The Dodd Family Abroad, Vol. II

What a deal of balderdash people talk about Italian liberty, and the cause of constitutional freedom! There are – and these only in the cities – some twenty or thirty highly cultivated, well-thinking men – lawyers, professors, or physicians, usually – who have taken pains to study the institutions of other countries, and aspire to see some of the benefits that attend them applied to their own; but there ends the party. The nobles are a wretched set, satisfied with the second-hand vices of France and England grafted upon some native rascalities of even less merit. They neither read nor think: their lives are spent in intrigue and play. Now and then a brilliant exception stands forth, distinguished by intellect as well as station; but the little influence he wields is the evidence of what estimation such qualities are held in. My doctor is a Liberal, and a very clever fellow too; and I only wish you heard him describe the men who have assumed the part of "Italian Regenerators."

Their "antecedents" show that in Italy, as elsewhere, patriotism is too often but the last refuge of a scoundrel. I know how all this will grate and jar upon your very Irish ears; and, to say truth, I don't like saying it myself; but still I cannot help feeling that the "Cause of Liberty" in the peninsula is remarkably like the process of grape-gathering that now goes on beneath my window, – there is no care, no selection, – good, bad, ripe, and unripe, – the clean, the filthy, the ruddy, and the sapless, are all huddled together, pressed and squeezed down into a common vat, to ferment into bad wine or – a revolution, as the case may be. It does not require much chemistry to foresee that it is the crude, the acrid, the unhealthy, and the bad that will give the flavor to the liquor. The small element of what is really good is utterly overborne in the vast Maelstrom of the noxious; and so we see in the late Italian struggle. Who are the men that exercise the widest influence in affairs? Not the calm and reasoning minds that gave the first impulse to wise measures of Reform, and guided their sovereigns to concessions that would have formed the strong foundations of future freedom. No; it was the advocate of the wildest doctrines of Socialism, – the true disciple of the old guillotine school, that ravaged the earth at the close of the last century. These are the fellows who scream "Blood! blood!" till they are hoarse; but, in justice to their discretion, it must be said, they always do it from a good distance off.

Don't fancy from this that I am upholding the Austrian rule in Italy. I believe it to be as bad as need be, and exactly the kind of government likely to debase and degrade a people whom it should have been their object to elevate and enlighten. Just fancy a system of administration where there were all penalties and no rewards, – a school with no premiums but plenty of flogging. That was precisely what they did. They put a "ban" upon the natives of the country; they appointed them to no places of trust or confidence, insulted their feelings, outraged their sense of nationality; and whenever the system had goaded them into a passionate burst of indignation, they proclaimed martial law, and hanged them.

Now, the question is not whether any kind of resistance would not be pardonable against such a state of things, but it is this: what species of resistance is most likely to succeed? This is the real inquiry; and I don't think it demands much knowledge of mankind and the world to say that stabbing a cadet in the back as he leaves a café, shooting a solitary sentinel on his post, or even assassinating his corporal as he walks home of an evening, are exactly the appropriate methods for reforming a state or remodelling a constitution. Had the Lombards devoted themselves heart and hand to the material prosperity of their country, – educated their people, employed them in useful works, fostered their rising and most prosperous silk manufactories, – they would have attained to a weight and consideration in the Austrian Empire which would have enabled them not to solicit, but dictate the terms of their administration.

A few years back, as late as '47, Milan, I am told, was more than the rival of Vienna in all that constitutes the pride and splendor of a capital city; and the growing influence of her higher classes was already regarded with jealousy by the Austrian nobility. Look what a revolution has made her now! Her palaces are barracks; her squares are encampments; artillery bivouac in her public gardens; and the rigors of a state of siege penetrate into every private house, and poison all social intercourse.

You may rely upon one thing, Tom, and it is this: that no government ever persisted in a policy of oppression towards a country that was advancing on the road of prosperity. It is to the disaffected, dispirited, bankrupt people – idle and cantankerous, wasting their resources, and squandering their means of wealth – that cabinets play the bully. They grind them the way a cruel colonel flogs a condemned regiment. Let industry and its consequences flow in; let the laborer be well fed, and housed, and clothed; and the spirit of independence in him will be a far stronger and more dangerous element to deal with than the momentary burst of passion that comes from a fevered heart in a famished frame! Ask a Cabinet Minister if he wouldn't be more frightened by a deputation from the City, than if the telegraph told him a Chartist mob was moving on London? We live in an age of a very peculiar kind, and where real power and real strength are more respected than ever they were before.

