Finnegan

“ Cully's metamorphosis was even more complete than Carl's. Now that the warm spring days were approaching, Mr. Finnegan had decided that his superabundant locks were unseasonable, and had therefore had his hair cropped close to his scalp, showing here and there a white scar, the record of some former scrimmage. Reaching to the edge of each ear was a collar as stiff as pasteboard. ”

“ It was all painted over with fresh drab paint except where my father had scraped the paint off to show that it was my sled. He said: “That drunken Finnegan's dirty son stole it!” So that was the first I knew of Slim Finnegan.
When I got old enough to play away from the house I mighty soon knew that Slim Finnegan was the feller that would sneak up on us little kids when we were playing marbles and grab up our marbles and steal them and, if we said anything, twist our arms behind us until we yelled. ”

“ Such little vanities of dress, though sternly repressed in the younger men, were winked at in the older, and Finnegan's new trousers aroused disapproval in the mind of but one man—an unkind person named Thompson, the third master-at-arms—who had charge of the brig, and occasionally locked Finnegan therein. As he seldom met the old man when sober, he had formed an estimate of his character based wholly upon his aggressiveness and lack of reverence for petty officers when drunk, and his disapproval of the trousers was but part of a comprehensive disapproval of Finnegan. ”

“ If He made man, He made whisky."
"He's right, Mr. Parmlee," said Clarkson. "Of course he can get drunk if he drinks enough; but it takes an amount that would kill an ordinary man. And what would paralyze an ordinary man—say a quart—is just Finnegan's load. It wakes him up, and he's at his best."
"But isn't it funny," ventured young Mr. Felton, "that it should work so differently on Finnegan? Even granting his superior capacity, at no stage of intoxication is the ordinary man roused to his fullest mental activity."
"Yes, he is," quickly rejoined the surgeon. "Only he doesn't realize it. ”

“ I’m down and out; but I’m no traitor to a man that’s been my friend.” The Captain’s voice rose and boomed like a split trombone. “Get out of this park, Charlie Finnegan, where us thieves and tramps and boozers are your betters; and take your dirty money with you.”
Finnegan drifted out by another walk. The Captain returned to his seat.
“I couldn’t avoid hearing,” said Murray, drearily. “I think you are the biggest fool I ever saw.” ”

“ Clarkson.
"Because such an effort would require more will power than Finnegan possesses. With will power to suggest it to himself he would not need his subconscious help. He would simply quit. But Finnegan needs outside suggestion."
"Has this suggestion anything to do with mesmerism?" asked the chaplain.
"Yes and no. A mesmerist is always a hypnotist, but a hypnotist need not be a mesmerist. Mesmerism is still a mystery. A mesmerist is one possessing strong projective power, who exercises this power mainly by making passes before the face of the subject. ”

“ His horse had knocked Finnegan senseless before the desperado knew that the Chief of Police was on his trail. When Finnegan came to he was in a box-car, under lock and seal. But a friend released him, and the man from Bitter Creek made his way down the river to his cabin.
The population of Medora had not relished Finnegan's bombardment, and suggestions concerning a possible "necktie party" began to make themselves heard. Finnegan evidently decided that the time had come for him, and the men who lived with him in his ill-kept shack, to leave the country. Travel by horse or foot was impossible. ”

“ I had to stay all night in Sausalito."
Mrs. Robson, stirring faintly, attempted to speak. Claire turned helplessly to Mrs. Finnegan. "I can't make out what she is trying to say."
Mrs. Finnegan bent an attentive ear. "It's about Stillman," she explained. "Your mother don't understand why...."
The speaker stopped with significant discretion. It was plain to Claire that nobody understood, and she felt a dreary futility as she answered both her mother and Mrs. Finnegan with:
"It's a long story. Some other time, when ... when you're feeling better." ”

