Asenath Nicholson

“ It is a singular spectacle to witness—a lady gently nurtured and brought up, giving up, for a time, home and country and kindred—visiting a land stricken with famine—traversing on foot that land from boundary to boundary—making her way over solitary mountains and treading through remote glens, where scarcely the steps of civilization have reached, sharing the scanty potato of the poor but hospitable people, and lying down after a day of toil, in the miserable but secure cabin of a Kerry or Connaught peasant. ”

“ The dark mud cabin—the straw on which the mother lay—he haggard countenances of the starving group—the wooden bowl of "holy water"—the plate of salt—the mummery of the priest, while he was putting the salt of grace to its lips, the blowing with his breath to infuse the regenerating spirit into the soul, were such a trifling, fearful combination of nonsense and profanity to my dark mind, that it was quite difficult to keep a usual degree of sobriety, but the priest escaped with no other lecture than an exclamation of nonsense, when we were out of the cabin. ”

“ She looked after them unperceived, and saw them stop, when the eldest said, "Here, Johnny, you are littler than I, and cannot bear the hunger so well, and you shall have it all." They were both houseless orphans and starving with hunger.
I found here, at Newport, misery without a mask; the door and window of the kind Mrs. Arthur wore a spectacle of distress indescribable; naked, cold, and dying, standing like petrified statues at the window, or imploring, for God's sake, a little food, till I almost wished that I might flee into the wilderness, far, far from the abode of any living creature. ”

“ The morning was unusually sunny, but the horrors of that day were inferior to none ever witnessed. The road was rough, and we constantly were meeting pale, meager-looking men, who were on their way from the mountains to break stones, and pile them mountain-high, for the paltry compensation of a pound of meal a-day; these men had put all their seed into the ground, and if they gave up their cabins, they must leave the crop for the landlord to reap, while they must be in a poorhouse or in the open air. This appeared to be the last bitter drug in Ireland's cup of woe! ”

“ Lord George Hill is not a George Washington, his work was a mightier one—his was a grapple with mind, with untutored mind, gathering strength for ages, till it seemed to defy all attempts of reform; and, like the bold cliffs which hung over their wild coast, stood up in their pride and said, "Dash on, we heed you not." Washington had carnal battles to fight, and with carnal weapons, in the hands of gallant soldiers, he scattered the foe. ”

“ The landlord growls, but growls in vain: the "lazy dogs," who are not in the poor-house, drawing enormous rates from his extensive farms, are at his doors, begging bread, or lying dead under his windows, waiting for "the board to be put on 'em," as they called a coffin. Coffins were now becoming scarce, and in the mountainous regions and islands, two rough boards, with the corpse, in the rags which were about it when the breath departed, placed between these, and a straw rope wound about, was the coveted boon which clung to them to the last. ”

“ My feet shall never again make their untried way through some dark glen, or wade through a miry bog, or climb some slippery crag to reach the isolated mud cabin, and hear the kind "God save ye kindly, lady; come in, come in, ye must be wairy." Never again can the sweet words of eternal life be read to the listening way-side peasant, when he is breaking stones, or walking by the way; never will the potato be shared with the family group around the basket, or the bundle of straw be unbound and spread for my couch. ”

“ I allude to the fearful, sinful use of all kinds of intoxicating drinks in Ireland in the time of the famine. Much noise has been made the last nine or ten years respecting the great temperance reform in that country. But who have been reformed? Travel the length and breadth of the island, even in the midst of desolation and death, and in how many families when a piece of flesh meat can be afforded upon the dinner-table, would the tea-kettle for hot whisky be wanting at the close of dinner? The more costly wines, too, were on the tables of the nobility, and not always wanting among the gentry. ”

“ The grand river that supplies the mighty "Niagara," flows quietly on for many a mile, till it reaches a certain point, when it takes a rapidity, gathering force as it proceeds, till it meets the fearful precipice down which it has roared and tumbled for ages, and down which it will roar and tumble till nature herself shall be dissolved.
The so-called "Rebellion" of 1848, which sadly sealed the fate of Mitchell and O'Brien, was precisely this law. They had waited and suffered, suffered and waited, till they reached the awful chasm—the famine. ”

