Francis Morton

“ Such is the artificiality of our society, and the tyrannous pressure of public opinion, that, on pain of ostracism and ruinous loss of social position, a gentleman is enforced to conform to the habits of his immediate circle, and to regulate his expenditure by an arbitrary standard rather than by his own taste or means. Though neither needing nor admiring the fripperies of Vanity Fair, he must exchange his peace and comfort for them, in the struggle for decorous appearances. The calm enjoyments of home must be sacrificed to a society neither loved nor esteemed ”

“ Should we go into the country or to the seaside, after exploring every nook of our temporary home and ascertaining what rooms are mine, she never intrudes elsewhere, being very diffident of strangers. Packing she understands to portend a move, becomes then unquiet, and wanders up and down the house mournfully as if bidding farewell to familiar objects; but, once established in a new place, she accommodates herself to necessity, and evinces no disposition to ramble. She is averse to solitude, and piteously remonstrates against being left alone ”

“ That in this wealthy land so large a proportion of those claiming our tenderness should remain in enforced celibacy; that they should with such difficulty earn distressful bread; that by social usage all employ should be closed to them except tuition—and that that should involve personal humiliation and exhausting labour that would not patiently be submitted to by a kitchen drudge—is a bitter sarcasm on our civilisation that may partially account for the pale phantoms that haunt the steps and sadden the heart of a thoughtful observer in our cities. ”

“ Little knots of these “boys” are frequently to be seen in the interior, in the enjoyment of a desolate freedom, leading a careless gipsy life, part predatory, part eleemosynary: reposing at noon under shady trees with their pipes in their mouths, and at night slumbering sweetly in accidental barns. Murtough travels thus from village to factory, from canal to railroad, ready to turn his hands to any drudgery. He seldom remains long in one place, he knows not the endearments of a home, but leads a vagrant, animal existence, without books or enlightenment ”

“ As day slowly wanes, one by one, “the boys” reluctantly descend with ashy faces, and cast themselves despairingly down anywhere, mutely appealing for relief to the suffering women. Night descending veils their anguish, but with night arrive new distresses.
As the Albatross proceeds down the Channel, the breeze freshens, and veering to the westward, renders it necessary to shorten sail and make all snug for the night—a nautical procedure contemplated with ignorant alarm by those passengers able to raise their aching heads. ”

“ Whatever the wilful ignorance of man, since he is rarely entirely deprived of divine guidance, or unillumined by transient gleams of light—obscured and diffracted though it be by the medium through which it is transmitted—might not the vague alarm of antiquity represent a dim and confused apprehension that auroras were symbols of the variable activity of a central force, with the fluctuations in which the condition of the earth, as the abode of human life, was connected? ”

“ So fascinating is this easy life, that the Irish constitute half of the American army, and thus contribute directly to the aggrandisement of the State.
The simple agricultural life is unattractive to the Celt. He is repelled by toils requiring patience and forethought so foreign to his nature. Rural scenes charm him not; he shuns solitude, and is superstitiously averse to that austere shadow and silence of the vast American forests grateful to earnest and reflective minds. ”

“ Her eyes, if not so lucidly intelligible, so expressive of a community of feeling as those of the dog, are transparent abysses of golden light, the very mystery of whose depths fascinates while it bewilders the thoughtful gazer. ”

“ Is the Rajpoot pride that slays a female infant, lest in after-life it should dishonour its parentage by a plebeian marriage, more cruel than the selfish social system that devotes it to a solitary and weary life of penury and regrets? ”

“ We follow the fortunes of that larger class of immigrants who will have to depend on sweaty, grimy, servile labour for subsistence, even in Arcadia.
Attired in jauntily worn but battered hats, brass buttoned blue dress-coats, of the era of the gracious George IV., corduroy continuations, worsted hose, and huge brogues, worthy of the admiration of the sedate American; under the officious guidance of the predatory tribe usually besetting strangers, they reach those dens of the poor Irish that the authorities have vainly sought to cleanse. ”

“ The berths on either hand, tier above tier, are confusedly littered with the scanty bedding and sordid attire of their proprietors; fresh loaves have been hastily thrust into Sunday hats—pats of butter are imperfectly hidden in old shoes—kettles protrude from the thin covert of the blankets—and black bottles shyly retire from the treacherous light into remote corners. The poor household stuff suggests mournful reflections on that poverty whereof these mean trifles are the all, and on the insatiability of the desires whereto so little is absolutely needed. ”

