Francis Lynde - The Dodd Family Abroad, Vol. I

The gradations of rank so rigidly defined in England are less accurately marked out abroad. Society, like the face of the soil, is not enclosed by boundaries and fenced by hedgerows, but stretches away in boundless undulations of unlimited extent. The Englishman fancies there are no boundaries, because he does not see the landmarks. Since all seems open, he imagines there can be no trespass. This is a serious mistake! Not less a one is, to connect title with rank. He fancies that nobility represents abroad the same pretensions which it maintains in England, and indignantly revenges his own blunder by calumniating in common every foreigner of rank.

Mr. Dodd fell into some of these errors; from others he escaped. Most, indeed, of his mistakes were those inseparable from a false position; and from the acuteness of his remarks in conversation, it is clear that he possessed fair powers of observation, and a mind well disposed to receive and retain the truth. One quality certainly his observations possessed, – they were "his own." They were neither worked out from the Guide-book, nor borrowed from his Laquais de Place . They were the honest convictions of a good ordinary capacity, sharpened by the habits of an active life. It was with sincere pleasure the Editor received from him the following note, which reached him about three weeks after they parted: —

"My dear Harry Lorrequer, – I have fished up all the Correspondence of the Dodd Family during our Annus Mirabilis abroad, and send it to you with this. You have done some queer pranks at Editorship before now, so what would you say to standing Sponsor to us all, foundlings as we are in the world of letters? I have a notion in my head that we were n't a bit more ridiculous than nine-tenths of our travelling countrymen, and that, maybe, our mistakes and misconceptions might serve to warn such as may come after us over the same road. At all events, use your own discretion on the matter, but say nothing about it when you write to me, as Mrs. D. reads all my letters, and if she knew we were going to print her, the consequences would be awful!

"You 'll be glad to hear that we got safe back here, – Tuesday was a week, – found everything much as usual, – farming stock looking up, pigs better than ever I knew them. I have managed to get James into the Police, and his foreign airs and graces are bringing him into the tip-top society of the country. Purcell tells me that we 'll be driven to sell Dodsborough in the Estates Court, and I suppose it 's the best thing after all, for we can buy it in, and clear off the mortgages that was the ruin of us.

"When everything is settled, I have an idea of taking a run through the United States, to have a peep at Jonathan. If so, you shall hear from me.

"Meanwhile, I am yours, very faithfully,

"Kenny I. Dodd.

"Do you know any Yankees, or could you get me a few letters to some of their noticeable men? for I 'd like to have an opportunity of talk with them."

The Editor at once set about the inspection of the documents forwarded to him, and carefully perused the entire correspondence; nor was it until after a mature consideration that he determined on accepting the responsible post which Mr. Dodd had assigned to him.

He who edits a Correspondence, to a certain extent is assumed to be a concurring party, if not to the statements contained in it, at least to its general tone and direction. It is in vain for him to try and hide his own shadow behind the foreground figure of the picture, or merge his responsibility in that of his principal. The reader will hold him chargeable for opinions that he has made public, and for sentiments which, but for his intervention, had slept within the drawer of a cabinet. This is more particularly the case where the sentiments recorded are not those of any great thinker or high authority amongst men whose dicta may be supposed capable of standing the test of a controversy, on the mere strength of him who uttered them. Now, unhappily, the Dodd Family have not as yet produced one of these gifted individuals. Their views of the world, as they saw it in a foreign tour, are those of persons of very moderate capacity, with very few special opportunities for observation. They wrote in all the frankness of close friendship to those with whom they were most intimately allied. They uttered candidly what they felt acutely. They chronicled their sorrows, their successes, their triumphs, and their shame. And although experience did teach them something as they went, their errors tracked them to the last. It cannot be expected, then, that the Editor is prepared to back their opinions and uphold their notions, nor is he blamable for the judgments they have pronounced on many points. It is true, it was open to him to have retrenched this and suppressed that. He might have cancelled a confession here, or blotted out an avowal there; but had he done so in one Letter, the allusion contained in some other might have been pointless, – the distinctive character of the writer lost; and what is of more moment than either, a new difficulty engendered, viz., what to retain where there was so much to retrench. Besides this, Mrs. D. is occasionally wrong where K. I. is right, and it is only by contrasting the impressions that the value of the judgments can be appreciated.

It is not in our present age of high civilization that an Editor need fear the charge of having divulged family secrets, or made the private history of domestic life a subject for public commentary. Happily, we live in a period of enlightenment that can defy such petty slanders. Very high and titled individuals have shown themselves superior to similar accusations, and if the "Dodds" can in any wise contribute to the amusement or instruction of the world, they may well feel recompensed for an exposure to which others have been subjected before them.

As in all cases of this kind, the Editor's share has been of the very lightest. It would not have become him to have added anything either of explanation or apology to the contents of these Letters. Even when a word or two might have served to correct a mistaken impression, he has preferred to leave the obvious task to the reader's judgment to obtrusively making himself the means of interpretation. In fact, he has had little to do beyond opening the door and announcing the company, and his functions cease when this duty is accomplished. It would be alike ungracious and ungrateful in him, however, were he to retire without again thanking those kind and indulgent friends who have so long and so warmly welcomed him.

With no higher ambition in life than to be the servant of that same Public, nor any more ardent desire than to merit well at their hands, he writes himself, as he has so often had occasion to do before, but at no time more sincerely than now,

Their very devoted and faithful servant,

Dear Tom, – Here we are at last, – as tired and seasick a party as ever landed on the same shore! Twenty-eight hours of it, from the St. Katharine Docks, six of them bobbing opposite Margate in a fog, – ringing a big bell all the time, and firing minute-guns, lest some thumping India-man or a homeward-bound Peninsular should run into us, – and five more sailing up and down before Ostend, till it was safe to cross the bar, and enter the blackguard little harbor. The "Phoenix" – that was our boat – started the night before the "Paul Jones" mail-packet, and we only beat her by a neck, after all! And this was a piece of Mrs. Dodd's economy: the "Phoenix" only charges "ten-and-six" for the first cabin; but, what with the board for a day and night, boats to fetch you out, and boats to fetch you in, brandy-and-water against the sickness, – much good it was! – soda-water, stewards, and the devil knows what of broken crockery, – James fell into the "cuddy," I think they call it, and smashed two dozen and three wine-glasses, the most of a blue tea-service, and a big tureen, – the economy turned out a "delusion and a snare," as they say in the House. It 's over now, thank God! and, except some bruises against the bulkheads and a touch of a jaundice, I 'm nothing the worse. We landed at night, and were marched off in a gang to the Custom House. Such a time I never spent before! for when they upset all our things on the floor, there was no getting them into the trunks again; and so we made our way through the streets, with shawls and muffs and silk dresses all round us, like a set of play-actors. As for me, I carried a turban in one hand, and a tray of artificial flowers in the other, with a toque on my head and a bird-of-paradise feather in my mouth. James fell, crossing the plank, with three bran-new frocks and a bonnet of the girls', and a thing Mrs. D. calls a "visite," – egad, they made a visite of it, sure enough, and are likely to stay some time there, for they are under some five feet of black mud, that has lain there since before the memory of man. This was n't the worst of it; for Mrs. D., not seeing very well in the dark, gave one of the passport people a box on the ear that she meant for poor Paddy, and we were hauled up before the police, and made pay thirty francs for "insulting the authorities," with something written on our passport, besides, describing my wife as a dangerous kind of woman, that ought to be looked after. Poor Mathews had a funny song, that ran, —