Sir Jonah Barrington

“ My mother, a woman of high blood and breeding, and just pride, was clad in what was called a manteau of silvered satin: when standing direct before the lights, she shone out as the reflector of a lamp; and as she moved majestically about the room, and curtseyed à la Madame Pompadour, the rustling of her embroidered habit sounded like music appropriate to the flow of compliments that enveloped her. ”

“ My intimacy with Curran was long and close. I knew every turn of his mind and every point of his capacity. He was not fitted to pursue the subtleties of detail;—but his imagination was wide-ranging and infinite, his fancy boundless, his wit indefatigable. There was scarce any species of talent to which he did not possess some pretension. He was gifted by nature with the first faculties of an advocate and of a dramatist; and the lesser but ingenious accomplishment of personification (without mimicry) was equally familiar to him. ”

“ While on their visit at my house, I perceived, in Hartpole’s disposition, among other traits which so close a communion could scarcely fail to develope, one which I had never before suspected in him, and calculated to prove the certain and permanent source of unhappiness. Jealousy is of all others the most terrible of human passions. When once it fixes its roots in a hasty, sanguine nature, it becomes master of every action and every word; and reason, justice, and humanity, all fly before it! When it pervades a less ardent spirit, impetuosity is bridled ”

“ The capriciousness of courage is, indeed, so unaccountable, that it has ever been to me a source of amusing reflection. Not being myself of a very timorous disposition, and though I cannot say I ever experienced great fear of actual death in any proper reasonable way by the hands of a Christian—nay, even should it be a doctor—I always felt the greatest dread of getting a bite from the teeth of a mastiff, and never passed the heels of a horse without experiencing strong symptoms of cowardice. I always felt much stouter by daylight too than in the night-time. ”

“ The profound stillness continued for a moment, horror having seized the multitude, when, on the sudden, a loud and universal yell (the ancient practice of the Irish peasantry on the death of a chieftain) simultaneously burst out like a peal of thunder from every quarter of the field; a yell so savage and continuous—so like the tone of revenge,—that it would have appalled any stranger to the customs of the country. Alcock and his partisans immediately retreated; those of Colclough collected round his body; and their candidate (a few moments before in health, spirits, and vigour!) ”

“ One short period is the true Paradise of mortals, that delicious dream of life, when age is too far distant to be seen, and childhood fast receding from our vision!—when Nature pauses briefly between refinement and sensuality—first imparting to our wondering senses what we are and what we shall be, before she consigns us to the dangerous guardianship of chance and of our passions!
That is the crisis when lasting traits of character begin to bud and blossom, and acquire sap ”

“ Ireland has been ever celebrated by every author who characterised it, as the most amatory of islands; and the disinterestedness of its lovers, and their inveterate contempt of obstacles, and abhorrence of any species of procrastination, has been a subject of general eulogium.
Love is the only object of liberty and equality as yet enjoyed by the Irish people. Even among the better orders, money, not being in general there the circulating medium of matrimony, is always despised when it does not attend, and abused behind its back as inveterately as if it was a sub-sheriff. ”

“ On first acquaintance, he seldom failed to make an unfavourable impression: but his arrogance was only superficial—his pride innoxious—his haughtiness theoretical. In society, he so whimsically mixed and mingled solemn ostentation with playful frivolity, that the man and the boy, the judge and the jester, were generally alternate.
Still Kilwarden’s heart was right and his judgment sufficing. In feeling he was quick—in apprehension slow. The union of these qualities engendered a sort of spurious sensibility, which constantly led him to apprehend offence where none was ever intended. ”

“ In lieu of the damp mouldering scent exhaled by three millions of human skeletons, we are presented with the perfumes of jasmines and of myrtles—of violet-beds or variegated flower-plats decked out by the ministering hand of love or duty;—as if benignant Nature had spread her most splendid carpet to cover, conceal, and render alluring even the abode of death, and commemorate the noblest passions and the purest sympathies of mortality. ”

“ Hartpole’s presence of mind entirely forsook him; he retraced his steps, and found Mary lying, as it should seem, quite senseless, in the arms of Honor: his heart relented; his evil genius profited by the advantage; and he assisted to restore her. Gradually Mary’s eyes opened; she regarded George wildly but intently, and having caught his eye, closed hers again—a languid, and, as it were, an involuntary pressure of his hand, conveying to him her sensations. ”

“ By my sowl, when the King George’s writ (crossing himself) comes within smell of the big house, the boys soon make him run as if the seven red devils was under his tail, saving your presence. It’s King George’s writ that does run at Connemara, plase your worship, all as one as a black greyhound. O the devil a stop he stays till he gets into the court-house of Galway again! ”

“ I followed up the principles my family had invariably pursued from their first settlement in Ireland; namely, an attachment divided between the crown and the people. In the year 1795, I saw that the people were likely to grow too strong for the crown; and therefore became at once, not indeed an ultra—but one in whom loyalty absorbed almost every other consideration. I willingly united in every effort to check the rising spirit of popular disaffection—the dreadful results of which were manifested in the atrocities acting throughout France, and in the tottering state of the crowns of Europe. ”

“ He was, gratis, an oracle, lawyer, poet, horse—cow—dog and man doctor, farmer, architect, brewer, surveyor, and magistrate of all work. He was friendly and good-natured, and possessed one of those remarkable figures now so rarely to be seen in society. I feel I am, as usual, digressing;—however, be the digression what it may, I cannot deny myself the pleasure of depicting my old friend, and endeavouring to render him as palpable to the vision of my reader as he is at this moment to my own. ”

