Though it is perfectly true that, what between mortgages, settlement claims, and bonds, neither my father nor myself owned these lands any more than we did the island of Jamaica, it was a great blow to me to be sold out; for, somehow or other, one can live a long time in Ireland on parchment—I mean on the mere documents of an estate that has long since passed away; but if you come once to an open sale and Judge Dobbs, there’s an end of you, and you’ll not get credit for a pair of shoes the day after.
My present reason for addressing you does not require that I should go into my family history, or mention more of myself than that I was called to the Bar in ‘42; that I stood an unsuccessful election for Athlone; that I served as a captain in the West Coast Rifles; that I married a young lady of great personal attractions; and completed my misfortunes by taking the chairmanship of the Vichnasehneshee silver mines, that very soon left me with nothing but copper in my own pocket, and sent me to Judge Dobbs and his Court on the Inns Quay.
Like the rest of my countrymen, I was always hoping the Government would “do something” for me. I have not missed a levee for fourteen years, and I have shown the calves of my legs to every viceroyalty since Lord Clarendon’s day; but though they all joked and talked very pleasantly with me, none said, “O’Dowd, we must do something for you;” and if it was to rain commissionerships in lunacy, or prison inspectorships, I don’t believe one would fall upon C. O’D. I never knew rightly how it was, but though I was always liked at the Bar mess, and made much of on circuit, I never got a brief. People were constantly saying to me, “Con, if you were to do this, that, or t’other,” you’d make a hit; but it was always conditional on my being somewhere, or doing something that I never had attempted before.
It was clear, if I was the right man, I wasn’t in the right place; and this was all the more provoking, because, let me do what I would, some one was sure to exclaim, “Con, my boy, don’t try that; it is certainly not your line.” “What a capital agent for a new assurance company you’d be!” “What a success you’d have had on the stage! You’d have played Sir Lucius better than any living actor. Why don’t you go on the boards? Why not start a penny newspaper? Why not give readings?” I wonder why they didn’t tell me to turn organist or a painter in oils.
“You’re always telling us how much you know of the world, Mr O’Dowd,” said my wife; “I wish you could turn the knowledge to some account.”
This was scarcely generous, to say the least of it.
Mrs O’D. knew well that I was vain of the quality—that I regarded it as a sort of specialty. In fact, deeming, with the poet, that the proper study of mankind was man, I had devoted a larger share of my life to the inquiry than quite consisted with professional advancement; and while others pored over their Blackstone, I was “doing Baden;” and instead of term reports and Crown cases, I was diverting myself in the Oberland or on the Lago Maggiore.
“And with all your great knowledge of life,” continued she, “I don’t exactly see what it has done for you.”
Now, Mrs O’Dowd being, as you may apprehend, a woman, I didn’t waste my time in arguing with her—I didn’t crush her, as I might, by telling her that the very highest and noblest of a man’s acquirements are, ipso facto, the least marketable; and that the boasted excellence of all classical education is in nothing so conspicuous as in the fact that Greek and Latin cannot be converted into money as readily as vulgar fractions and a bold handwriting. Being a woman, as I have observed, Mrs O’D. would have read the argument backwards, and stood out for the rule-of-three against Sophocles and “all his works.” I simply replied, with that dignity which is natural to me, “I am proud of my knowledge of life; I do recognise in myself the analyst of that strange mixture that makes up human chemistry; but it has never occurred to me to advertise my discovery for sale, like Holloway’s Pills or somebody’s cod-liver oil.” “Perhaps you knew nobody would buy it,” cried she, and flounced out of the room, the bang of the door being one of the “epigrams in action” wives are skilled in.
Now, with respect to my knowledge of life, I have often compared myself to those connoisseurs in art who, without a picture or an engraving of their own, can roam through a gallery, taking the most intense pleasure in all it contains, gazing with ecstasy at the Raffaeles, and lingering delighted over the sunny landscapes of Claude. To me the world has, for years, imparted a sense of much enjoyment. Human nature has been my gallery, with all its variety, its breadth, its effect, its warm colouring, and its cold tints.