LETTER VIII. BETTY COBB TO MRS. SHUSAN O"SHEA, PRIEST"S HOUSE, BRUFF
Dear Misses Shusan,--This comes with my heart"s sorrow that I"m not at home where I was bred and born, but livin" abroad like a pelican on a dissolute island, more by token that I never wanted to come, but was persuaded by them that knew nothin" about what they wor talking; but thought it was all figs and lemons and raisins, with green pays and the sun in season all the year round; but, on the contrahery, sich rain and wind I never seen afore; and as for the eating, the saints forgive me if it"s not true, but I b"leve I ate more rats since I "ve come, than ever ould Tib did since she was kittened. The drinkin" "s as bad or worse.
What they call wine is spoilt vinegar; and the vegables has no bone nor eatin" in them at all, but melts away in the mouth like b.u.t.ter in July.
But "t is the wickedness is the worst of all. O Shusan! but the men is bad, and the women worse. Of all the devils ever I heerd of, they bate them: "T is n"t a quiet walk to ma.s.s on Sunday, with maybe a decent boy beside you, discoorsin" or the like, and then sitting under a hedge for the evening, with your ap.r.o.n afore you, talkin" about the praties, or the price of pigs, or maybe the polis; but here "tis dancin" and rompin"
and eatin", with merry-go-rounds, swing-swongs, and skittles all the day long. The dancin" "s dreadful! they don"t stand up fornent other, like a jig, where anything of a dacent partner would n"t so much as look hard at you, but keep minding his steps and humorin" the tune; but they catch each other round the waist--"tis true I am saying--and go huggin" and tearin" about like mad, till they can"t breathe nor spake; and then, the noise! for "tis n"t one fiddle they have, but maybe twenty, with horns and flutes and a murderin" big brown tube, that a man blows into at one side, that makes a sound like the sea among the rocks at Kelper; and that"s dancin", my dear! I got lave from the mistress last Sunday to go out in the evening with Mr. Francis, the currier, as they call him,--a mighty nice man, but a little free in his manners; and we went to the Moelenbeck Gardens, an iligant place, no doubt, with a hundred little tables under the trees, and a flure for dancin" and fireworks and a boat on a lake, with an island in it, where there was a hermit,--a fine-looking ould man, with a beard down to his waist, but, for all that, no better than he ought to be, for he made an offer to kiss me when I was going into the boat, and Mr. Francis laughed at me bekase I was angry. No matter, we went off to a place they call the Temple of Bakis, where there was a fat man, as I thought, stark nakit; but it was flesh-colored web he had on, and he was settin" on a beer-barrel, with a wreath of roses round his head, and looking as drunk as ever I seen; and for half a franc apiece, Bakis pulled out the spiget, and gave you a gla.s.sful of the nicest drink ever was tasted,--warm wine, with nutmeg in it, and cloves, and a taste of mint. I was afeerd to do more nor sup, seein" the place and the croud; but indeed, Shusan, little as I took, it got into my head; and I sat down on the steps of the Temple, and begun to cry about home and Dodsborough; and something came over me that Mr.
Francis did n"t mane well; and so I told everybody that I was a poor Irish girl, and that he was a wicked blaguard; and then the polis came, and there was a shindy! I don"t know how far my head was wrong all the time; and they said that I sung the "Croniawn Dhubh;" maybe I did; but I know that I bate off the polis; and at last they took me away home, when every st.i.tch on me was in ribbins; my iligant bonnet with the green bows as flat as a halfpeny; and the bombazine the mistress gave me, all rags; one of my shoes, too, was lost; and except a handful of hair I tore out of the corporal"s beard, "twas all loss to me.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 100]
This wasn"t the worst; for little Paddy Byrne, that was in bed for a baiting he got "mong the hackney-coachmen, jumped up and flew at Mister Francis for the honor of ould Ireland; and they fit for twenty minutes in the pantry, and broke every bit of gla.s.s and chaney in the house, forbye three lamps and some alyb.a.s.t.a.r.d figures that was put there for safety; and the end of it was, Mr. Francis was discharged, but would n"t take his wages, if the master did n"t pay him half a year in advance, with diet and washing, and his expenses home to Swisserland, wherever that is; and there it is now, and master is in a law-shute, that everybody says will go agin him; for there"s one good thing abroad, Shusan dear, the coorts stands by poor sarvants, and won"t see them wronged by any cruel masters; and maybe it would be taching ould Mister Dodd something, if they made him smart for this!
Ye may think, from all this, that I "d be glad to be back again, and so it is. I cry all day and night, and sorrow stich I do for either the mistress or the young ladies, and maybe at last they "ll see "t is best to send me home. They needn"t begrudge me the thrifle "twould cost, for they"re spending money like mad; and even the mistress, that would skin a flay in Ireland, thinks nothing of layin" out ten or fifteen pounds here of a day. Miss Mary Anne is as bad as the mother, and grown so proud and stand off that I never spake to her. Miss Caroline is what she used to be, barrin" the spirits; to be sure, she has no divarsion and no horse to ride, nor doesn"t be out in the fields as she used, but for all that she bears it better than myself. Mister James is grown a young mau in three weeks, and never pa.s.ses me on the stair without a wink or a look of the same kind; that"s the way the Continent taches good manners!
Mrs. Shusan! oh dear! oh dear! but "tis wishing it I am, the day I come on this incontential tour. If I can"t get back,--though it"s not my fault if I don"t,--send me the pair of strong shoes you "ll find in my hair trunk, and the two petticoats in the corner. If you could get a blade in the big scissors, send it too, and the two bits of dimity I want for mendin". There was some Dandy Lion in a paper, I"d like; for there"s none here, they say, has strength in it. You "ll be able to send me these by somebody coming this way, for I heerd mistress say everybody is travellin" these times. What was it Father Tom used to take for the redness in his nose? mine is tormentin" me dreadful, and though I"m poulticin" it every night with ash-bark, earthworms, and dragon"s blood, I think it"s only worse it"s gettin". Mr. Francis said that I must larn to sleep with my nose higher than my head, though how I"m to do it, the saints alone can tell! No time for more than to say your loving friend,
Betty Cobb.
LETTER IX. KENNY DODD TO THOMAS PURCELL, ESQ.
BELLEVUE, BRUSSELS.
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 G.o.d, 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 crank.u.m 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 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 grat.i.tude! 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 circ.u.mstance 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, m.u.f.fled 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 a.s.sault 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 a.s.sured 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, G.o.d help the wicked!"
The only things like personal amus.e.m.e.nts 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. a.s.sured me so, and gave me to understand that one pays a higher premium for their morality, as they do for their life-a.s.surance, 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 pa.s.sed 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 const.i.tution! "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--G.o.d 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 c.o.c.kroaches in it, and sell it cheap, and I don"t care a bra.s.s 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 n.i.g.g.e.rs 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 n.i.g.g.e.rs 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; "compet.i.tion 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 n.i.g.g.e.r 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, "Franois Tehetuer, born in the canton of Zug, aged thirty-seven years, single, and a Protestant, against Monsieur Kenyidod, natif d"Irlande, prs 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 Franois, 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 gla.s.s 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 "Mmoire" 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 clbres," as Cary calls them,--she is the only one of us has a laugh left in her,--is for the a.s.sault 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 a.s.sure 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 a.s.suredly 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 embarra.s.sed, 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, G.o.d 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.