“ From this involuntary association of ideas, the volatile girl is spoken of as “a mischievous kitten,” the Frenchman fondly addresses his spouse as “ma chatte,” and some persons by a strange mental obliquity vituperate any obnoxious old woman as “that old cat!”
What is more suggestive of the comfort and repose of home than the cat dozing by the fire? What associate of our domestic life interferes less with ease and meditation? The soft murmur whereby she expresses her enjoyment of our caresses, does not pain us like the plaintive cry of a bird doomed to imprisonment for life. ”

“ Like the drift wood left by the receding stream, to wither in the sun or rot in the sickly shade, and change into new forms of vegetable life, so has some luckless Celt been cast upon that shore to supply the necessities of commerce at the cost of life. ”

“ Adopting the more kindly view, Gray, in a charming poem, familiar to all, terms puss a “nymph;” and indeed what better representative of the grace, sensibility, witchery, artifice, and malice of the sex can be found among brutes? The frisky volatility of the kitten, yet innocent of blood of mice, irresistibly reminds us of the wild glee of a girl yet ignorant of the power of her charms; and the noiseless movements and sedate demeanour of the mature Tabby recall the silent activity and thoughtful composure of the experienced matron. ”

“ It is needless to say that Jack and his comrades witness these little passages of arms with huge delight.
There is abundant opportunity for indulgence in those mutual confidences that the impulsive voyagers incline to. The glories of former fights are homerically told, mysterious games are played with greasy cards, Jacobite songs are sung, little amatory scenes occur, and the smoke of numberless pipes ascends from the hatches, or broods in an odoriferous cloud below. The Celt never loses that factious spirit to which most of his misfortunes are in some degree attributable ”

“ American women generally despise, and reluctantly undertake, servile duties, leaving them to be monopolised in the north by Irish, more to their own satisfaction than to that of their mistresses, who are eloquent in abuse; but, remembering that elsewhere also servants are proverbially “the greatest plague of life,” we hesitate in confirming their complaints.
Factory employment the immigrants rarely resort to, from dislike to the attendant restraints. Many acquire houses of their own ere their youth has faded, and give sons to the Republic. ”

“ The alleged unsociability of puss is contradicted by the numerous instances wherein she has dwelt on amicable terms with other animals. At Lucerne, several centuries ago, a cat, dog, bird, and mouse fed daily from the same plate; and two cats are now to be seen in the Zoological Gardens dwelling in harmony with a miscellaneous assemblage of monkeys, musing serenely in the midst of ceaseless tumult, and even sometimes joining in a friendly way in the frolics of the volatile crowd.
The sensibility of the cat to music, like that of men, varies with the individual. ”

“ In order to exercise a wide and profound influence, knowledge should not be abstruse or veiled in a learned tongue; but, like the Gospel, should accommodate itself to the ignorance, appeal to the hearts, and satisfy the spiritual needs of men.
The middle ages were characterised by a propensity to association—derived from the necessity for combination against the tyranny of princes and the rapine of nobles—and by a singular disposition to mysticism which was the protest of the popular heart against the arid and unspiritual theology of the period. ”

“ When different sexes are thus mixed, as frequently occurs, the outrage on the modesty of the reluctant women needs no comment. Constant exposure to the observation of strange men generates immodesty—even the reluctant knowledge of impurities pollutes the soul—the unwholesome atmosphere irretrievably taints those who have once breathed it. ”

“ At length, appetite being appeased, the guests rise, the tables again emigrate, and old Abijah produces that celebrated violin, at the sound of which everybody becomes harmoniously convulsed. Everybody dances with everybody, and they do not seem at all lethargic after their late trencher-work. We ourselves dance a little to the inspiring rhythms of the "Arkansas Traveller" with the blue-eyed charmer. But joys must have an end. We go out to the stables, for it is eleven o'clock, and harness up our teams; the damsels vanish to their secret retreat, shortly to reappear equipped for travel. ”

“ Received by the host with a facile smile as treacherous as the many tinted radiance of the decanters ostentatiously adorning the bar, which is essential in these establishments, the strangers abandon themselves to enjoyment. But all pleasures fade, and a few days exhaust at once their means and the graciousness of their entertainer. Spurred by his taunts they look around for employment, and learn with surprise that, to those constituting the mass of the immigrants, it is as difficult of attainment in New York as in Dublin. ”

“ The cat is restricted to the house, stoned if she leaves it, fed scantily or not at all, despised as a household drudge, a forlorn Cinderella—but for whom, however, we should be over-run by vermin—abandoned to the caprices of children, and made occasionally the subject of cruel scientific experiments. We ill-treat her and yet inveigh against her want of affection; we dine on mutton and reproach her with her carnivorous instinct; we frequently resent even a kindness, and are shocked at her promptness to avenge a wrong. ”