Don't you think I have given you a dose of politics? Well, happily for you, I must desist now, for Cary has come to order me off to bed. It is only two p.m., but the siesta is now one of my habits, and so pleasant a one that I intend to keep it when I get well again.

Nine o'clock, Evening.

Here I am again at my desk for you, though Cary has only given me leave to devote half an hour to your edification.

What a good girl it is, – so watchful in all her attention, and with that kind of devotion that shows that her whole heart is engaged in what she is doing! The doctor may fight the malady, Tom, but, take my word for it, it is the nurse that saves the patient. If ever I raised my eyelids, there she was beside me! I could n't make a sign that I was thirsty till she had the drink to my lips. She had, too, that noiseless, quiet way with her, so soothing to a sick man; and, above all, she never bothered with questions, but learned to guess what I wanted, and sat patiently watching at her post.

It is a strange confession to make, but the very best thing I know of this foreign tour of ours is that it has not spoiled that girl; she has contracted no taste for extra finery in dress, nor extra liberty in morals; her good sense is not overlaid by the pretentious tone of those mock nobles that run about calling each other count and marquis, and fancying they are the great world. There she is, as warmhearted, as natural, and as simple – in all that makes the real excellence of simplicity – as when she left home. And now, with all this, I 'd wager a crown that nineteen young fellows out of twenty would prefer Mary Anne to her. She is, to be sure, a fine, showy girl, and has taken to a stylish line of character so naturally that she never abandons it.

I assure you, Tom, the way she used to come in of a morning to ask me how I was, and how I passed the night; her graceful stoop to kiss me; her tender little caressing twaddle, as if I was a small child to be bribed into black-bottle by sugar-candy, – were as good as a play. The little extracts, too, that she made from the newspapers to amuse me were all from that interesting column called fashionable intelligence, and the movements in fashionable life, as if it amused me to hear who Lady Jemima married, and who gave away the bride. Cary knew better what I cared for, and told me about the harvest and the crops, and the state of the potatoes, with now and then a spice of the foreign news, whenever there was anything remarkable. To all appearance, we are not far from a war; but where it 's to be, and with whom, is hard to say. There 's no doubt but fighting is a costly amusement; and I believe no country pays so heavily for her fun in that shape as England; but, nevertheless, there is nothing would so much tend to revive her drooping and declining influence on the Continent as a little brush at sea. She is, I take it, as good as certain to be victorious; and the very fervor of the enthusiasm success would evoke in England would go far to disabuse the foreigner of his notion that we are only eager about printing calicoes, and sharpening Sheffield ware. Believe me, it is vital to us to eradicate this fallacy; and until the world sees a British fleet reeling up the Downs with some half-dozen dismasted line-of-battle ships in their wake, they 'll not be convinced of what you and I know well, – that we are just the same people that fought the Nile and Trafalgar. Those Industrial Exhibitions, I think, brought out a great deal of trashy sentimentality about universal brotherhood, peace, and the rest of it. I suppose the Crystal Palace rage was a kind of allegory to show that they who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones; but our ships, Tom, – our ships, as the song says, are "hearts of oak"! Here's Cary again, and with a confounded cupful of something green at top and muddy below! Apothecaries are filthy distillers all the world over, and one never knows the real blessing of health till one has escaped from their beastly brewings. Good-night.

Saturday Morning.

A regular Italian morning, Tom, and such a view! The mists are swooping down the Alps, and showing cliffs and crags in every tint of sunlit verdure. The lake is blue as a dark turquoise, reflecting the banks and their hundred villas in the calm water. The odor of the orange-flower and the oleander load the air, and, except my vagabonds under the window, there is not an element of the picture devoid of interest and beauty. There they are as usual; one of them has his arm in a bloody rag, I perceive, the consequence of a row last night, – at least, Paddy Byrne saw a fellow wiping his knife and washing his bands in the lake – very suspicious circumstances – just as he was going to bed.