“ Neither beauty, nor giddy passion, nor the glare of studied attractions, ever enveloped me in their labyrinths. Nobody admired female loveliness more than myself; but beauty in the abstract never excited within me that delirium which has so impartially made fools of kings and beggars—of heroes and cowards; and to which the wisest professors of law, physic, and divinity, have from time immemorial surrendered their liberty and their reason.
Regularity of feature is very distinct from expression of countenance, which I never yet saw mere symmetry successfully rival. ”

“ I have seen many admirable comedians on the continent. Nothing can possibly exceed Mademoiselle Mars (for instance) in many characters: but the French are all actors and actresses from their cradles; and a great number of performers, even at the minor theatres, seem to me to forget that they are playing, and at times nearly make the audience forget it too! Their spectacle is admirably good; their dancing excellent, and most of their dresses beautiful. Their orchestras are well filled, in every sense of the word, and the level of musical composition not so low as some of Mr. Bishop’s effusions. ”

“ Why, you know very well, Kate, as every body knows, that there’s nothing going on at that house but hunting and feasting; dancing all night, and rattling about all day, like mad people; and coshering with raking pots of tea, hot cakes, syllabubs, pipers, and the devil knows what! No, no. If Dolly were to get one month among her cousins at Blandsfort, I should never see a day’s comfort after; topsy-turvy would go Moret! I’d never be master of my own house half an hour after Dolly had received a course of instruction at Jack Barrington’s. I don’t wish her to know too much of the world. ”

“ Over such a person as Hartpole, the victory of Miss Otway’s beauty was complete; and the result of that unfortunate passion convinces me that a man (unless his judgment be superior to his sensibility) cannot commit an act of greater folly than to encourage an attachment to any woman whom he thinks every body else must admire as well as himself. George at first was inclined to resist his passion, but he did not fly from the cause of it, and he therefore fell a victim to romantic love as he had before done to romantic gratitude. ”

“ Why not transfer the offence to the criminal side of the courts of justice? All the rest of Europe ridicules our system. The idea entertained on the continent upon such occasions is silence or death!—if not the most lucrative, certainly the most honourable mode of procedure.—An affectionate husband cannot be recompensed by any thing, and a rich seducer cannot be punished. But if the gentleman was to be sent to a tread-mill, and the lady to solitary confinement, adultery would soon be as much out of fashion as it is now the haut goût. ”

“ The recollection of one early incident of our lives never fails to introduce another; and the marked occurrences of my life from childhood to the wrong side of a grand climacteric are at this moment fresh in my memory, in all their natural tints, as at the instant of their occurrence.
Without awarding any extraordinary merit either to the brain, or to those human organs generally regarded as the seat of recollection, or rather retention of ideas, I think this fact may be accounted for in a much simpler way—more on philosophical than on organic principles. ”

“ I cannot omit stating, that Sir William, when lord mayor, gave the most numerous, brilliant, and complete masquerade ever seen in Dublin, or, I believe, any where else. There were fourteen or fifteen hundred persons, and I am sure not more than one hundred dominoes; every body went in character, and every person tried to keep up the character he adopted. Ireland, of all places in the world, is, perhaps, best adapted to a masquerade, as every Irishman is highly amused when he can get an opportunity of assuming, by way of freak, any new character. ”

“ I must remark a singular practical distinction in the rules of the Irish and English Houses of Commons. In England, the House is cleared of strangers for every division, and no person is supposed to see or know in what way the representatives of the people exercise their trust. In Ireland, on the contrary, the divisions were public, and red and black lists were immediately published of the voters on every important occasion. The origin of this distinction I cannot explain, but it must be owned that the Irish was the most constitutional practice. ”

“ Though there is perhaps as much real refinement in London as in Paris, the French certainly mingle more mind with their vices. Those of the Englishman are merely sensual: those of the French seasoned with intellect.—The Englishman’s the result of instinct—the Frenchman’s of excitement: an Englishman is always, a Frenchman never, in earnest.
Père la Chaise would only remind a cockney of suicide: it sets a Parisian gabbling about the meadows of Elysium. A Paris shopkeeper can descant on the heathen mythology: the cockney talks of heaven from his bible and the pulpit ”

“ Before I went into parliament, I had become acquainted with Mr. R. Thoroton, who had come over to Ireland with the Duke of Rutland. He had the manner of a coxcomb, but the heart of a friend, and the sentiments of a gentleman. He was clerk of the House of Commons; and being by no means a common man, formed a necessary part of all our societies. He and I lived much together: and I found the intercourse very advantageous, since my friend knew every thing that was going forward, and, under the rose, set me right on many occasions. ”

“ A thrilling horror seized upon the nerves and muscles of the attorney: his sins and clients were now (like the visions in Macbeth, or King Saul and the Witch of Endor) beginning to pass in shadowy review before his imagination. The last glance he could distinctly take, as he looked upward to Heaven for aid, (there being none at Rathfarnan,) gave a dismal glimpse of his once red-and-white engrossing member, now, like the chameleon, assuming the deep purple hue of the rebel jaw it was in contact with, the fingers spread out, cramped, and extended as a fan before the rebel visage ”

“ The judge does justice to other people, and the bishop does justice to himself; but both are equally ignorant of the mysteries of futurity, and must alike wait until they pass the dim boundary of this world before they can gain any practical information as to the next. When a military captain is ordained a clergyman, (as is somewhat the fashion during the peace establishment,) does he become one atom wiser or more knowing as to futurity than when he was in the army?—probably, on the other hand, he thinks much less about the matter than when standing upon the field of battle. ”