“ Much about the time he had promised to return, a crash was heard upon the stairs, and Finnegan’s voice in a high key exclaiming, “The curse o’ blazes on you for stairs, an’ hell presume [Pg 340] all the rebels in Europe, I pray heavens this night! There’s my nose broke between you all!” He then stooped down, and in a torrent of bitter imprecations—all conveyed, however, in mock oaths—he collected and placed again upon the tray on which they had been, all the materials for Hewson’s supper. ”

“ James Finnegan's voice that while the original warp and woof of those very popular melodies were entirely unrecognizable to any but the persons interested, to them they were as gall and wormwood. This was Cully's invariable way of expressing his opinions on current affairs. ”

“ They travel for miles and days over country never cognized by any of the five senses, but—better sneak in now, Mr. Parmlee. Don't speak for half an hour."
The chaplain entered the pilot-house, where, in the dim light from the binnacle, the watchers saw him take a position on the other side of the small steering-wheel. Finnegan made no sign of recognition, and those without conversed awhile, then relapsed into silence. The minutes passed; the sublieutenant performed his duty of occasionally peeping at the bridge compass; Mr. ”

“ He already venerated Finegas for his great learning, his poetic skill, for an hundred reasons; but, looking on him as the ordained eater of the Salmon of Knowledge, he venerated him to the edge of measure. Indeed, he loved as well as venerated this master because of his unfailing kindness, his patience, his readiness to teach, and his skill in teaching.
“I have learned much from you, dear master,” said Fionn gratefully.
“All that I have is yours if you can take it,” the poet answered, “for you are entitled to all that you can take, but to no more than that. Take, so, with both hands.” ”

“ I do not think that Phineas depended much as yet on his own good looks, but he felt that Mr. Kennedy ought to be despised by such a one as Lady Laura Standish, because his looks were not good. And she must despise him! It could not be that a woman so full of life should be willing to put up with a man who absolutely seemed to have no life within him. And yet why was he there, and why was he allowed to hang about just over her shoulders? Phineas Finn began to feel himself to be an injured man. ”

“ I say that I will make no man wretched. Your brother is not the only man who is so weak as to be willing to run the hazard."
"There is Lord Fawn."
"Yes, there is Lord Fawn, certainly. Perhaps I should not do him much harm; but then I should do him no good."
"And poor Phineas Finn."
"Yes;—there is Mr. Finn. I will tell you something, Laura. The only man I ever saw in the world whom I have thought for a moment that it was possible that I should like,—like enough to love as my husband,—except your brother, was Mr. Finn." ”

“ He himself went to learn the accomplishments of poetry and science from an ancient sage and Druid named Finegas, who dwelt on the river Boyne. Here, in a pool of this river, under boughs of hazel from which dropped the Nuts of Knowledge on the stream, lived Fintan the Salmon of Knowledge, which whoso ate of him would enjoy all the wisdom of the ages. Finegas had sought many a time to catch this salmon, but failed until Finn had come to be his pupil. Then one day he caught it, and gave it to Finn to cook, bidding him eat none of it himself, but to tell him when it was ready. ”

“ Then he spoke to the men: "Who are you, young men, and where do you come from?"
"We are princes, sons of the King of Norway, and have travelled across the sea from the east to meet you, lord of the Fians," they answered.
"What do you seek, or what is your need?" asked Fionn.
"We have heard of your fame as a warrior, and we wish to take service with you," they replied.
"Are you good fighters?" questioned Fionn. "No one can enter the Fianna who has not strength in his arm and unfailing courage in his heart. ”

“ It is like the sound of sticks on a stretched skin."
"It is that indeed," said Finnbane angrily, "and I wish I had the maker of that noise under my hands for a few minutes."
Just then the big man, still tugging at his slow-moving horse, came into sight, and the Fians watched him with great amusement as he approached. When at last he reached them he bent his knee before Fionn in greeting, and Fionn, after regarding him in silent astonishment for a moment, said:
"Surely you do not belong to this country, for in all our years of wandering we have never seen one like you before. ”

