forming anything like a correct estimate of national habits by those whose own sphere of observation was so limited in their own country.
In Kenny Dodd, I attempted to portray a man naturally acute and intelligent, sensible and well judging where his prejudices did not pervert his reason, and singularly quick to appreciate the ridicule of any absurd situation in which he did not figure himself. To all the pretentious ambitions of his family,--to their exaggerated sense of themselves and their station,--to their inordinate desire to figure in a rank above their own, and appear to be something they had never hitherto attempted,--I have made him keenly and sensitively alive. He sees Mrs.
Dodd"s perils,--there is not a sunk rock nor a shoal before her that he has not noted, and yet for the life of him he can"t help booking himself for the voyage. There is an Irishman"s love of drollery,--that pa.s.sion for what gives him a hearty laugh, even though he come in for his share of the ridicule, which repays him for every misadventure. If he is momentarily elated by the high and distinguished company in which he finds himself, so far from being shocked when he discovers them to be swindlers and blacklegs, he chuckles over the blunders of Mrs. D. and Mary Anne, and writes off to his friend Purcell a letter over which he laughs till his eyes run.
Of those broad matters to which a man of good common-sense can apply his faculties fairly, his opinions are usually just and true; he likes truth, he wants to see things as they are. Of everything conventional he is almost invariably in error; and it is this struggle that in a manner reflects the light and shade of his nature, showing him at one moment clear-headed and observant, and at the next absurdly mistaken and ignorant.
It was in no spirit of sarcasm on my countrymen that I took an Irishman to represent these incongruities; nay, more, I will say that in the very liability to be so strongly impressed from without, lies much of that unselfishness which forms that staple of the national character which so greatly recommends them to strangers.
If I do not speak of the other characters of the book, it is because I feel that whatever humble merit the volume may possess is ascribable to the truthfulness of this princ.i.p.al personage. It is less the Dodd family for which I would bespeak the reader"s interest, than for the trials of Kenny Dodd himself, his thoughts and opinions.
Finally, let me observe that this story has had the fortune to be better liked by my friends, and less valued by the public, than any other of my books.
I wrote it, as I have said, with pleasure; well satisfied should I be that any of my readers might peruse it with as much. It was planned and executed in a quiet little cottage in the Gulf of Spezia, something more than six years ago. I am again in the same happy spot; and, as I turn over the pages, not altogether lost to some of the enjoyment they once afforded me in the writing, and even more than before anxious that I should not be alone in that sentiment.
It is in vain, however, for an author to bespeak favor for that which comes not recommended by merits of its own; and if Kenny Dodd finds no acceptance with you on his own account, it is hopeless to expect that he will be served by the introduction of so partial a friend as
Your devoted servant,
CHARLES LEVER.
Marola, Gulf of Spezia,
October 1,1859.
A WORD FROM THE EDITOR.
The Editor of the Dodd Correspondence may possibly be expected to give the Public some information as to the manner by which these Letters came into his possession, and the reasons which led him to publish them.
Happily he can do both without any breach of honorable confidence. The circ.u.mstances were these:--
Mr. Dodd, on his returning to Ireland, pa.s.sed through the little watering-place of Spezzia, where the Editor was then sojourning. They met accidentally, formed acquaintanceship, and then intimacy. Amongst the many topics of conversation between them, the Continent and its habits occupied a very wide s.p.a.ce. Mr. D. had lived little abroad; the Editor had pa.s.sed half of a life there. Their views and judgment were, as might be surmised, not always alike; and if novelty had occasionally misled one, time and habit had not less powerfully blunted the perceptions of the other. The old resident discovered, to his astonishment, that the very opinions which he smiled at from his friend, had been once his own; that he had himself incurred some of the mistakes, and fallen into many of the blunders, which he now ridiculed, and that, so far from the Dodd Family being the exception, they were in reality no very unfair samples of a large cla.s.s of our travelling countrymen. They had come abroad with crude and absurd notions of what awaited them on the Continent. They dreamed of economy, refinement, universal politeness, and a profound esteem for England from all foreigners. They fancied that the advantages of foreign travel were to be obtained without cost or labor; that locomotion could educate, sight-seeing cultivate them; that in the capacity of British subjects every society should be open to them, and that, in fact, it was enough to emerge from home obscurity to become at once recognized in the fashionable circles of any Continental city.