I have been hearing all about our neighbors, – at least, Cary has been interrogating the gardener, and "reporting progress" to me as well as she could make him out. This Lake of Como seems the paradise of ci-devant theatrical folk; all the prima donnas who have amassed millions, and all the dancers that have pirouetted into great wealth, appear to have fixed their ambition on retiring to this spot. Of a truth, it is the very antithesis to a stage existence. The silent and almost solemn grandeur of the scene, the massive Alps, the deep dense woods, the calm unbroken stillness, are strong contrasts to the crash and tumult, the unreality and uproar of a theatre. I wonder, do they enjoy the change? I am curious to know if they yearn for the blaze of the dress-circle and the waving pit? Do they long at heart for the stormy crash of the orchestra and the maddening torrent of applause; and does the actual world of real flowers and trees and terraces and fountains seem in their eyes a poor counterfeit of the dramatic one? It would not be unnatural if it were so. There is the same narrowing tendency in every professional career. The doctor, the lawyer, the priest, the soldier, – ay, and even your Parliament man, if he be an old member, has got to take a House of Commons standard for everything and everybody. It is only your true idler, your genuine good-for-nothing vagabond, that ever takes wide or liberal views of life; one like myself, in short, whose prejudices have not been fostered by any kind of education, and who, whatever he knows of mankind, is sure to be his own.

They 've carried away my ink-bottle, to write acknowledgments and apologies for certain invitations the womenkind have received to go and see fireworks somewhere on the lake; for these exhibitions seem to be a passion with Italians! I wish they were fonder of burning powder to more purpose! I 'm to dine below to-day, so it is likely that I 'll not be able to add anything to this before to-morrow, when I mean to despatch it A neighbor, I hear, has sent us a fine trout; and another has forwarded a magnificent present of fruit and vegetables, – very graceful civilities these to a stranger, and worthy of record and remembrance. Lord George tells me that these Lombard lords are fine fellows, – that is, they keep splendid houses and capital horses, have first-rate cooks, and London-built carriages, – and, as he adds, will bet you what you like at piquet or écarté. Egad, such qualities have great success in the world, despite all that moralists may say of them!

The ink has come back, but it is I am dry now! The fact is, Tom, that very little exertion goes far with a man in this climate! It is scarcely noon, but the sultry heat is most oppressive; and I half agree with my friends under the window, that the dorsal attitude is the true one for Italy. In any other country you want to be up and doing: there are snipe or woodcocks to be shot, a salmon to kill, or a fox to hunt; you have to look at the potatoes or the poorhouse; there 's a row, or a road session, or something or other to employ you; but here, it's a snug spot in the shade you look for, – six feet of even ground under a tree; and with that the hours go glibly over, in a manner that is quite miraculous.

It ought to be the best place under the sun for men of small fortune. The climate alone is an immense economy in furs and firing; and there is scarcely a luxury that is not, somehow or other, the growth of the soil: on this head – the expense I mean – I can tell you nothing, for, of course, I have not served on any committee of the estimates since my illness; but I intend to audit the accounts to-morrow, and then you shall hear all. Tiverton, I understand, has taken the management of everything; and Mrs. D. and Mary Anne tell me, so excellent is his system, that a rebellion has broken out below stairs, and three of our household have resigned, carrying away various articles of wardrobe, and other property, as an indemnity, doubtless, for the treatment they had met with. I half suspect that any economy in dinners is more than compensated for in broken crockery; for every time that a fellow is scolded in the drawing-room, there is sure to be a smash in the plate department immediately afterwards, showing that the national custom of the "vendetta" can be carried into the "willow pattern." This is one of my window observations. I wish there were no worse ones to record.

"Not a line, not another word, till you take your broth, papa," says my kind nurse; and as after my broth I take my sleep, I 'll just take leave of you for to-day. I wish I may remember even half of what I wanted to say to you tomorrow, but I have a strong moral conviction that I shall not It is not that the oblivion will be any loss to you, Tom; but when I think of it, after the letter is gone, I 'm fit to be tied with impatience. Depend upon it, a condition of hopeless repining for the past is a more terrible torture than all that the most glowing imagination of coming evil could ever compass or conceive.

Sunday Afternoon.

I told you yesterday I had not much faith in my memory retaining even a tithe of what I wished to say to you. The case is far worse than that, – I can really recollect nothing. I know that I had questions to ask, doubts to resolve, and directions to give, but they are all so commingled and blended together in my distracted brain that I can make nothing out of the disorder. The fact is, Tom, the fellow has bled me too far, and it is not at my time of life – 58° in the shade, by old Time's thermometer – that one rallies quickly out of the hands of the doctor.

I thought myself well enough this morning to look over my accounts; indeed, I felt certain that the inquiry could not be prudently delayed, so I sent for Mary Anne after breakfast, and proceeded in state to a grand audit. I have already informed you that all the material of life here is the very cheapest, – meat about fourpence a pound; bread and butter and milk and vegetables still more reasonable; wine, such as it is, twopence a bottle; fruit for half nothing. It was not, therefore, any inordinate expectation on my part that we should be economizing in rare style, and making up for past extravagance by real retrenchment. I actually looked forward to the day of reckoning as a kind of holiday from all care, and for once in my life revel in the satisfaction of having done a prudent thing.

