William Pitt Scargill

“ Falkland, I am awakened as if from a heavy sleep, which had dulled my faculties, and my mind seems to take new views of everything. Will this last? If it should, the age of man is doubled by the animation of such feelings as have been evolved in this Irish world. I tread on air—the sun shines into my heart—and you will never hear me again envying an opium-eater while I live. In three days we set out for Killarney; and, as I will certainly devote a letter exclusively to the Lakes, this shall contain a sketch of some minor exploits in the way of sight-seeing. ”

“ I cannot enter into this system of parcelling out mankind by quite so restrictive a rule; I see nothing of all this in the inspired precepts of the great Founder of our faith, whose beautiful simplicity of doctrine and extensive charity of example, are too little dwelt upon as matter of imitation, while His name is mingled with disgusting familiarity in every trifling discourse.
Oh, my friend, human nature is so frail that we should not tempt our pride, or our vanity, by putting on external marks that may deceive even our own hearts, and persuade us that we are better than others. ”

“ Her person is encumbered with ornaments, and her mind with fashion. Her understanding is excellent, and will break its bounds, and start forth through all the London fogs that would obscure its light; but it is only in accidental scintillations that Louisa's brightness discovers itself, and then, sarcasm is generally the medium through which it shines; nothing can exceed the stupid inanity of such conversation as I hear at my aunt's, where people only are ever discussed. It is one eternal round of dress, public places, and gossip. Every body is said to be out of town, yet the streets are full. ”

“ I see all objects with new powers of vision, and such as, I lament to add, render me ill satisfied with those who stand in the relations to me which I have now learned to appreciate. With a mind just awakened to affection, and a heart just opened to the genial influence of domestic love and harmony, my feelings, which this soft climate of Glenalta has unfolded, are blighted by the very thought of Selby. ”

“ When I picture to my mind the scene which is now acting in Grosvenor Square, I confess that I feel disgusted almost to estrangement from those who are the chief performers in such a drama; and you are very right in the belief that were there any means by which without lowering a mother's character, I could inform that arch-blockhead, whom she has entrapped, of the fraud that has been employed to take him in, I would certainly, in humbling his vanity, remove his blindness, and charitably catch him from the brink of a precipice. What a marriage you are brewing amongst you! ”

“ No, sir, independence is the only positive good of merely earthly origin; it gives us the power of being useful to others, and of being disengaged from the trammels of the world ourselves."
"And pray," said Mrs. Fitzroy, who leaned on my right arm, while Emily occupied the left, Mr. Otway and George Bentley bringing up the rear of our division, "are such feelings as you express likely to lead to your conclusion? Will riches be employed for the relief of others who want their aid, by a man who thinks of his fellow-creatures as you do, and looks at creation through a jaundiced medium?" ”

“ The delight with which she goes into the cottages to converse with the peasantry, is something very amusing to witness. She says that, "Irish thoughts are so fresh, and the expression of them so eloquent," that she feels as if transported amid a new order of beings. She seizes on every idea, presented in whatever guise, with such intuitive quickness, that she charms the poor people in return, and Tom Collins paid her an odd sort of compliment yesterday which brought tears into her eyes: "Indeed, God bless your honour, you're just as if you were bred and born in the bog among ourselves." ”

“ Young Bentley came into the world with excellent faculties and dispositions, but nothing could be less favourable than that society in which they were to be unfolded. It is not the tutor's lessons, it is the manners and opinions which breathe around us, that impart the tone which distinguishes individuals from each other. Young Bentley was formed in a different mould of intellect from all his family, and soon discovered in books, a companionship which was denied in the circle of his immediate relations. ”

“ We deceive ourselves much in supposing that happiness of mind any more than health of body depends upon place. I do not say that change of scene is not often both agreeable and convenient; but if the heart be oppressed, or there be 'a thorn in the flesh,' the Mordecai travels with us. We cannot run away from ourselves. To be happy in the limited sense which Providence permits, let us endeavour to make home the centre of our enjoyments. The fulfilment of those little duties which are at every moment presenting their claims, may be thought by many a strange receipt for contentment ”

“ If we boasted that Ireland had produced the finest architects in the world, we might be desired to shew the monuments of their skill. If we arrogated the fame of wealth, we might be challenged to point out the palaces in which the splendid of past days had held their revels; but we lay claim to none of these things. Our pride consists in having been a learned and pious people. Now piety and scholarship are not so often allied to worldly distinction in this age of mankind, that we should associate them in a past time through any existing analogy. That Ireland was resorted to for education ”

“ As I [Pg 221] mentioned to you, my excursion to Killarney was, in itself, a great effort. Such scenery, and sweet music, are the most powerful exciters, in my mind, to a train of association which I dread in company. Memory is so acutely painful, from the minuteness with which its traces are engraved, and the fidelity of its pictures, that I fly from whatever is likely to unlock the stores, and present to my view much that I dare not contemplate, unless I am alone. ”

“ Why should the knowledge of reading and writing, and casting sums in arithmetic make wisdom amongst the poor, any more than amongst the rich; and you have plenty of dunces, sir, in the higher walks of life, who cannot argue a bit the better for any thing that they ever got hold of in school, or at college. But even if learning gave understanding, which it does not, for that is God's gift, still, sir, it might be, with all its worth, not fit for us in our present condition. ”

