I think I see that Mary Anne already anticipates he will prove a stubborn subject. Her mother, however, gives her courage and support. She gently insinuates, too, that worse cases have been treated successfully. Lord help us, it's a strange world!
As to the material features of the affair,—I mean as regards means and fortune,—he appears to have more than enough, yet not so much as to prevent his giving a very palpable hint to me about what I intended to give my daughter. He made the overture with a most laudable candor, though, I own, with no excess of delicacy. James, however, had in a manner prepared me for it, and mentioned that I was indebted for this gratification, as I am for a variety of others, to Mrs. D. It seems that, by way of giving a very imposing notion of our possessions, she had cut the county map out of O'Kelly's old Gazetteer, and passed it off for the survey of our estate. Of course I could n't disavow the statement, and have been reduced to the pleasant alternative of settling on my daughter about five baronies and twenty townlands of Tipperary, with no inconsiderable share of villages and hamlets. Some old leases, an insurance policy, and a writ against myself have served me for title-deeds; and though the young Baron pores over them for hours with a dictionary, thanks to the figurative language of the law, they have defied detection!
The father is still too ill to receive me, but each day I am promised an interview with him. Of what benefit to either of us it is to prove, may be guessed from the fact that we cannot speak to each other. You will perceive from all this, Tom, that I am by no means enamored of our approaching greatness; and it is but fair to state that James is even less so. He calls the Baron a "snob;" and probably, in all the fashionable vocabulary of an enlightened age, a more depreciatory epithet could not be discovered. What a sham and a humbug is all the parade we make of our parental affection, and what a gross cheat, too, do we practise upon ourselves by it! We train up a girl from infancy with every care and devotedness,—we surround her with all the luxuries our means can compass, and every affection of our hearts,—and we give her away, for "better and for worse," to the first fellow that offers with what seems a reasonable chance of being able to support her!
Many of us would n't take a butler with the scanty knowledge we accept a son-in-law. His moral qualities, his disposition, the habits he has been reared in,—what do we know of them? Less than nothing! And yet, while we ask about these, and twenty more, of the man to whom we are about to confide the key of our cellar, we intrust the happiness of our child to an unknown individual, the only ascertained fact about whom—if even that be so—is his income!
As I should like to tell you every step I take in this affair, I'll not send off my letter till I can give you the latest information. Meanwhile let me impress upon you that it is now three months since I received a shilling from Ireland. James has just informed me that there is not fifty pounds left of the McCarthy legacy, of which his mother only gave him permission to draw for three hundred. The debate upon this, when it comes, will be strong. What I intend is that immediately after Mary Anne's marriage we should return to Ireland; but of course I reserve the declaration for a fitting opportunity, since I well know how it will be received. Cary would never marry a foreigner, nor would anything induce me to consent to her doing so. James is only frittering away his best years here in idleness and dissipation; and if I can get nothing for him from the Government, he must emigrate to Australia or New Zealand. As for Mrs. D., the sooner she gets home to Dodsborough the better for her health, her means, and her morals!
I am afraid to say a word about Ireland and Irish affairs, for as sure as I do I stick fast there; still I must say that I think you 're wrong for abusing those members that have accepted office from Government. Put it to yourself, my dear Tom; if anybody offered you fifty pounds for the old gray mare you drive into market of a Saturday, would you set about explaining that she was blind of an eye, and a roarer, with a splint before, and a spavin behind? Would n't you rather expatiate upon her blood and breeding, her endurance of fatigue, and her fine trotting action? I don't know you if you would n't! Well, it's just the same with these fellows. Briefless lawyers and distressed gentlemen as they are, why should they say to the Ministry, "You're giving too much for us; we can neither speak for you nor write for you; we have neither influence at home, nor power abroad; we are a noisy, riotous, disorderly set of devils, always quarrelling amongst ourselves, and never agreeing, except when there 's a bit of robbery or roguery to be done; don't think of buying us; it is a clear waste of public money; we 'd only disgrace and not benefit you"? If anybody is to be blamed, it is the Ministers that bought them, Tom.
As to all your disputed questions of education, tenant-right, and taxation, take my word for it you have no chance of settling them amicably; and for this reason: a great number of excellent men, on both sides, have pledged themselves so strongly to particular opinions that they cannot decently recant, and yet they begin to see many points in a different view, and would, were the matter to come fresh before them, treat it in another fashion. If you really wish to see Ireland better, try and get people to let her alone for some fifteen or twenty years. She is nearly ruined by doctoring. Just wait a bit, and see if the natural goodness of constitution won't do more for her than all your nostrums.
James has just interrupted me, to say that he has shot "the partridge," for it seems there was only one in the country. That's the fruits of revolution. Before the year '48, this part of Germany abounded in game of every sort—partridges, hares, and quails, in immense abundance, besides plenty of deer on the hills, and that excellent bird the "Auer-Hahn," which is like the black-cock we have at home. When the troubles came, the peasants shot everything; and now the whole breed of game is extinct. They tell me it is the same throughout Bohemia and Hungary,—the two best sporting countries in all Europe. Foreigners were never oppressed with game-laws as we are; there was a far wider liberty enjoyed by them in this respect, and, in consequence, the privileges were less abused; so that really the wholesale destruction is much to be regretted. But is it not exactly what always follows in every case of popular domination? The masses love excess, and are never satisfied with anything short of it. I don't pretend to say that the Germans had not good and valid reasons for being dissatisfied with their Governments. I believe, in my heart, it would be difficult to imagine a more stupid piece of ingenuous blundering than a German Administration; and this is the less excusable when one thinks of the people over whom they rule.
The excesses of that same year of '48 will be the stock-in-trade for these grinding Governments for many a day to come. It is like a "barring out" to a cruel schoolmaster; the excuse for any violence he may wish to indulge in. At the same time I say this, I tell you frankly that none of the foreigners I have yet seen are fit for the system of a representative Government. From whatever causes I know not, but they are less patient, less given to calm investigation, than the English. Their perceptions are as quick—perhaps quicker—but they will not weigh the consequences of conflicting interests, and, above all, they will not put any restrictions upon their own liberty for the benefit of the community at large. Their origin, climate, traditions, and so forth, of course influence them greatly; but I have a notion, Tom, that our domesticity has a very considerable share in the formation of that temperate and obedient spirit so observable amongst us. I think I see the sly dimple that 's deepening in the corner of your mouth as you murmur to yourself, "Kenny James is thinking of his Mrs. D. He's pondering over the natural results of home discipline." But that is not what I mean, at least it is not the whole of it. My theory is that a family is the best training-school for the virtues that prosper in a well-ordered State, and that the little incidents of home life have a wonderful bearing upon, and similarity to, the great events that stir mankind.
I was going to become very abstruse and incomprehensible, I've no doubt, on this theme, but Mrs. D. just dropped in with a small catalogue of some three hundred and twenty-one articles Mary Anne requires for her wedding.