_Random Remarks on Things Corkonian_
They told me that Cork was a very dirty city. They even said it was
filthy, and they said it in such a way as to reflect on Irishmen in
general and Corkonians in particular.
Yes, they said that Cork was a dirty city, and so I found it--almost
as dirty as New York. This may sound like a strong statement, but I
mean it.
When I arrived in Cork I saw a hill and made for it at once, because
after railway there is nothing that so takes the kinks out of a
fellow's legs as a walk up a stiff hill. And anyhow I was on a walking
tour.
I arrived at the top about sunset. On reading this sentence over I
find that it sounds as if the hill was an all-day journey, but it was
only a matter of a few squares, and when I started the sun had long
since made up its mind to set.
In Ireland the sun takes on Irish ways, and is just a little dilatory.
It always means to set, and it always does set in time to avoid being
out in the dark, but it's "an unconscionably long time a dying."
At the summit of the hill I saw a church steeple that appealed to my
esthetic sense, and I asked a little boy what church it was.
"Shandon churrch, sirr," said he with the rapid and undulating
utterance of the Corkonian.
"Where the bells are?" said I.
"Yes," said he, smiling. "And over beyont is the Lee."
"The pleasant waters of the river Lee," I quoted at him, and he smiled
again. Probably every traveler who goes to Cork quotes the lovely old
bit of doggerel, but the Corkonian smiles and smiles.
The river Lee runs through the center of Cork, and at evening it is a
favorite place for fishing, also for learning to swim on dry land.
The fishermen seem to fish for the love of casting, and the little
boys swim on the pavement--two pursuits as useless as they are
pleasant. Over the bridge the fishermen leaned, and cast their lines
in anything but pleasant places--for the river is malodorous--and the
little boys stood on benches and dived to the pavement, where they
spat and then went through the motions of swimming.
There were dozens of the little boys, and most of them seemed to be
brothers. Some of them were quite expert in diving backward, and all
of them were dirty, but they seemed to be happy. I could not help
thinking how soon the Celtic mind begins to use symbols, for it was
easy to see that when the boys spat it signified a watering place to
them. I dare say they were breaking a city ordinance in spitting, and
if they knew that they were that much happier--stolen sweets are the
sweetest.
During the time I watched the setting sun--which was still at it and,
by the way, performed some lovely variations on a simple color scheme
in the sky--not even an eel was caught, but the fishermen cast under
the bridge, let their bait float down the (un) pleasant waters, and
drew in their lines again and again--mute examples of a patience that
one does not associate with Ireland.
At last I left them and started out to find Shandon church, which
seemed but a few squares away.
My pathway led through the slums, and up a hill so steep that I hope
horses only use it as a means of descent. I passed one fireside where
the folks looked cosy and happy and warm. It was a summer evening, but
chilly, and the place into which I looked was a shop for the sale of
coal. Shoemakers' children are generally barefooted, but these people
were burning their own coal, and the mother and the dirty children
sprawled around the store or home, in a shadow-casting way, that would
have delighted Mynheer Rembrandt if he had passed by.
I was struck with the population of Cork. It was most of it on the
sidewalk, and nearly all of it was under sixteen. Pretty faces, too,
among them, and happy looking. I think that sympathy would have been
wasted on them. They had so much more room than they would have had in
New York, and they were not any dirtier--than New Yorkers of the same
class.
After I had reached the top of the hill I turned and looked for
Shandon church and it was gone. I asked a boy what had become of it,
and he told me that in following my winding way through the
convolutions known as streets I had gotten as far from the church as
I could in the time. He told me pleasantly just how to go to get to
the church, and it involved going to the foot of the hill and
beginning again.
I asked a number of times after that, and always got courteous but
rapid answers. The Irish are great talkers, but the Corkonian could
handicap himself with a morning's silence, and beat his brothers from
other counties before evening.
