My dear Tom,—The post hadn't left this five minutes yesterday, when I remembered what I wanted to say to you. Wednesday, the 26th, is fixed for the happy occasion; and if nothing should intervene, you may insert the following paragraph in the "Tipperary Press," under the accustomed heading of "Marriage in High Life": "The Baron Adolf Heinrich Conrad Hapsburg von Wolfenschafer, Lord of the Manors of Hohendeken, Kalbsbratenhausen, and Schweinkraut, to Mary Anne, eldest daughter of Kenny James Dodd, Esq., of Dodsborough, in this county." Faith, Tom, I was near saying "universally regretted by a large circle of afflicted survivors," for I was just wishing myself dead and buried! But you must put it in the usual formula of "beautiful and accomplished," and take care it is not applied to the bridegroom, for, upon my conscience, his claim to the first epithet couldn't be settled by even a Parliamentary title! My heart is heavy about it all, and I wish it was over!
If anything exemplifies the vanity of human wishes, it is our efforts to marry our daughters, and our regrets when the plans succeed. Tom goes to India, and Billy to sea, and there is scarcely a gap in the family circle. "The boys" were seldom at home,—they were shooting in Scotland, or hunting in England, or fishing in Norway. They never, so to say, made part of the effective garrison of the house; they came and went with that rackety good-humor that even in quiet families is pleasurable; but your girls are household gods: lose them, even one of them, and the altar is despoiled. The thousand little unobtrusive duties, noiseless cares, that make home better a hundred-fold than anywhere else, be it ever so rich and splendid, the unasked solicitude, the watchful attention that provides for your little daily wants and habits, are all their province. And just fancy, then, what scheming and intriguing we practise to get rid of them! You 'll say that this shows we are above the selfishness of only considering our own enjoyment, and that we sacrifice all for their happiness. There you mistake; our sole aim is a rich man,—our one notion of a good marriage is that the husband be wealthy. It's not a man like myself, who has sometimes paid fifty, ay, sixty per cent for money, that can afford to sneer at and despise it; but this I will say, that the mere possession of it will not suffice for happiness. I know fellows with fifteen thousand a year that have not the heart to spend five hundred. I know others that, with as much, are always over head and ears in debt, raising cash everywhere and anyhow! What kind of life must a girl lead that marries either of these? And yet would you or I think of refusing such a match for a daughter? Let me tell you, Tom, that for people of small fortune, the nunneries were fine things! What signifies serge and simple diet to the wearisome drudgery of a governess! If I was a woman, I think I'd rather sit in my quiet cell, working an embroidered suit of body clothes for Father O'Leary, than I'd be snubbed by the family of some vulgar citizen, tortured by the brats, and insulted by the servants.
I don't suppose that it signifies a straw one way or other, but I feel some compunctions of conscience at the way I have been assigning imaginary estates, mines, woods, and collieries to Mary Anne for the last three days. I know it's mere greed makes the Baron so eager on the subject, since he is enormously wealthy. James and I rode twelve miles, this morning, through a forest that belongs to the castle, and the arable land stretches more than that distance in another direction; but who knows how he 'll behave when he discovers she has nothing! To be sure, we can always ascribe our ruin to political causes, and, in verification, exhibit ourselves as poor as need be; but still I don't like it And this is one of the blessed results of a false position,—one step in a wrong direction very frequently necessitates a long journey. Yesterday I protested to my affluence; to-day I vouched for the nobility of my family. Heaven only can tell what I won't swear to to-morrow! And again I am interrupted by Mrs. D., who has just come to inform me that though the bride's finery can all be had at Paris,—whither the happy couple are to repair for the honeymoon,—there are certain indispensables must be obtained at once from Baden; and she begs that I will privately write a few lines to Morris, who will, of course, undertake the commission. It is not without shame that I enclose a list of purchases to make, which, to a man who knew what we were in Ireland, will appear preposterous; but the false position we have attained to is surrounded with interminable mortifications of the same kind.
Ah, Tom! I remember the time when, if a bride changed her smart white silk and muslin that she wore at the altar for a good brown or blue satin pelisse to travel in, we thought her a miracle of fashion and finery; but now the millinery of a wedding is the principal thing. There is a stereotyped formula, out of which there is no hope of conjugal happiness; and the bride that begins life without Brussels lace enters upon her career with gloomy omens! Now, a scarf of this alone costs thirty guineas; you may, if you like, go as high as a hundred and fifty. Why can't people wait for the ruin that is so sure to overtake them, without forestalling it in this way? Twenty pounds for clothes, and a trip to Castle Connel or Kilkee for the honeymoon, would have satisfied every wish of Alary Anne's heart in Ireland; and if she drove away in a post-chaise with four horses for the first stage, she 'd have been the envy of all the marriageable girls for miles round.
But now I have had to ask Morris to buy a travelling-carriage, because Mrs. D., in one of those expansions of splendor that occasionally attack her, said to the Baron, "Oh, take one of our carriages, we have left several of them at Baden." The excellent woman cannot be brought to perceive that romance of this kind is a most expensive amusement. I have drawn a bill on you for four hundred at three months, to meet these, and sent it to Morris to "get done." I hope he 'll succeed, and I hope you 'll pay it when it comes due; so that come what will, Tom, my intentions are honorable!
If Mrs. D. and myself had been upon better terms, we might have discussed this marriage question more fully and confidentially, but there are now so many cabinet difficulties that we rarely hold a council, and when we do, we are sure to disagree. This is another blessed result of our continentalizing. Home had its duties, and with them came that spirit of concord and agreement so essential to family happiness; but in this vagabond kind of existence, where every-thing is feigned, unreal, and unnatural, all concert and confidence is completely lost.
Now I have told you frankly and fairly everything about us, and don't take advantage of my candor by giving advice, for there is nothing in this world I have so little taste for. There's no man above the condition of an idiot that is n't thoroughly aware of his failings and shortcomings, but all that knowledge does n't bring him an inch nearer the cure of them. Do you think I 'm not fully alive to everything you could say of my wasteful habits, my improvidence, indolence, irritability, and so forth? I know them all better than you do,—ay, and I feel them acutely, too, for I know them to be incurable! Reformation, indeed! Do you know when a man gives up dancing, Tom? When he's too stiff in the knees for it. There's the whole philosophy of life. When we grow wiser, as they are pleased to call it, it is always in spite of ourselves!
I find that by enclosing this to Morris, he can forward it to you by the bag of the Legation. Once more let me remind you of our want of cash, and believe me, very faithfully your friend,
Kenny I. Dodd.
P. S. Address me "Freyburg, to be forwarded to the Schloss, Wolfenfels."