Just Irish Part 8

I asked a number of times after that, and always got courteous but rapid answers. The Irish are great talkers, but the Corkonian could handicap himself with a morning's silence, and beat his brothers from other counties before evening.

At last I came on the church, pa.s.sing, just before I reached it, the Greencoat Hospital National School, with its quaint and curious (to quote three of Poe's words) statues of a green-coated boy and girl.

I asked a man when the bells began to ring (for I had been told that they only rang at night).

"'Every quar-rter of an hour, sirr, they'll be ringing in a couple of minutes, sirr."

[Ill.u.s.tration: GREEN COAT HOSPITAL, CORK]

One likes to indulge in a bit of sentiment sometimes, and I stood and waited to hear the bells of Shandon that sound so grand on the pleasant waters of the river Lee. I had left the Lee to the fishermen and the make-believe swimmers, but the bells would sound sweetly here under the tower that held them.

A minute pa.s.sed, and then another, and then I heard music--music that called forth old memories of days long since dead. How it pealed out its delight on the (icy) air of night. And how well I knew the tune:

"Down where the Wurzburger flows."

No, it was not the chimes, but a nurse in the hospital at a piano.

Before she had finished, Shandon bells began, but they played what did not blend with what she sang, and I went on my way thinking on the potency of music.

I pa.s.sed on down where the river Lee flowed, and the fishermen were still fis.h.i.+ng, but the little boys had tired of swimming.

Two signs met me at nearly every corner. One read, "James J. Murphy & Co.," and the other "Beamish & Crawford," or "Crawford & Beamish," I forget which. Both marked the places of publicans (and sinners, I doubt not), and both were brewers' names. The publican's own name never appeared, but these names were omnipresent.

Again I thought of Shandon bells, and the romantic song, "Down Where the Wurzburger Flows," and leaving the Lee still flowing I sought my hotel.

I would like to make a revolutionary statement, that is more often thought than uttered, but before I make it, I would like to say that there are two cla.s.ses of travelers: those who think there is nothing in Europe that compares with similar things in America, and those who think there is nothing in America that can hold a candle to similar things in Europe.

I hope I belong to neither cla.s.s. If I mistake not, I am a Pharisee, and thank my stars that I am not as other men are. Most of us are Pharisees, but few will admit it.

I began being a Pharisee when I was a small child, and that is the time that most people begin.

I kept it up. In this, I am--like the mult.i.tude.

Having thus stated my position, let me go on to say, that I am perfectly willing to admit that this or that bit of scenery in France, or Switzerland, or England, or Ireland, lays over anything of the sort I ever saw in America, if I think it does, and I am equally willing to say, that America has almost unknown bits that are far better than admired and poet-ridden places in Europe.

Twin Lakes in Connecticut is one of them, and Killarney is a poet-ridden place.

Why, even in Ireland there are places just as lovely as Killarney, but they have not been written up, and so no one goes to visit them.

I felt that one of the worst things about Killarney was the American sightseer, and I came away soon.

Cook's tourists have never heard of Twin Lakes, thank fortune, and it will be some time before they (the lakes) are spoiled.

The Lakes of Killarney are so beautiful that they are worthy of the pen of a poet, but the pen of a poet does not make any lake more beautiful, and I am quarreling because so many people refuse to believe the evidence of their own senses, and take their natural beauties at the say so of another.

There is a tower going up in New York at present, a tower that with the exception of the Eiffel Tower is the tallest on earth.

Many persons look at it, reflect that it is a skysc.r.a.per, and then dismiss it as therefore hideous. But it is really very beautiful, and seen from certain vantage points, it is architecturally one of the glories of New York.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A BIT OF KILLARNEY]

If it ever gains a reputation for beauty, you will find persons raving over it, who to-day cla.s.s it among the "hideous skysc.r.a.pers."

A hundred years ago there were some skysc.r.a.pers in Switzerland, and they were thought to be hideous. After awhile a man with a poet's eyes and a courageous tongue visited them, and he said "The Alps are beautiful."

When their reputation for beauty was established, travelers left the region round about the Rockies to go and rave over the beauties of Switzerland.

That's all.

CHAPTER IX

_A Visit to Mount Mellaray_

Many persons whom I met in Ireland told me that I ought to go to Mount Mellaray "for my sins." Mount Mellaray (to those who don't know) is a Trappist monastery, set among hills that would be at once the temptation and despair of a colorist in landscape.

To it go the brain and heart weary from all countries, and the good monks (there's no doubt that they are good) welcome them whether they have money or not.

They tell of a man who went to Mount Mellaray and accepted the hospitality of the inmates and on his going away he did no more than bid them good by. Not a penny did he leave behind him, although he had sat at table with the other guests several days.

Next year he came again for his soul's rest, and the monks received him as an old friend. Those who were not under vows of silence spoke to him, the others nodded to him, and once more he rested on the side of the purple hills and partook of their hospitality.

When it came time for him to go away he left behind him--a pleasant impression, but not a cent did he give to the cause of charity.

Another year pa.s.sed by, and he came again. Hundreds had come in the meantime, and none so poor but had left something in return for the restfulness and peace that are to be had there.

Quite as an old friend he was now received and was made to feel welcome. No one knew who he was--perhaps he was n.o.body--but on his going away for the third time he showed that he had been but _acting_ the part of an ingrate, for he gave the father who acts as keeper of the gate a hundred pounds.

This story I told to the jarvey who took me up the hilly road to the monastery, and he listened with interest, and when I had finished he said, "It's quite true."

As I did not expect to visit it again I made up my mind to do my giving on leaving the place, but my hundred pound notes are all in the future, and therefore no one can ever tell a similar tale of me.

I must confess that, being a Protestant, I felt a little compunction about going to the place, but I had been a.s.sured that my sect would make no difference, that the fathers were glad to receive all who came, and that I would be as well treated as though I were a saint.

On my way up my jarvey told me of the amount of good that the monks do, not only in a spiritual, but in a material way, by providing work for the able-bodied men of the vicinity.

We pa.s.sed a neat stone cottage with ivy growing on it, and a vigorous fuchsia tree blooming in the garden, and he told me that it was a government cottage and rented for the absurd sum of a s.h.i.+lling a week.

"And how much can a man earn in the fields?" said I.

"A matter of ten s.h.i.+llings a week," was his reply.

Query: If a man gets ten dollars a week in New York and lives in a crowded Harlem flat for which he pays at least five dollars a week, is he as well off as this Irishman, in his native land, with all the fresh air in the world, fowls and fresh eggs, and b.u.t.ter of his wife's making, and one of the loveliest views imaginable before him?

But you'll find the man in the neat little government cottage anxious to fly to the land of dollars--and when he's there he'll hand out more dollars to his landlord for inadequate accommodations than he could earn at home in a month of Sundays.