Produced by David Widger
THE MARTINS OF CRO' MARTIN
By Charles James Lever.
With Illustrations By Phiz.
In Two Volumes
Vol. I.
Boston:
Little, Brown, And Company.
1906.
TO THE
REVEREND MORTIMER O'SULLIVAN, D.D.
If I have not asked your permission to dedicate this volume to you, itis because I would not involve you in the responsibility of any opinionseven so light a production may contain, nor seek to cover by a greatname the sentiment and views of a very humble one.
I cannot, however, deny myself the pleasure of inscribing to you a bookto which I have given much thought and labor,--a testimony of the deepand sincere affection of one who has no higher pride than in the honorof your friendship.
Ever sincerely yours,
CHARLES LEVER
Casa Cappoli, Florence, May, 1856
PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1872.
When I had made my arrangement with my publishers for this new story, Iwas not sorry for many reasons to place the scene of it in Ireland.One of my late critics, in noticing "Roland Cashel" and "The Daltons,"mildly rebuked me for having fallen into doubtful company, and halfcensured--in Bohemian--several of the characters in these novels. Iwas not then, still less am I now, disposed to argue the point withmy censor, and show that there is a very wide difference between thepersons who move in the polite world, with a very questionable morality,and those patented adventurers whose daily existence is the product ofdaily address. The more one sees of life, the more is he struck by thefact that the mass of mankind is rarely very good or very bad, that thebusiness of life is carried on with mixed motives; the best people beingthose who are least selfish, and the worst being little other than thosewho seek their own objects with slight regard for the consequences toothers, and even less scruple as to the means.
Any uniformity in good or evil would be the deathblow to that genteelcomedy which goes on around us, and whose highest interest very oftencentres in the surprises we give ourselves by unexpected lines of actionand unlooked-for impulses. As this strange drama unfolded itself beforeme, it had become a passion with me to watch the actors, and speculateon what they might do. For this Florence offered an admirable stage.It was eminently cosmopolitan; and, in consequence, less under theinfluence of any distinct code of public opinion than any section of theseveral nationalities I might have found at home.
There was a universal toleration abroad; and the Spaniard conceded tothe German, and the Russian to the Englishman, much on the score ofnationality; and did not question too closely a morality which, afterall, might have been little other than a conventional habit. Exactly inthe same way, however, that one hurries away from the life of a city andits dissipations, to breathe the fresh air and taste the delicious quietof the country, did I turn from these scenes of splendor, from the crushof wealth, and the conflict of emotion, to that Green Island, where somany of my sympathies were intertwined, and where the great problem ofhuman happiness was on its trial on issues that differed wonderfullylittle from those that were being tried in gilded salons, and by peoplewhose names were blazoned in history.
Ireland, at the time I speak of, was beginning to feel that sense ofdistrust and jealousy between the owner and the tiller of the soilwhich, later on, was to develop itself into open feud. The old tiesthat have bound the humble to the rich man, and which were hallowedby reciprocal acts of good-will and benevolence, were being loosened.Benefits were canvassed with suspicion, ungracious or unholy acts weretreasured up as cruel wrongs. The political agitator had so far gainedthe ear of the people, that he could persuade them that there was not ahardship or a grievance of their lot that could not be laid at the doorof the landlord. He was taught to regard the old relation of love andaffection to the owner of the soil, as the remnants of a barbarism thathad had its day, and he was led to believe that whether the tyrannythat crushed him was the Established Church or the landlord, there wasa great Liberal party ready to aid him in resisting either or both, whenhe could summon courage for the effort. By what promptings the poor manwas brought to imagine that a reign of terror would suffice to establishhim in an undisputed possession of the soil, and that the best lease wasa loaded musket, it is not either my wish nor my duty here to narrate;I only desire to call my reader's attention to the time itself, as atransition period when the peasant had begun to resent some of the tiesthat had bound him to his landlord, and had not yet conceived the ideaof that formidable conspiracy which issues its death-warrants and neveris at a loss for the agents to enforce them. There were at the timesome who, seeing the precarious condition of the period, had their graveforebodings of what was to come, when further estrangement between thetwo classes was accomplished, and the poor man should come to see inthe rich only an oppressor and a tyrant. There was not at that time thearmed resistance to rents, nor the threatening letter system to which wewere afterwards to become accustomed, still less was there the thoughtthat the Legislature would interfere to legalize the demands by whichthe tenant was able to coerce his landlord; and for a brief intervalthere did seem a possibility of reuniting once again, by the ties ofbenefit and gratitude, the two classes whose real welfare depends onconcord and harmony. I have not the shadow of a pretext to be thoughtdidactic, but I did believe that if I recalled in fiction some of thetraits which once had bound up the relations of rich and poor, and givento our social system many of the characteristics of the family, I shouldbe reviving pleasant memories if not doing something more.
