The Dodd Family Abroad, Vol. I

"Which is not the less valuable," broke he in, "because he who gave it is himself a paid spy of the police."

I started, and he went on.

"Yes, it is perfectly true; and the advice he gave you was both good and well intended. These men who act as the croupiers are always in the pay of the police. Their position affords them the very best and safest means of obtaining information; they see everybody, and they hear an immensity of gossip. Still, it is not their interest that the English, who form the great majority of play-victims, should be excluded from places of gambling resort. With them, they would lose a great part of their income; for this reason he gave you that warning, and it is by no means to be despised or undervalued."

At length we parted, – he to return over the mountain to his cottage, and I to continue my way to the hotel.

"At least promise me one thing," said he, as he shook my hand: "you 'll not venture down yonder to-night;" and he pointed to the great building where the play went forward, now brilliant in all its illumination.

"That's easily done," said I, laughing, "if you mean as regards play."

"It is as regards play, I say it," replied he; "for the rest, I suppose you'll not incur much hazard."

"I say that the pledge costs little sacrifice; I have no money to wager."

"All the better, at least for the present. My advice to you would be, take your rod, or, if you haven't one, take one of mine, and set out for a week or ten days up the valley of the 'Moorg.' You'll have plenty of fishing, pretty scenery, and, above all, quiet and tranquillity to compose your mind and recover your faculties after all this fevered excitement."

He continued to urge this plan upon me with considerable show of reason, and such success that as I shook his hand for the last time it was in a promise to carry out the scheme. He'd have gone with me himself, he said, but that he could not leave his mother even for a few days; and, indeed, this I scarcely regretted, because, to own the honest fact, my dear Bob, I felt that there was a terrible gulf between us in fifty matters of thought and opinion; and, what was worse, I saw that he was more often in the right than myself. Now, wise notions of life, prudent resolves, and sage aphorisms are certain to come some time or other to everybody; but I 'd as soon think of "getting up" wrinkles and crows'-feet as of assuming them at one-and-twenty. I know, at least, that's Tiverton's theory; and he, it can't be denied, does understand the world as well as most men. Not that I do not like Morris; on the contrary, I am sure he is an excellent fellow, and worthy of all respect, but somehow he does n't "go along," Bob; he's – as we used to say of a clumsy horse in heavy ground – "he's sticky." But I'm not going to abuse him, and particularly at the moment when I am indebted to his friendship.

When I reached the hotel, I was so full of my plan that I sent for the landlord, and asked him to convert all my goods and chattels, live and dead, into ready cash. After a brief and rather hot discussion the scoundrel agreed to give me two hundred "Naps." for what would have been cheap at twelve. No matter, thought I, I 'll make an end of Baden, and if ever I set foot in it again —

"Come, out with the cash, Master Müller," cried I, impatient to be off; "I 'm sick of this place, and hope never to set eyes on 't more!"

"Ah, the 'Herr Graf' is going away then?" said he, in some surprise. "And the ladies, are they, too, about to leave?"

"I know nothing about their intentions, nor have you any business to make the inquiry," replied I; "pay this money, and make an end of it."

He muttered something about doing the thing regularly, not having "so much gold by him," and so on, ending with a promise that in half an hour I should have the cash sent to my room.

I accordingly hurried upstairs to put away my traps. My mother and the girls had already gone out for the evening, so that I wrote a few lines to say that I was off for a week's fishing, but would be back by Wednesday. I had just finished my short despatch, when the landlord entered with a slip of paper in one hand and a canvas bag of money in the other.

"This is the inventory of the goods, Herr Graf, which you will please assign over to me, by affixing your signature."

I wrote it at once.

"This is my little account for your expenses at the hotel," said he, presenting a hateful-looking strip of a foot and a half long.

"Another time, – no leisure for looking over that now!" said I, angrily.

"Whenever you please, Herr Graf," said he, with the same imperturbable manner. "You will find it all correct, I 'm sure. This is the balance!" And opening the bag he poured forth some gold and silver, which, when counted, made up twenty-seven Napoleons, fourteen francs.

"And what's this?" cried I, almost boiling over with rage.

"Your balance, Herr Graf. All that is coming to you. If you will please to look here – "

"Give me up that inventory, – that bill of sale," cried I, perfectly wild with passion.

He only gave a grim smile, while, by a significant gesture, he showed that the paper in question was in his breeches-pocket For a second, Bob, I was so thoroughly beside myself with passion, that I determined to regain possession of it by force. To this end I went to the door, and locked it; but by the time I returned to him, I found that he had thrown up the window and addressed some words to the people in the courtyard. This brought me to my senses, so I counted over my twenty-seven Naps., placed the bill on the chimney-piece, unlocked the door, and told him to go, – an injunction which, I assure you, he obeyed with such alacrity that had I been disposed to assist his exit I could not have been in time to do it.