At last I came on the church, passing, just before I reached it, the
Greencoat Hospital National School, with its quaint and curious (to
quote three of Poe's words) statues of a green-coated boy and girl.
I asked a man when the bells began to ring (for I had been told that
they only rang at night).
"'Every quar-rter of an hour, sirr, they'll be ringing in a couple of
minutes, sirr."
[Illustration: GREEN COAT HOSPITAL, CORK]
One likes to indulge in a bit of sentiment sometimes, and I stood and
waited to hear the bells of Shandon that sound so grand on the
pleasant waters of the river Lee. I had left the Lee to the fishermen
and the make-believe swimmers, but the bells would sound sweetly here
under the tower that held them.
A minute passed, and then another, and then I heard music--music that
called forth old memories of days long since dead. How it pealed out
its delight on the (icy) air of night. And how well I knew the tune:
"Down where the Wurzburger flows."
No, it was not the chimes, but a nurse in the hospital at a piano.
Before she had finished, Shandon bells began, but they played what did
not blend with what she sang, and I went on my way thinking on the
potency of music.
I passed on down where the river Lee flowed, and the fishermen were
still fishing, but the little boys had tired of swimming.
Two signs met me at nearly every corner. One read, "James J. Murphy &
Co.," and the other "Beamish & Crawford," or "Crawford & Beamish," I
forget which. Both marked the places of publicans (and sinners, I
doubt not), and both were brewers' names. The publican's own name
never appeared, but these names were omnipresent.
Again I thought of Shandon bells, and the romantic song, "Down Where
the Wurzburger Flows," and leaving the Lee still flowing I sought my
hotel.
I would like to make a revolutionary statement, that is more often
thought than uttered, but before I make it, I would like to say that
there are two classes of travelers: those who think there is nothing
in Europe that compares with similar things in America, and those who
think there is nothing in America that can hold a candle to similar
things in Europe.
I hope I belong to neither class. If I mistake not, I am a Pharisee,
and thank my stars that I am not as other men are. Most of us are
Pharisees, but few will admit it.
I began being a Pharisee when I was a small child, and that is the
time that most people begin.
I kept it up. In this, I am--like the multitude.
Having thus stated my position, let me go on to say, that I am
perfectly willing to admit that this or that bit of scenery in France,
or Switzerland, or England, or Ireland, lays over anything of the sort
I ever saw in America, if I think it does, and I am equally willing to
say, that America has almost unknown bits that are far better than
admired and poet-ridden places in Europe.
Twin Lakes in Connecticut is one of them, and Killarney is a
poet-ridden place.
Why, even in Ireland there are places just as lovely as Killarney, but
they have not been written up, and so no one goes to visit them.
I felt that one of the worst things about Killarney was the American
sightseer, and I came away soon.
Cook's tourists have never heard of Twin Lakes, thank fortune, and it
will be some time before they (the lakes) are spoiled.
The Lakes of Killarney are so beautiful that they are worthy of the
pen of a poet, but the pen of a poet does not make any lake more
beautiful, and I am quarreling because so many people refuse to
believe the evidence of their own senses, and take their natural
beauties at the say so of another.
There is a tower going up in New York at present, a tower that with
the exception of the Eiffel Tower is the tallest on earth.
Many persons look at it, reflect that it is a skyscraper, and then
dismiss it as therefore hideous. But it is really very beautiful, and
seen from certain vantage points, it is architecturally one of the
glories of New York.
[Illustration: A BIT OF KILLARNEY]
If it ever gains a reputation for beauty, you will find persons raving
over it, who to-day class it among the "hideous skyscrapers."
A hundred years ago there were some skyscrapers in Switzerland, and
they were thought to be hideous. After awhile a man with a poet's eyes
and a courageous tongue visited them, and he said "The Alps are
beautiful."
When their reputation for beauty was established, travelers left the
region round about the Rockies to go and rave over the beauties of
Switzerland.
That's all.