“ To pauperize men, women, and children, in sight of, and walking over a rich uncultivated soil, as is Ireland, and shut them up, with no other crimes than that of compulsory poverty, where they are fed, clothed, and lodged at the governor's option, inclosed with bolts and bars, like felons, with no more freedom than state prisoners have, is certainly a strange comment on liberty, a strange comment on the family relationship, which prohibits all intercourse between parents and children, except a few hasty moments one day in seven. ”

“ As the pestilence followed the famine, the entire country seemed to be sinking into the vortex, and a knowledge of Ireland was gaining by all classes of people, both in and out of the country. An innovation was made, promising good results, into the long-established habits and condition of that people, which nothing before had done. Poverty was divested of every mask; and from the mud cabin to the estated gentleman's abode, all strangers who wished, without the usual circuitous ceremony, could gain access. ”

“ Boys assembled, lit up a tar-barrel, drew it through the streets, shouting, "Hurra for the Republic," while men walked soberly on, more as if following a hearse than if stimulating their countrymen to deeds of valor, or rejoicing at conquest. The mirth of the land has emphatically ceased, the spirit is broken; every effort at conviviality appears as if making a last struggle for life. The shamrock was sprinkled here and there upon a hat, but, like its wearer, seemed drooping, as being conscious that its bloom was scathed and its beauty dying forever. ”

“ If the Irish say most heartily, "Long live the Queen," let the Queen respond heartily, and "while I live I will do good to my Irish subjects." If the sixty-two mud-wall huts to each hundred in the worst parts, and twenty-three in the best, as Mr. Bright asserts, look a little untidy in an isle where castles and rich domains dot the green surface, why not substitute the comely cottage? and if the manure-heap be unseemly to the eyes and unsavory to the nose, plant in its stead the vine and the rose— for be assured, in no isle of the sea will they bloom fairer. ”

“ The workhouses in Ireland are many of them well managed on the principles as they are established; but, as an overseer in one of the best conducted ones said, "I have been here many years, and have seen the workings and effects of a poorhouse, and can only say—the best that can be said of them—they are prisons under a different name, calculated to produce a principle of idleness, and to degrade, never to elevate, to deaden in the human heart that rational self-respect which individual support generates, and which should be kept up; and may I never be doomed to die in a poorhouse." ”

“ Every effort of the friends of Ireland is baffled by the demoralizing effects that feeding a starving peasantry without labor has produced. And now the sound again is echoing and re-echoing, that on the 1st of November, the boilers upon mountain and in glen would be foaming and splashing with Indian meal; while the various idlers shall have nothing to do but fight their way over necks of old women and starved children, missiles of policemen, elbows and fists of aspirants, to secure the lucky hodge-podge into can and noggin, pot and bucket ”

“ But grief and blasted hopes have so scathed his warm heart, that though he retains that benignity of expression so peculiarly his own, yet the pencil of sorrow has so shaded it, continued anxiety has so paralyzed that hope which ever is, and ever must be the wellspring of the soul, that there seems a trembling doubting in every feature, whether to settle into a desponding passiveness, or struggle to maintain that wonted complacency which has seemed an innate and inseparable part of his whole constitution. The scourge that has laid waste his people has withered, has scathed his very soul. ”

“ Will proud England lose so bright a gem as Ireland might have been in her crown? Will she lose her; when the distaff, and the spade, the plow and the fishing net, might again make her mountains and her valleys rejoice!—When the song of the husbandman and the laugh of the milkmaid, might make her green isle the home of thousands, who are now sinking and dying in wasting despair. ”

“ The niches are entirely filled with bones. Here is interred the famous Roderic O'Connor, among the neglected rubbish; and priests and people in one confused mass, mingling their dust among peasants and beggars. But the beauty of Cong is, that ordained by nature; the river, and green meadow, and hillock, where stands a most enchanting lodge, backed with wood, which is seen with great advantage from the top of a hill upon the opposite side, which every tourist should be mindful to ascend. ”