For both our sakes I 'll not recall the state of mind in which this scene left me. As to going an excursion with such a sum, or rather with what would have remained of it after paying waiters, porters, and such-like, it was too absurd to think of, so that I coolly put it in my pocket, walked over to "the Rooms," threw it on the green cloth of the gaming-table – and – lost it! There ends the episode of my last fortnight's existence, – as dreary and disreputable a one as need be. As to how I have passed the last four days I 'm not quite so clear! I have walked some twenty-five or thirty miles in each, dining at little wayside inns, and returning late at night to Baden.

Passing through picturesque glens, and along mountain ridges of boldest outline, I have marked little. I remember still less. Still the play-fever is abating. I can sleep without dreaming of the croupier's chant, and I awake without starting at any imaginary loss! I feel as though great bodily exertion and fatigue would ultimately antagonize the excessive tension of nerves too long and too painfully on the stretch, and I am steadily pursuing this system for a cure.

When I come home – after midnight – I add some pages to this long epistle, which I sometimes doubt if I shall ever have courage to send you! for there is this poignant misery about one's play misfortunes, you never can expect a friend's sympathy, no matter how severe your sufferings be. The losses at play are thoroughly selfish ills; they appeal to nothing for consolation!

You will have remarked how I have avoided all mention of the family in this epistle. The truth is, I scarcely ever see my mother or Mary Anne. Caroline occasionally comes to me before I 'm up of a morning; but it is to sorrow over domestic griefs of one kind or other. My father is still away, and, strangely too, we do not hear from him; and, in fact, we are a most ill-ordered, broken-up household, each going his own road, and that being – in almost every case, I fear – a bad one.

This recital – if it be ever destined to come to hand – may possibly tend to reconcile you to home life, and the want of those advantages which you are so thoroughly convinced pertain to foreign travel. I know that in my present mood I am very far from being an impartial witness, and I am also aware that I am open to the reproach of not having cultivated those arts which give to Continental residence its peculiar value; but let me tell you, Bob, the ignorance with which I left home – the utter neglect of education in youth – left me unable to derive profit from what lay so seemingly accessible. You do not plate over cast-iron, and the thin lacquer of gold or silver would never even hide the base metal beneath. I haven't courage to go over and see Morris; and here I live, perfectly isolated and companionless.

Tiverton writes me word that he 'll be back in a few days. He went over to speak on the Jew Bill. He says that his liberal speech on that measure "stood to him" very handsomely in Lombard Street He has forwarded the report of his oration, but I have n't read it. His chief argument in favor of admitting them into Parliament is, "There are so few of them." It's very like the lady's plea, – of the child being a little one. However, I don't think it signifies much one way or t'other; but it seems strange to exclude men from legislation who claim for their ancestor the first Lawgiver.

I shall be all eagerness to hear what success you have had for the scholarship. You are a happy fellow to have heart and energy for an honorable ambition; and that you may have "luck" – for that is requisite, too – is the sincere wish of your attached friend,

James Dodd.

LETTER XXIX. CAROLINE DODD TO MISS COX AT MISS MINCING'S ACADEMY, BLACK ROCK, IRELAND

The Moorg Thal

My dear Miss Cox, – How happy would you be if only seated in the spot where I now write these lines! I am at an open window, the sill of which is a great rock, all covered with red-brown moss, and beneath, again, at some thirty feet lower, runs the clear stream of the Moorg River. Two gigantic mountains, clad in pine forests to the summits, enclose the valley, the view of which, however, extends to full two miles, showing little peeps of farmhouses and mills along the river's bank, and high upon a great bold crag, the ducal castle of Eberstein. The day is hot but not sultry, for a light summer breeze is playing over the water, and, high up, the clouds move slowly on, now casting broad masses of mellow shadow over the deep-tinted forest.

The stream here falls over some masses of rock with a pleasant gushing music that harmonizes well with the songs of the peasant girls, who are what we should in Ireland call "beetling" their clothes in the water. On the opposite bank some mowers are seated at their dinner, under the shadow of a leafy horsechestnut-tree, and, far away in the distance, a wagon of the newly cut hay is traversing the river; the horses stop to drink, and the merry children are screaming their laughter from the top of the load. I hear them even here.

