IRELAND--ITS BEAUTY AND ITS SADNESS.
THE LAKES OF KILLARNEY, May 26th.
There is never but one _first_ impression; all else is _second_ in
time and in degree. It is twenty-eight years since I first saw the
shores of England and of Ireland, and then they were to me like some
celestial country. It was then, as now, in the blessed spring-time--in
the merry month of May:
The corn was springing fresh and green,
The lark sang loud and high;
and the banks of the Mersey, as I sailed up to Liverpool, were like
the golden shores of Paradise.
Now I am somewhat of a traveller, and should take these things more
quietly, were it not for a pair of young eyes beside me, through which
I see things anew, and taste again the sweetness of that earlier time.
If we had landed in the moon, my companion could not have been at
first more bewildered and delighted with what she saw; everything was
so queer and quaint, so old and strange--in a word, so unlike all she
had ever seen before. The streets were different, being very narrow,
and winding up hill and down dale; the houses were different, standing
close up to the street, without the relief of grass, or lawn, or even
of stately ascending steps in front; the thatched cottages and the
flowering hedge-rows--all were new.
To heighten the impression of what was so fresh to the eye, the
country was in its most beautiful season. We left New York still
looking cold and cheerless from the backward spring; here the spring
had burst into its full glory. The ivy mantled every old tower and
ruin with the richest green, the hawthorn was in blossom, making the
hedge-rows, as we whirled along the roads, a mass of white and green,
filling the eye with its beauty and the air with its fragrance. Thus
there was an intoxication of the senses, as well as of the
imagination; and if the girls (for two others, under the charge of
Prof. Hyde, had joined our party) had leaped from the carriage, and
commenced a romp or a dance on the greensward, we could hardly have
been surprised, as an expression of their childish joy, and their
first greeting as they touched the soil, not of merry England, but of
the Emerald Isle.
But if this set them off into such ecstasies, what shall be said of
their first sight of a ruin? Of course it was Blarney Castle, which is
near Cork, and famous for its Blarney Stone. A lordly castle, indeed,
it must have been in the days of its pride, as it still towers up a
hundred feet and more, and its walls are eight or ten feet thick: so
that it would have lasted for ages, if Cromwell had not knocked some
ugly holes through it a little more than two hundred years ago. But
still the tower is beautiful, being covered to the very top with
masses of ivy, which in England is the great beautifier of whatever is
old, clinging to the mouldering wall, covering up the huge rents and
gaps made by cannon balls, and making the most unsightly ruins lovely
in their decay. We all climbed to the top, where hangs in air,
fastened by iron clamps in its place, the famous Blarney Stone, which
is said to impart to whoever kisses it the gift of eloquence, which
will make one successful in love and in life. As it was, only one
pressed forward to snatch this prize which it held out to our embrace.
Dr. Schaff even "poked" the stone disdainfully with his staff, perhaps
thinking it would become like Aaron's rod that budded. The lack of
enthusiasm, however, may have been owing to the fact that the stone
hangs at a dizzy height, and is therefore somewhat difficult of
approach; for on descending within the castle, where is another
Blarney Stone lying on the ground, and within easy reach, I can
testify that several of the party gave it a hearty smack, not to catch
any mysterious virtue from the stone, but the flavor of thousands of
fair lips that had kissed it before.
Before leaving this old castle, as we shall have many more to see
hereafter, let me say a word about castles in general. They are well
enough _as ruins_, and certainly, as they are scattered about Ireland
and England, they add much to the picturesqueness of the landscapes,
and will always possess a romantic interest. But viewed in the sober
light of history, they are monuments of an age of barbarism, when the
country was divided among a hundred chiefs, each of whom had his
stronghold, out of which he could sally to attack his less powerful
neighbor. Everything in the construction--the huge walls, with narrow
slits for windows through which the archers could pour arrows, or in
later times the musketeers could shower balls, on their enemies; the
deep moat surrounding it; the drawbridge and portcullis--all speak of
a time of universal insecurity, when danger was abroad, and every man
had to be armed against his fellow.
As a place of habitation, such a fortress was not much better than a
prison. The chieftain shut himself in behind massive walls, under huge
arches, where the sun could never penetrate, where all was dark and
gloomy as a sepulchre. I know a cottage in New England, on the crest
of one of the Berkshire Hills, open on every side to light and air,
kissed by the rising and the setting sun, in which there is a hundred
times more of real _comfort_ than could have been in one of these old
castles, where a haughty baron passed his existence in gloomy
grandeur, buried in sepulchral gloom.
And to what darker purposes were these castles sometimes applied! Let
one go down into the passages underneath, and see the dungeons
underground, dark, damp, and cold as the grave, in which prisoners and
captives were buried alive. One cannot grope his way into these foul
subterranean dungeons without feeling that these old castles are the
monuments of savage tyrants; that if these walls could speak, they
would tell many a tale, not of knightly chivalry, but of barbarous
cruelty, that would curdle the blood with horror. These things take
away somewhat of the charm which Walter Scott has thrown about these
old "gallant knights," who were often no better than robber chiefs;
and I am glad that Cromwell with his cannon battered their strongholds
about their ears. Let these relics remain covered with ivy, and
picturesque as ruins, but let it never be forgotten that they are the
fallen monuments of an age of barbarism, of terror, and of cruelty.
There is one other feature of this country that cannot be omitted from
a survey of Ireland--it is _the beggars_, who are sure to give an
American a warm welcome. They greet him with whines and grimaces and
pitiful beseechings, to which he cannot harden his heart. My first
salutation at Queenstown on Monday morning, on coming out in front of
the hotel to take a view of the beautiful bay, was from an old woman
in rags, who certainly looked what she described herself to be, "a
poor crathur, that had nobody to care for her," and who besought me,
"for the love of God, to give her at least the price of a cup of tea!"
