The Dodd Family Abroad, Vol. I. Lynde Francis
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see one of them, for the curiosity of the thing. He asks me to give him my opinion of the document, and the "benefit of my advice and counsel," as if I had not been reading the very same productions since I was a child. The very phraseology is unaltered. Why can't they hit on something new? He "hopes that he restores to them, unsullied, the high trust they had committed to his keeping." Egad! if he does so, he ought to get a patent for taking out spots, stains, and discolorations, for a dirtier garment than our representative mantle has been, would be hard to find. Like all our patriots that sit in Whig company, he is sorely puzzled between his love for Ireland and his regard for himself, and has to limit his political line to a number of vague threats about overgrown Church Establishments and Landlord tyranny, not being quite sure how far his friends in power are disposed to worry the Protestants and grind the gentry.
Of course be batters up the pastors of the people; but he might as well leave that alone; the priests are too cunning for all that balderdash nowadays. They'll insist on something real, tangible, and substantial. What they say is this: "The landlords used to have it all their own way at one time. Our day is come now." And there they're right, Tom; there's no doubt of it. O'Connell said true when he told the English, "Ye're always abusing me, – and call me the 'curse of Ireland' and the destroyer of the public peace, – but wait a bit. I 'll not be five years in my grave till you 'd wish me back again." There never was anything more certain. So long as you had Dan to deal with, you could make your bargain, – it might be, it often was, a very hard one, – but when it was once made, he kept the terms fairly and honestly! But with whom will you treat now? Is it with M'Hale, or Paul Cullen, or Dr. Meyler? Sure each of them will demand separate and specific conditions, and you might as well try to settle the Caffre war by a compact with Sandilla, who, the moment he sells himself to you, enters into secret correspondence with his successor.
I'm never so easy in my mind as when I see the English in a row with the Catholics. I don't care a brass farthing how much it may go against us at first, – how enthusiastically they may yell "No Popery," burn cardinals in effigy, and persecute the nuns. Give them rope enough, Tom, and see if they don't hang themselves! There never came a fit of rampant Protestantism in England that all the weak, rash, and ridiculous zealots did n't get to the head of the movement. Off they go at score, subsidizing renegade vagabonds of our Church to abuse us, raking up bad stories of conventual life, and attacking the confessional. There never were gulls like them! They swallow all the cases of cruelty and persecution at once, – they foster every scoundrel, if he's only a deserter from us, – ay, and they even take to their fireplaces the filthiest novels of Eugene Sue, if he only satisfies their rancorous hate of a Jesuit. And where does it end? I'll tell you. Their converts turn out to be scoundrels too infamous for common contact; their prosecutions fail, – why would n't they, when we get them up ourselves? – John Bull gets ashamed of himself; round comes the Press, and that's the moment when any young rising Catholic barrister in the House can make his own terms, whether it be to endow the true Church or to smash the false one!
As for John Bull, he never can do mischief enough when he 's in a passion, but he's always ready to pay double the damage in the morning. And as for putting "salt on our tails," let him try it with the "Dove of Elphin," that 's all.
I was forgetting to tell you that I sent back Vickars's address, only remarking that I was sorry not to know his sentiments about the Board of Trade. Ver. sap.