That you may learn where I am, and how I have come hither, let me tell you that I am on a visit with Mrs. Morris, the mother of Captain M., at a little cottage they have taken for the season, about twelve miles from Baden, in a valley called the Moorg Thal. If its situation be the very perfection of picturesque choice, it contains within quite enough of accommodation for those who occupy it. The furniture, too, most simple though it be, is of that nice old walnut-wood, so bright and mellow-looking; and our little drawing-room is even handsomely ornamented by a richly carved cabinet and a centre-table, the support of which is a grotesque dwarf with four heads. Then we have a piano, a reasonably well-filled book-shelf, and a painter's easel, to which I turn at intervals, as I write, to give a passing touch of light to those trees now waving in the summer's wind, and which I destine, when finished, for my dear, dear governess. All the externals of rural life in Germany are highly picturesque, – I might almost call them poetic. The cottages, the costume, the little phrases in use amongst the people, their devotional offices, and, above all, their music, make up an ideal of country life such as I scarcely conceived possible to exist.

There is, too, I am told, – for my imperfect knowledge of the language does not permit me to state the fact of myself, – an amount of information amongst the people seldom found in a similar class throughout the rest of Europe. I do not mean the peasantry here, but the dwellers in the small villages, – those, for instance, who follow handicrafts and small trades, and who are usually great readers and very acute thinkers. Denied almost entirely all access to that daily literature of newspapers on which our people feed, they fall back upon a very different class of writing, and are conversant with the works of their great prose and verse writers. Their thoughts are thus idealized to a degree; they themselves become assuredly less work-a-day and practical, but their hopes, their aspirations, and their ambitions take a higher flight than we could ever think possible from such humble resting-places. Mrs. Morris, who knew Germany many years ago, tells me that those fatal years of '48 and '49 have done them great injury. Suddenly called upon to act, in events and contingencies of which they derived all their knowledge from some parallels in remote history, they rushed into the excesses of a mediæval period, as the natural consequences of the position; and all the atrocities of bygone centuries were re-enacted by a people who are unquestionably the most docile and law-obeying of the whole Continent. They are now calming down again, and there is every reason to think that, if, unshaken by troubles from without or within, Germany will again be the happy land it used to be.

Forgive me, my dear Miss Cox, if I grow tiresome to you, by a theme which now fills all my thoughts, and occupies so much of our daily talking. Captain M. has gone to England on some important matter of business, and the old lady is my only companion.

Oh, how you would like her! and how capable you would be of appreciating traits and features of her mind, of which I, in my insufficiency, can but dimly catch the meaning. She is within a year or two of eighty, and yet with a freshness of heart and a brightness of intellect that would shame one of my age.

The mellow gayety of heart that, surviving all the trials of life, lives on to remote age, hopeful in the midst of disappointments, trusting even when betrayed, is the most captivating trait that can adorn our poor nature. The spirit that can extract its pleasant memories from the past, forgetting all their bitterness, is truly a happy one. This she seems to do in all gratitude for what blessings remain to her, after a life not devoid of misfortune. She is devotedly attached to her son, who, in return, adores her. Probably no picture of domestic affection is more touching than that subsisting between a man already past youth and his aged and widowed mother, – the little tender attentions, the watchful kindnesses on both sides, those graceful concessions which each knows how and when to make of their own comfort, and, above all, that blending of tastes by which, at last, each learns to adopt some of the other's likings, and, even in prejudices, to become more companionable.

To me, the happiness of my present life is greater than I can describe to you. The peaceful quietude of an existence on which no shocks obtrude is unspeakably delightful. If the weather forbid us to venture abroad, which on fine days we do for hours together, our home resources are numerous. The little cares of a household, amusing as they are, associated with so many little peculiar traits of nationality, help the morning to pass; after which I draw, or write, or play, or read aloud, mostly German, to the old lady. Whatever my occupation, be it at the easel, the desk, or the pianoforte, her criticisms are always good and just; for, strange to say, even on subjects of which she professes to know nothing, there is an instinctive appreciation of the right; and this would seem to result from an intense study, and deep love of nature. She herself was the first to show me that this was a charm which the Bible possessed in the most remarkable manner, and, unlike other literature, gave it the most uncommon value in the eyes of the humblest classes, who are from the very accidents of fortune the deep students of nature. The language whose illustrations are taken from objects and incidents that every peasant can confirm, has a direct appeal to a lowly heart; and there is a species of flattery to his intelligence in the fact that inspiration could not typify more strongly its conception than by analogies open to the lowliest son of labor.

After this, she places Shakspeare, whose actual knowledge is miraculous, and whose immortality is based upon that very fact, since the true will be true to all ages and people; and, however men's minds may differ about the forms of expression, the fact will remain imperishable. According to her theory, Shakspeare understood human nature as learned men do an exact science, – where certain results must follow certain premises and combinations inevitably and of necessity. How otherwise explain that intimate acquaintance with the habits and modes of thought of classes of which he never made one? How account for the delineation of kingly feelings by him who scarcely saw the steps of a throne? "And yet," said Mrs. M., "Louis Philippe himself told me, that Shakspeare's kings were as true as his lovers. His Majesty once amused me much," said she, "by alluding to a passage in 'Hamlet,' which assuredly would never have occurred to me to notice. It is where the King and Queen are dismissing their attendants from further waiting. His Majesty says, 'Thanks, Rosenkrantz, and gentle Guildenstern;' on which the Queen adds, 'Thanks, Guildenstern, and gentle Rosenkrantz.' 'Now,' said Louis Philippe, 'one almost should have been a queen to know that it was needful to balance the seeming preference of the Royal epithet, by inverting the phrase.'"