Conceive my misery and disappointment – I was too weak for rage – to find that our daily expenses here, with a most moderate household, and no company, amounted to a fraction over five pounds English a day. The broad fact so overwhelmed me that it was only with camphor-julep and ether that I got over it, and could proceed to details. Proceed to details, do I say! Much good did it do me! for what between a new coinage, new weights and measures, and a new language, I got soon into a confusion and embarrassment that would have been too much for my brain in its best days. Now and then I began to hope that I had grappled with a fact, even a small one; but, alas! it was only a delusion, for though the prices were strictly as I told you, there was no means of even approximating to the quantities ordered in. On a rough calculation, however, it appears that my mutton broth took half a sheep per diem. The family consumed about two cows a week in beef; besides hares, pheasants, bams, and capons at will. The servants – with a fourth of the wine set down to me – could never have been sober an hour; while our vegetable and fruit supply would have rivalled Covent Garden Market.

"Do you understand this, Mary Anne?" said I.

"No, papa," said she.

"Does your mother?" said I.

"No, papa."

"Does Lord George understand it?"

"No, papa; but he says he is sure Giacomo can explain everything, – for he is a capital fellow, and honest as the sun!"

"And who is Giacomo?" said I.

"The Maestro di Casa, papa. He is over all the other servants, pays all the bills, keeps the keys of everything, and, in fact, takes charge of the household."

"Where did he come from?"

"The Prince Belgiasso had him in his service, and strongly recommended him to Lord George as the most trustworthy and best of servants. His discharge says that he was always regarded rather in the light of a friend than a domestic!"

Shall I own to you, Tom, that I shuddered as I heard this? It may be a most unfair and ungenerous prejudice; but if there be any class in life of whose good qualities I entertain a weak opinion, it is of the servant tribe, and especially of those who enter into the confidential category. They are, to my thinking, a pestilent race, either tyrannizing over the weakness, or fawning to the vices, of their employers. I have known a score of them, and I rejoice to think that a very large proportion of that number have been since transported for life.

"Does Giacomo speak English?" asked I.

"Perfectly, papa; as well as French, Spanish, German, and a little Russian."

"Send him to me, then," said I, "and let us have a talk together.

"You can't see him to-day, papa, for he is performing St. Barnabas in a grand procession that is to take place this evening."

This piece of information shows me that it is a "Festa," and the post will consequently close early, so that I now conclude this, promising that you shall have an account of my interview with Giacomo by to-morrow or the day after.

Not a line from James yet, and I am beginning to feel very uncomfortable about him.

Yours ever faithfully,

Kenny I. Dodd.

LETTER XIII. KENNY JAMES DODD TO THOMAS PURCELL, ESQ., OF THE GRANGE, BRUFF

Como

My dear Tom, – This may perchance be a lengthy despatch, for I have just received a polite invitation from the authorities here to pack off, bag and baggage, over the frontier; and as it is doubtful where our next move may take us, I write this "in extenso," and to clear off all arrears up to the present date.

At the conclusion of my last, if I remember aright, I was in anxious expectation of a visit from Signor Giacomo Lamporeccho. That accomplished gentleman, however, had been so fatigued by his labors in the procession, and so ill from a determination of blood to the head, brought on by being tied for two hours to a tree, with his legs uppermost, to represent the saint's martyrdom, that he could not wait upon me till the third day after the Festa; and then his streaked eyeballs and flushed face attested that even mock holiness is a costly performance.

"You are Giacomo?" said I, as he entered; and I ought to mention that in air and appearance he was a large, full, fine-looking man, of about eight-and-thirty or forty, dressed in very accurate black, and with a splendid chain of mosaic gold twined and festooned across his ample chest; opal shirt-studs and waistcoat buttons, and a very gorgeous-looking signet-ring on his forefinger aided to show off a stylish look, rendered still more imposing by a beard a Grand Vizier might have envied, and a voice a semi-tone deeper than Lablache's.

"Giacomo Lamporeccho," said he; and though he uttered the words like a human bassoon, they really sounded as if he preferred not to be himself, but somebody else, in case I desired it.

"Well, Giacomo," said I, easily, and trying to assume as much familiarity as I could with so imposing a personage, "I want you to afford me some information about these accounts of mine."

"Ah! the house accounts!" said he, with a very slight elevation of the eyebrows, but quite sufficient to convey to me an expression of contemptuous meaning.