Of course I did, when she gave me an Irish blessing: "May the gates o
Paradise open to ye, and to all them that loves ye!" This vision of
Paradise seems to be a favorite one with the Irish beggar, and is
sometimes coupled with extraordinary images, as when one blesses her
benefactor in this overflowing style: "May every hair on your head be
a candle to light you to Paradise!"
This quick wit of the Irish serves them better than their poverty in
appealing for charity; and I must confess that I have violated all the
rules laid down by charitable societies, "not to give to beggars," for
I have filled my pockets with pennies, and given to hordes of
ragamuffins, as well as to old women, to hear their answers, which,
though largely infused with Irish blarney, have a flavor of native
wit. Who could resist such a blessing as this: "May ye ride in a fine
carriage, and the mud of your wheels splash the face of your inimies,"
then with a quick turn, "though I know ye haven't any!"
Yesterday we made an excursion through the Gap of Dunloe, a famous
gorge in the mountains around Killarney, and were set upon by the
whole fraternity--ragtag and bobtail. At the foot of the pass we left
our jaunting car to walk over the mountain, C---- alone being mounted
on a pony. I walked by her side, while our two theological professors
strode ahead. The women were after them in full cry, each with a bowl
of goat's milk and a bottle of "mountain dew" (Irish whiskey), to work
upon their generous feelings. But they produced no impression; the
professors were absorbed in theology or something else, and setting
their faces with all the sternness of Calvinism against this vile
beggary, they kept moving up the mountain path. At length the beggars
gave them up in despair, and returned to try their mild solicitations
upon me. An old siren, coming up in a tender and confiding way,
whispered to me, "You're the best looking of the lot; and it is a nice
lady ye have; and a fine couple ye make." That was enough; she got her
money. I felt a little elated with the distinguished and superior air
which even beggars had discovered in my aspect and bearing, till on
returning to the hotel, one of our professors coolly informed me that
the same old witch had previously told him that "he was the darling of
the party!" After that, who will ever believe a beggar's compliment
again?
But we must not let the beggars on the way either amuse or provoke us,
so as to divert our attention from the natural grandeur and beauty
around us. The region of the Lakes of Killarney is at once the most
wild and the most beautiful portion of Ireland. These Lakes are set as
in a bowl, in the hollow of rugged mountains, which are not like the
Green Mountains, or the Catskills, wooded to the top, but bald and
black, their heads being swept by perpetual storms from the Atlantic,
that keep them always bleak and bare. Yet in the heart of these barren
mountains, in the very centre of all this savage desolation, lie these
lovely sheets of water. No wonder that they are sought by tourists
from America, and from all parts of the world.
Nor are their shores without verdure and beauty. Though the mountain
sides are bare rock, like the peaks of volcanoes, yet the lower hills
and meadows bordering on the Lakes are in a high state of cultivation.
But these oases of fertility are not for the people; they all belong
to great estates--chiefly to the Earl of Kenmare and a Mr. Herbert,
who is a Member of Parliament. These estates are enclosed with high
walls, as if to keep them not only from the intrusion of the people,
but even from being seen by them. The great rule of English
exclusiveness here obtains, as in the construction of the old feudal
castles, the object in both cases being the same, to keep the owners
in, and to shut everybody else out. Hence the contrast between what is
within and what is without these enclosures. Within all is greenness
and fertility; without all is want and misery. It will not do to
impute the latter entirely to the natural shiftlessness of the Irish
people, as if they would rather beg than work. They have very little
motive to work. They cannot own a foot of the soil. The Earl of
Kenmare may have thousands of acres for his game, but not a foot will
he sell to an Irish laborer, however worthy or industrious. Hence the
inevitable tendency of things is to impoverish more and more the
wretched peasantry. How long would even the farmers of New England
retain their sturdy independence, if all the land of a county were in
a single estate, and they could not by any possibility get an acre of
ground? They would soon lose their self-respect, as they sank from the
condition of owners to tenants. The more I see of different
countries, the more I am convinced that the first condition of a
robust and manly race is that they should have within their reach some
means, either by culture of the soil or by some other kind of
industry, of securing for themselves an honest and decent support. It
is impossible to keep up self-respect when there is no means of
livelihood. Hence the feeling of sadness that mingles with all this
beauty around me; that it is a country where all is for the few, and
nothing for the many; where the poor starve, while a few nobles and
rich landlords can spend their substance in riotous living. Kingsley,
in one of his novels, puts into the mouth of an English sailor these
lines, which always seemed to me to have a singular pathos:
"Oh! England is a pleasant place for them that's rich and high;
But England is a cruel place for such poor folks as I."
That is the woe of Ireland--a woe inwrought with its very
institutions, and which it would seem only some social convulsion
could remove. Sooner or later it must come; we hope by peaceful
methods and gentle influences. We shall not live to see the time, but
we trust another generation may, when the visitor to Killarney shall
not have his delight in the works of God spoiled by sight of the
wretchedness of man; when instead of troops of urchins in rags, with
bare feet, running for miles to catch the pennies thrown from jaunting
cars, we shall see happy, rosy-cheeked children issuing from
school-houses, and see the white spires of pretty churches gleaming in
the valleys and on the hills. That will be the "sunburst" indeed for
poor old Ireland, when the glory of the Lord is thus seen upon her
waters and her mountains.