While I ramble on thus, I may seem to be forgetting the subjects on which more properly I ought to dwell, – home and family. Our pursuit of greatness still continues, my dear Miss Cox. We are determined to be fine people; and I suppose, after all, that our shortcomings and disappointments are not greater than usually fall to the lot of those who aspire to what is beyond or above them. In England the gradations of rank are as fixed as the degrees of a service; and we, being who and what we are, could no more pretend to something else than could a subaltern pass off for a colonel to his own regiment. Here, however, there is a general scramble for position, and each seems to have the same privilege to call himself what he likes, that he exercises over the mere spelling of his name. I judge this to be the case from the anecdotes I have heard in society about the Count this, and the Baron that. Since papa's absence in the interior of Germany, whither he accompanied Mrs. Gore Hampton, to visit, I believe, some crowned head of her acquaintance, mamma has pursued a kind of royal progress towards greatness. Our style of living has been most expensive, – I might almost call it splendid. We have servants, horses, equipage, – everything, in fact, that appertains to a certain station, but one, and that one thing, unfortunately, is the grand requisite of all, – the air that belongs to it. The truth is, Miss Cox, as the old lawyer one day said at dinner to papa, "You prove too much, Mr. Dodd." That is exactly what mamma is doing. She dresses magnificently for small occasions; she insists too eagerly upon what she deems her due; and she is far too exclusive with respect to those who seek her acquaintanceship. Would you believe it, that though I am permitted to accept the kind hospitality which I at this moment enjoy, it is upon the condition that neither mamma nor Mary Anne are to "be dragged into the mire of low intimacies;" that Mrs. Morris is to be "Cary's friend." Proud am I, indeed, if she will deign to consider me such!

I must acknowledge that mamma's "Wednesdays" collected all that was high and distinguished at Baden. We had the old Kurfurst of something, with a long white moustache, and thirty orders; an archduchess with a humpback, and a mediatized prince with one eye. There were generals, marshals, ministers, envoys, and plenipos without end, – "your Highness" and "your Excellency" were household words round our tea-table. But I often asked myself, "Are not these great folk paying off in falsehood the imposition we are practising upon them? Are they not laughing at the 'Dodds,' and their thousand solecisms in good breeding?" These would be very unworthy suspicions of mine if I did not feel convinced they were well founded; but more than once I have overheard chance words and phrases that have suffused my cheeks with "shame-red," as the Germans call it, for an hour after. Is it not an indignity to accept hospitality and requite it by ridicule? Is it not base to receive attentions, and repay them in scorn?

Whether it is from feeling as I do on the subject or not, I cannot say, but James rarely or never appears at mamma's receptions. He is among what is called "a fast set;" but I always incline to think that his nature is not corrupted, though doubtless sullied, by the tone of society around us.

You ask me about Mary Anne's appearance, and here I can speak without reserve or qualification. She is, indeed, the handsomest girl I ever saw; tall and well-proportioned, and with a carriage and a style about her that might grace a princess. A critic inclined to severity might say there was perhaps a slight tendency to haughtiness in the expression of the features, especially the mouth; the head, too, is a little, a very little, too much thrown back; but somehow these might be defects in another, and yet in her they seem to give a peculiar stamp and character to her beauty. All her gestures are grace itself, and her courtesy, save that it is a little too low, perfect. She speaks French and German fluently, and knows the precise title of some hundred acquaintances, every one of whom would be distracted if defrauded in the smallest coin of his rank. I need not say how superior all these gifts make her to your humble and unlettered correspondent. Yes, my dear Miss Cox, the French "irregulars" are the same puzzle to me they used to be, and my mind will no more carry me on to the verb at the end of the German sentence than will my feet bear me over fifty miles a day. I am the stupid Caroline of long ago, and what renders the case so hopeless is, with the best of dispositions to do otherwise.

I am, however, improved in my painting, particularly in my use of color. I begin at last to recognize the merits of harmony in tint, and see how Nature herself always contrives to be correct. I hope you will like the little sketch that accompanies this; the rock in the foreground is the spot on which I sit at every sunset. Would that I had you beside me there, to counsel, to guide, and to correct me!

When Captain Morris returns, I shall leave this, as Mrs. M. will not require my companionship any longer, although she is already planning twenty things we are to do then.