LETTER X. CAROLINE DODD TO MISS COX, AT MISS MINCING'S ACADEMY
My dear Miss Cox, – I have long hesitated and deliberated with myself whether it were not better to appear ungrateful for my silence, than by writing inflict you with a very tiresome, good-for-nothing epistle; and if I have now taken the worst counsel, it is because I prefer anything rather than seem forgetful of one to whom I owe so much as to my dear, kind governess. Were I only to tell you of our adventures and mishaps since we came abroad, there might, perhaps, be enough to fill half a dozen letters; but I greatly doubt if the theme would amuse you. You were always too good-natured to laugh at anything where there was even one single feature that suggested sorrow; and I grieve to say that, however ludicrously many of our accidents might read, there is yet mixed with them too much that is painful and distressing. You will say this is a very gloomy opening, and from one whom you had so often to chide for the wild gayety of her spirits; but so it is: I am sad enough now, – sadder than ever you wished to see me. It is not that I am not in the very midst of objects full of deep interest, – it is not that I do not recognize around me scenes, places, and names, all of which are imbued with great and stirring associations. I am neither indifferent nor callous, but I see everything through a false medium, and I hear everything with a perverted judgment; in a word, we seem to have come abroad, not to derive the advantages that might arise from new sources of knowledge in language, literature, and art, but to scramble for a higher social position, – to impose ourselves on the world for something that we have no pretension to, and to live in a way that we cannot afford. You remember us at Dodsborough, – how happy we were, how satisfied with the world; that is, with our world, for it was a very little one. We were not very great folk, but we had all the consideration as if we were; for there were none better off than ourselves, and few had so many opportunities of winning the attachment of all classes. Papa was always known as the very best of landlords, mamma had not her equal for charity and kindness, James was actually adored by the people, and I hesitate not to say that Mary Anne and myself were not friendless. There was a little daily round of duties that brought us all together in our cares and sympathies; for, however different our ages or tastes, we had but one class of subjects to discuss, and, happily, we saw them always with the same light and shadow. Our life was, in short, what fashionable people would have deemed a very vulgar, inglorious kind of existence; but it was full of pleasant little incidents, and a thousand little cares and duties, that gave it abundant variety and interest. I was never a quick scholar, as you know too well. I have tried my dear Miss Cox's patience sorely and often, but I loved my lessons; I loved those calm hours in the summer-house, with the perfume of the rose and the sweetbrier around us, and the hum of the bee mingling its song with my own not less drowsy French. That sweet "Telemachus," so easy and so softly sounding; that good Madame de Genlis, so simple-minded when she thought herself most subtle! Not less did I love the little old schoolroom of a winter's day, when the pattering rain streamed down the windows, and gave, by contrast, all the aspect of more comfort within. How pleasant was it, as we gathered round the turf fire, to think that we were surrounded with such appliances against gloomy hours, – the healthful exercise of happy minds! Ah, my dear Miss Cox, how often you told us to study hard, since that, once launched upon the great sea of life, the voyage would exact all our cares; and yet see, here am I upon that wide ocean, and already longing to regain the quiet little creek, – the little haven of rest that I quitted!
I promised to be very candid with you, to conceal nothing whatever; but I did not remember that my confessions, to be thus frank, must necessarily involve me in remarks on others, in which I may be often unjust, – in which I am certain to be unwarranted, – since nothing in my position entitles me to be their censor. However, I will keep my pledge this once, and you will tell me afterwards if I should continue to observe it. And now to begin. We are living here as though we were people of vast fortune. We occupy the chief suite of apartments at the first hotel, and we have a carriage, with showy liveries, a courier, and are quite beset with masters of every language and accomplishment you can fancy, – expensive kind of people, whose very dress and style bespeak the terms on which their services are rendered. Our visitors are all titled: dukes, princes, and princesses shower amongst our cards. Our invitations are from the same class, and yet, my dear Miss Cox, we feel all the unreality of this high and stately existence. We look at each other and think of Dodsborough! We think of papa in his old fustian shooting-jacket, paying the laborers, and higgling about half a day to be stopped here, and a sack of meal to be deducted there. We think of mamma's injunctions to Darby Sloan about the price he is to get for the "boneens," – have you forgotten our vernacular for little pigs? – and how much he must "be sure to ask" or the turkeys. We think of Mary Anne and myself taking our lesson from Mr. Delaney, and learning the Quad – drilles as he pronounced it, as the last new discovery of the dancing art, and dear James hammering away at the rule of three on an old slate, to try and qualify himself for the Board of Trade. And we remember the utter