They not only entertained all these notions, but they held them in defiance of most contradictory elements. They practised the most rigid economy when professing immense wealth; they affected to despise the foreigner while shunning their own countrymen; they a.s.sumed to be votaries of art when merely running over galleries; and lastly, while laying claim, and just claim, for their own country to the highest moral standard of Europe, they not unfrequently outraged all the proprieties of foreign life by an open and shameless profligacy. It is difficult to understand how a mere change of locality can affect a man"s notions of right and wrong, and how Cis-Alpine evil may be Trans-Alpine good. It is very hard to believe that a few parallels of lat.i.tude can affect the moral thermometer; but so it is, and so Mr. Dodd honestly confessed he found it. He not only avowed that he could do abroad what he could not dare to do at home, but that, worse still, the infraction cost no sacrifice of self-esteem, no self-reproach. It was not that these derelictions were part of the habits of foreign life, or at least of such of it as met the eye; it was, in reality, because he had come abroad with his own preconceived ideas of a certain lat.i.tude in morals, and was resolved to have the benefit of it. Such inconsistency in theory led, naturally, to absurdity in action, and John Bull became, in consequence, a mark for every trait of eccentricity that satirists could describe, or caricaturists paint.
The gradations of rank so rigidly defined in England are less accurately marked out abroad. Society, like the face of the soil, is not enclosed by boundaries and fenced by hedgerows, but stretches away in boundless undulations of unlimited extent. The Englishman fancies there are no boundaries, because he does not see the landmarks. Since all seems open, he imagines there can be no trespa.s.s. This is a serious mistake! Not less a one is, to connect t.i.tle with rank. He fancies that n.o.bility represents abroad the same pretensions which it maintains in England, and indignantly revenges his own blunder by calumniating in common every foreigner of rank.
Mr. Dodd fell into some of these errors; from others he escaped. Most, indeed, of his mistakes were those inseparable from a false position; and from the acuteness of his remarks in conversation, it is clear that he possessed fair powers of observation, and a mind well disposed to receive and retain the truth. One quality certainly his observations possessed,--they were "his own." They were neither worked out from the Guide-book, nor borrowed from his _Laquais de Place_. They were the honest convictions of a good ordinary capacity, sharpened by the habits of an active life. It was with sincere pleasure the Editor received from him the following note, which reached him about three weeks after they parted:--
"DODSBOROUGH, BRUFF.
"My dear Harry Lorrequer,--I have fished up all the Correspondence of the Dodd Family during our _Annus Mirabilis_ abroad, and send it to you with this. You have done some queer pranks at Editorship before now, so what would you say to standing Sponsor to us all, foundlings as we are in the world of letters? I have a notion in my head that we were n"t a bit more ridiculous than nine-tenths of our travelling countrymen, and that, maybe, our mistakes and misconceptions might serve to warn such as may come after us over the same road. At all events, use your own discretion on the matter, but say nothing about it when you write to me, as Mrs. D. reads all my letters, and if she knew we were going to print her, the consequences would be awful!
"You "ll be glad to hear that we got safe back here,--Tuesday was a week,--found everything much as usual,--farming stock looking up, pigs better than ever I knew them. I have managed to get James into the Police, and his foreign airs and graces are bringing him into the tip-top society of the country. Purcell tells me that we "ll be driven to sell Dodsborough in the Estates Court, and I suppose it "s the best thing after all, for we can buy it in, and clear off the mortgages that was the ruin of us.
"When everything is settled, I have an idea of taking a run through the United States, to have a peep at Jonathan. If so, you shall hear from me.
"Meanwhile, I am yours, very faithfully,
"Kenny I. Dodd.
"Do you know any Yankees, or could you get me a few letters to some of their noticeable men? for I "d like to have an opportunity of talk with them."
The Editor at once set about the inspection of the doc.u.ments forwarded to him, and carefully perused the entire correspondence; nor was it until after a mature consideration that he determined on accepting the responsible post which Mr. Dodd had a.s.signed to him.
He who edits a Correspondence, to a certain extent is a.s.sumed to be a concurring party, if not to the statements contained in it, at least to its general tone and direction. It is in vain for him to try and hide his own shadow behind the foreground figure of the picture, or merge his responsibility in that of his princ.i.p.al. The reader will hold him chargeable for opinions that he has made public, and for sentiments which, but for his intervention, had slept within the drawer of a cabinet. This is more particularly the case where the sentiments recorded are not those of any great thinker or high authority amongst men whose _dicta_ may be supposed capable of standing the test of a controversy, on the mere strength of him who uttered them. Now, unhappily, the Dodd Family have not as yet produced one of these gifted individuals. Their views of the world, as they saw it in a foreign tour, are those of persons of very moderate capacity, with very few special opportunities for observation. They wrote in all the frankness of close friendship to those with whom they were most intimately allied. They uttered candidly what they felt acutely. They chronicled their sorrows, their successes, their triumphs, and their shame. And although experience did teach them something as they went, their errors tracked them to the last. It cannot be expected, then, that the Editor is prepared to back their opinions and uphold their notions, nor is he blamable for the judgments they have p.r.o.nounced on many points. It is true, it was open to him to have retrenched this and suppressed that. He might have cancelled a confession here, or blotted out an avowal there; but had he done so in one Letter, the allusion contained in some other might have been pointless,--the distinctive character of the writer lost; and what is of more moment than either, a new difficulty engendered, viz., what to retain where there was so much to retrench.