“ The Southern gentleman who formerly entered the United States army was generally a landed proprietor, and adopted the profession of arms because possessed of those military tastes distinctive of his people; and it is noticeable that, whereas the great American writers, to the development of whose genius a life of contemplation and retirement was requisite, have almost all issued from the North: the men of action—the eminent soldiers, statesmen, and orators of the republic—have mostly been sons of the South. ”

“ But the middle class is specially distinguished by its undue proportion of unmarried women, and this celibacy involves consequences unknown elsewhere. As it seldom originates in lack of means in the instances occurring in the aristocracy or the labouring classes, so neither does it necessarily entail impoverishment or loneliness, and a life without sympathy. It is otherwise with the middle class. Sons may shift for themselves—they have muscle and energy—but what becomes of unmarried daughters, thrown on their own resources? ”

“ Amid this chaos, here and there wander men in hopeless quest of missing baggage, children are niched in berths silently munching furtive apples, women are weeping uncomplainingly while making the most of their poor furniture for the comfort of their families, pausing at times to invoke some child that, indifferent to maternal anxiety, has escaped to the upper air. ”

“ After a century of benevolent exertions, which won for them the love of the people and the approbation of the authorities, the tendency to decay being inherent in human institutions, the mysticism of the Beghards and Lollards lost sight of the distinction between moral and substantial unity with God, and assumed a pantheistic form almost identical with Vedantic Hinduism; and the notion that all man’s impulses are divinely originated, the corollary of their speculations, countenanced immoralities which brought the fraternities into collision with society and justified their extinction. ”

“ Dwelling in a tranquil seclusion which must have strangely contrasted with the tumultuous whirl of events around, enjoying the popular reverence, material ease, and abundant leisure; and familiarised by the ritual of the Church with the tongue exclusively employed by the learned, the monks naturally became the depositaries of the scanty knowledge of a period when a score of volumes constituted an important library, and when princes, more familiar with the sword than with the pen, could often do no more than, like Hodge, the ploughman, make their mark. ”

“ The monotony of sea life is disagreeably varied by an occasional gale, to the great alarm of the passengers, and delight of Jack and his comrades, who assume a contemptuous superiority to them, very amusing and not altogether unmerited, for the relations of the sexes seem here to be strangely reversed—the women exhibiting far more courage, energy, and endurance than the men. ”

“ Not long ago a poor girl committed suicide in London on account of the death of her cat, and in her lifeless hand was a scrap of paper containing a touching entreaty that her “dear little kitten” might be laid in her coffin and buried with her.
Let the reflection that there are probably in this wealthy land many lonely women, like this unhappy creature, without other friend on earth than a cat, win us to act more kindly to Puss! ”

“ In the Netherlands, which had long been ravaged by wars and pestilence, and the genius of whose people was practical and industrious, the spirit of charity born of the Gospel combined with these two popular tendencies in the formation of various fraternities for religious and charitable purposes, the result of whose labours was the wide diffusion of that spiritual religion and that practical knowledge which scholasticism in itself could never have originated. ”

“ But it is by no means to be inferred from such anomalies that quickness of sympathy with brutes of necessity denotes a perversion of feeling. Sensibility does not necessarily exclude, though it may overshadow, benevolence; as parasitical plants blight the trees they cling to. A fondness for pets certainly does not invariably indicate tenderness of heart; but conversely, as killing flies was the recreation of the boy Domitian, he who is unkind to brutes is never very considerate towards men. Sympathy with brutes implies, even in the coldest heart, some glimmering of the Supreme Love ”

“ In all the large American cities the incautious stranger is apt to stumble unawares on some foul neighbourhood, which—after escaping from the impure intricacies wherein he was entangled, as in the cunning meshes of a net—he ascertains to be the abode of negroes, Irish, and the other Pariahs of society. As in some parts of Europe and the East a particular quarter of a city is allotted to the Jewish tribe, which the Gentiles scrupulously avoid, so, in Arcadia, the Irish have their appropriate Ghetto ”

“ Their youth has been occupied in frivolous acquirements of no practical value: without reference to their respective tastes or capacities, all have pursued the same silly routine, and attained to a certain mechanical skill in music or drawing, a superficial knowledge of continental tongues—the key to treasures whereof they seldom avail themselves—and some aptitude at embroidery, Berlin-wool, and such like aids to ingenious indolence. ”

“ Yet, out of these scanty elements will the wives and daughters of the exiles form the semblance of a home, and find a temporary happiness. Woman, whatever sky be above us, only thy love can give us that! ”