To this end I sketched the character of Mary Martin. By making theopening of my story date from the time of the Relief Bill, I intendedto picture the state of the country at one of the most memorable erasin its history, and when an act of the Legislature assumed to redressinequalities, compose differences, and allay jealousies of centuries'growth, and make of two widely differing races one contented people.
I had not, I own, any implicit faith in Acts of Parliament, and I hada fervent belief in what kindness--when combined with knowledge ofIreland--could do with Irishmen. I have never heard of a people withwhom sympathy could do so much, nor the want of it be so fatal. I havenever heard of any other people to whom the actual amount of a benefitwas of less moment than the mode it was bestowed. I have never read of arace who, in great poverty and many privations, attach a higher value tothe consideration that is bestowed on them than to the actual materialboons, and feel such a seemingly disproportioned gratitude for kindwords and generous actions.
What might not be anticipated from a revulsion of sentiment in a peoplelike this, to what violence might not this passion for vengeance becarried, if the notion possessed them that they, whom she called herbetters, only traded on the weakness of their poverty and the imbecilityof their good faith? It was in a fruitful soil of this kind that theagitation now sowed the seeds of distrust and disorder; and with whatfatal rapidity the poison reproduced itself and spread, the history oflate years is the testimony.
If such traits as I have endeavored to picture in Mary Martin wereengaged in the work of benevolence tomorrow, they would be met on everyside by discouragement and defeat. The priest would denounce them as apropaganda artfully intended to sap the ancient faith of the people;the agitators would denounce them as the cunning flatteries of politicalsolicitation; the people themselves would distrust them as coveringsome secret object; and the National Press would be certain to utter itswarnings against whatever promised to establish peace or contentment tothe land.
I have said already, and I repeat it here, that this character of MaryMartin is purely fictitious; and there is the more
need I should sayit, since there was once a young lady of this very name,--many traits ofwhose affection for the people and efforts for their well being mightbe supposed to have been my original. To my great regret I never had thehappiness to have met her; however, I have heard much of her devotionand her goodness.
I am not sure that some of my subordinate characters were not drawn fromlife. Mrs. Nelligan, I remember, had her type in a little Galway townI once stopped at, and Dan Nelligan had much in common with one who hassince held a distinguished place on the Bench.
Of the terrible epidemic which devastated Ireland, there was much forwhich I drew on my own experience. Of its fearful ravages in the west,in the wilds of Clare, and that lonely promontory that stretches at themouth of the Shannon into the Atlantic, I had been the daily witness;and even to recall some of the incidents passingly was an effort ofgreat pain.
Of one feature of the people at this disastrous time, I could not sayenough; nor could any words of mine do justice to the splendid heroismwith which they bore up, and the noble generosity they showed each otherin misfortune. It is but too often remarked how selfish men are made bymisery, and how fatal is a common affliction to that charity that caresfor others. There was none of this here; I never in any condition orclass recognized more traits of thoughtful kindness and self-denialthan I did amongst these poor, famished, and forgotten people. I neverwitnessed in the same perfection, how a widespread affliction couldcall up a humanity great as itself, and make very commonplace naturessomething actually heroic and glorious.
Nothing short of the fatal tendency I have to digression, and thewatchful care I am bound to bestow against this fault, prevented me fromnarrating several incidents with which my own experience had made meacquainted. Foreign as these were to the burden of my tale, it was onlyby an effort I overcame the temptation to recall them.
If a nation is to be judged by her bearing under calamity, Ireland--andshe has had some experiences--comes well through the ordeal. That wemay yet see how she will sustain her part in happier circumstances is myhope and my prayer, and that the time be not too far off.
CHARLES LEVER.
Trieste, 1872.
THE MARTINS OF CRO' MARTIN.