“ He looked on it with his heart, with his soul in his eyes, and when he turned to look on Fionn the boy did not know whether the love that was in his eyes was for the fish or for himself. Yet he did know that a great moment had arrived for the poet.
“So,” said Finegas, “you did not eat it on me after all?” “Did I not promise?” Fionn replied.
“And yet,” his master continued, “I went away so that you might eat the fish if you felt you had to.”
“Why should I want another man’s fish?” said proud Fionn.
“Because young people have strong desires. ”

“ Finnis, breathless and scarlet, brought back in the shape of a bright, bird-like young nurse, who had prepared herself for leaving the home in a space of time to which the twinkling of the eye was, so to speak, eternity, and had beaten William Finnis in the race back to Exmouth Terrace, because she had the facility of skimming the pavement without seeming to touch it. The door closed upon William Finnis, who stood outside for a while, undecided, until the ground-floor lady put her head agitatedly out of the window. ”

“ After resting there quietly for a time, listening to the pleasant baying of the hounds and the calling of his men, Fionn said:
"No guard has yet been set on the hill to tell us when friend or enemy approaches. Finnbane, son of Bresal, will you keep watch and ward so that none can come upon us unawares?"
"I will, chief," answered Finnbane, and rising he ascended to the hill-top, from whence he could watch the paths leading north and south, east and west. ”

“ Bonteen.
"And never had a shilling in his pocket in his life," said her husband.
"I regard him as simply a madman," said Lord Fawn.
"I do so wish I knew him," said Madame Max Goesler. "I am fond of madmen, and men who haven't shillings, and who are a little wild, Could you not bring him here, Mr. Finn?"
Phineas did not know what to say, or how to open his mouth without showing his deep concern. "I shall be happy to ask him if you wish it," he replied, as though the question had been put to him in earnest; "but I do not see so much of Lord Chiltern as I used to do." ”

“ When Fionn heard that he placed his thumb of knowledge in his mouth, and divined instantly the dreadful death that had happened to Donn and Dubhan. Terrible then was the wrath that filled him against the King of Norway's sons—for Fionn alone had power to judge any misdeed or broken word of the Fianna—and taking his spear in his hand he went out to the camp of the men of Norway; but they and their hound had disappeared, nor were they ever seen or heard of in Ireland again. ”

“ Finn certainly looks like a gentleman," said Lady Laura.
"And no doubt is one," said Violet. "I wonder whether he has got any money."
"Not a penny, I should say."
"How does such a man manage to live? There are so many men like that, and they are always mysteries to me. I suppose he'll have to marry an heiress."
"Whoever gets him will not have a bad husband," said Lady Laura Standish.
Phineas during the summer had very often met Mr. Kennedy. ”

“ It is a good household Finn had, without grudging, without lust, without vain boasting, without chattering, without any slur on any one of the Fianna.
Finn never refused any man; he never put away any one that came to his house. If the brown leaves falling in the woods were gold, if the white waves were silver, Finn would have given away the whole of it.
Blackbird of Doire an Chairn, your voice is sweet; I never heard on any height of the world music was sweeter than your voice, and you at the foot of your nest. ”

“ Where should he dine if the Loughshaners elected him to Parliament? And then he painted to himself a not untrue picture of the probable miseries of a man who begins life too high up on the ladder,—who succeeds in mounting before he has learned how to hold on when he is aloft. For our Phineas Finn was a young man not without sense,—not entirely a windbag. If he did this thing the probability was that he might become utterly a castaway, and go entirely to the dogs before he was thirty. He had heard of penniless men who had got into Parliament, and to whom had come such a fate. ”

“ Then Lugaidh's Son came to Finn, and Finn asked him, "What is it has put the whole of the Fianna against you?" "By my word," said the lad, "I do not know the reason, unless it might be they do not like me to be doing my feats and casting my spears among them."
Then Finn gave him an advice, and it is what he said: "If you have a mind to be a good champion, be quiet in a great man's house; be surly in the narrow pass. Do not beat your hound without a cause; do not bring a charge against your wife without having knowledge of her guilt; do not hurt a fool in fighting, for he is without his wits. ”