“ When the youthful heart is first excited, and hope is felt that kindred feeling has touched the soul in which it feels an interest, how exquisite the happiness of developement! Like the beautiful buds of early spring, the unfolding of each individual scale that binds the young leaves is in itself delightful, and we do not wish to lose a single hour of progressive enjoyment, in impatience to behold the crown of summer foliage. ”

“ What a creature of circumstance is man! Though I am fond of both Russell and Annesley, and they are the only people besides yourself, of whom I have spoken as friends since I came here, and introduced by character to my relations, yet a meeting with either of them in the Regent's Park, in Bond-street, at the Theatre, or the Opera, how insipid! Nay, sometimes even a bore. Yet here at Glenalta, county of Kerry, South of Ireland, it was rapture to behold their faces, though neither their personal identity nor my own can have undergone any material alteration since we met last at Cambridge. ”

“ Now in full exercise, my dear nephew's affections are the source of happiness to himself and delight to all around. His abilities are shining, and, as habit strengthens the power of applying them, I feel no doubt of his becoming an ornament to society, and filling the situation appointed for him by Providence so as to set an example worthy of imitation. Domestic anxiety at present weighs upon his spirits, proving at once an acuteness of feeling and exalted sense of rectitude, which promise a foundation of future character, delightful to anticipate. ”

“ Man is a poor creature, his life is but a vapour, and the less that he is in the way of temptation the better is it for him in time and in eternity."
"Ned," said Frederick, "you have leisure for meditation, and wish that you would tell me what you think of public affairs at present?"
"Why, sir, I should be considered a bad judge of what the public are about, I who live in the desert; but as every man has his own way of thinking, I have mine." ”

“ Though introduced for [Pg 317] the first time to what is called, certainly not par excellence, the Great World, he is neither awkward nor confused. The easy polish of true refinement which he learned at home, in the bosom of that loved retreat where all the best affections of his noble and manly heart are centered, frank him into a metropolitan drawing-room, as fearlessly as into your's at Glenalta; and his manners exhibit the happiest combination of boldness, in which there is no mixture of presumption, and modesty without mauvaise honte. ”

“ Bentley, I believe that I do think differently from Mrs. Fitzroy and Charlotte on this occasion, and so I dare say that I am wrong; but it strikes me that the more retired the situation in which we live, the more nice do we grow, and the more necessary do we find great congeniality in the people with whom we associate; that is if we want to love them. In the world where every variety of talent and disposition is to be found, one can choose, and if disappointed in one instance, try in another; but in retreat, we must make the best of the given ingredients. ”

“ I hear compositions so chromatic, modulations so unnatural, transitions so violent, and harmony so entirely divested of the character which I have been in the habit of attaching to it, that, were it not for information to the contrary, I should not be aware that I was listening to music at all, but should imagine myself introduced to a new and wonderful mechanism for exhibiting the muscular powers to their utmost extent, and also trying how far it is practicable to exert the licence of caprice without ever touching on the borders of melody. ”

“ While others pursue the 'bubble reputation' abroad, Adolphus seeks to be loved at home, and his own fire-side is the scene in which the best energies of his mind, and the purest affections of his heart are expanded. I am reclaimed by his virtues from my visionary absurdities, and shall endeavour to make all the reparation in my power for having wandered so far from the truth by preaching a crusade to the youth of my own sex, who may be inclined to deviate into the labyrinth from which I was myself so happily extricated. ”

“ They are as much above any people with whom I am acquainted in every noble principle of heart, as they excel all others that I have met with in their powers of pleasing. Your nephew is likely to make a distinguished figure at the University, and is as amiable as he is clever.
There are three girls, all pretty and accomplished; and as to your sister, she is such a woman as, when you have once been in her company, will no longer permit you to remain in astonishment that our dear lamented Henry should have preferred poverty itself in Caroline's society, to the wealth of Potosi without her. ”

“ Some women are fools and lavish, others are cunning and narrow-minded; but, almost all men are devoted to the love of power, and hate to share the dominion over their coffers. It may perhaps surprise you to hear what I am going to say, coming from the lips of a rough mortal like myself, but I will confess that I have never known any thing approaching to happiness or respectability in married life where, if the woman did not manage all the pecuniary concerns of the family, she had not at least an equal share in them. ”

“ Otway said of him, "There goes one of the bluntest, and [Pg 276] yet the kindest, people I know. It would seem as if Nature, in forming my worthy neighbour, had been playing at hide-and-seek with herself; for in his character there is a jumble of the most heterogeneous materials: rude as a bear, he is gentle as a lamb; and though sly as a fox in detecting the wiles of his species, he is one of the most single hearted persons I have ever met with, in all his own dealings with mankind. The penetration with which he delves into character, is almost supernatural. ”

“ As I consider myself only in the light of guardian, and have really no stake in this country myself, even the most calculating of the neighbouring gentry must perceive that I am not bound to any particular style of life; and the more discriminating amongst them, I may hope, will give me credit for acting upon principle. This is all that I want. I know how impossible it is to please every body, and indeed I wonder how an upright mind should desire the approval of a multitude made up of the most discordant elements ”

“ We are the more anxious that you should act promptly, because Russell, and that blockhead Annesley, are gone to see Killarney, the Giant's Causeway, and whatever other odds and ends, in the way of lionizing that savage island may offer. Now, if they poke you out from the hole in which you are buried, or stumble upon you in a bog, the ass, alias Annesley, will begin to bray; he will tell the antediluvians of Glenalta that Crayton is not exactly such a puritan as he is himself; that he has gambled away money enough to build four-and-twenty chapels all in a row. ”