Besides this, Mrs. D. is occasionally wrong where K. I. is right, and it is only by contrasting the impressions that the value of the judgments can be appreciated.
It is not in our present age of high civilization that an Editor need fear the charge of having divulged family secrets, or made the private history of domestic life a subject for public commentary. Happily, we live in a period of enlightenment that can defy such petty slanders.
Very high and t.i.tled individuals have shown themselves superior to similar accusations, and if the "Dodds" can in any wise contribute to the amus.e.m.e.nt or instruction of the world, they may well feel recompensed for an exposure to which others have been subjected before them.
As in all cases of this kind, the Editor"s share has been of the very lightest. It would not have become him to have added anything either of explanation or apology to the contents of these Letters. Even when a word or two might have served to correct a mistaken impression, he has preferred to leave the obvious task to the reader"s judgment to obtrusively making himself the means of interpretation. In fact, he has had little to do beyond opening the door and announcing the company, and his functions cease when this duty is accomplished. It would be alike ungracious and ungrateful in him, however, were he to retire without again thanking those kind and indulgent friends who have so long and so warmly welcomed him.
With no higher ambition in life than to be the servant of that same Public, nor any more ardent desire than to merit well at their hands, he writes himself, as he has so often had occasion to do before, but at no time more sincerely than now,
Their very devoted and faithful servant,
THE EDITOR.
THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD
LETTER I. TO MR. THOMAS PURCELL, OF THE GRANGE, BRUFF
Htel Des Bains, Ostend.
Dear Tom,--Here we are at last,--as tired and seasick a party as ever landed on the same sh.o.r.e! Twenty-eight hours of it, from the St.
Katharine Docks, six of them bobbing opposite Margate in a fog,--ringing a big bell all the time, and firing minute-guns, lest some thumping India-man or a homeward-bound Peninsular should run into us,--and five more sailing up and down before Ostend, till it was safe to cross the bar, and enter the blackguard little harbor. The "Phoenix"--that was our boat--started the night before the "Paul Jones" mail-packet, and we only beat her by a neck, after all! And this was a piece of Mrs. Dodd"s economy: the "Phoenix" only charges "ten-and-six" for the first cabin; but, what with the board for a day and night, boats to fetch you out, and boats to fetch you in, brandy-and-water against the sickness,--much good it was!--soda-water, stewards, and the devil knows what of broken crockery,--James fell into the "cuddy," I think they call it, and smashed two dozen and three wine-gla.s.ses, the most of a blue tea-service, and a big tureen,--the economy turned out a "delusion and a snare," as they say in the House. It "s over now, thank G.o.d! and, except some bruises against the bulkheads and a touch of a jaundice, I "m nothing the worse. We landed at night, and were marched off in a gang to the Custom House. Such a time I never spent before! for when they upset all our things on the floor, there was no getting them into the trunks again; and so we made our way through the streets, with shawls and m.u.f.fs and silk dresses all round us, like a set of play-actors. As for me, I carried a turban in one hand, and a tray of artificial flowers in the other, with a toque on my head and a bird-of-paradise feather in my mouth. James fell, crossing the plank, with three bran-new frocks and a bonnet of the girls", and a thing Mrs. D. calls a "visite,"--egad, they made a visite of it, sure enough, and are likely to stay some time there, for they are under some five feet of black mud, that has lain there since before the memory of man. This was n"t the worst of it; for Mrs. D., not seeing very well in the dark, gave one of the pa.s.sport people a box on the ear that she meant for poor Paddy, and we were hauled up before the police, and made pay thirty francs for "insulting the authorities," with something written on our pa.s.sport, besides, describing my wife as a dangerous kind of woman, that ought to be looked after. Poor Mathews had a funny song, that ran,--
"If ever you travel, it must n"t seem queer That you sometimes get rubs that you never get here."
But, faith, it appears to me that we have fallen in with a most uncommon allowance of friction. Perhaps it"s all for the best; and by a little roughing at first, we"ll the sooner accustom ourselves to our new position.