NATURE’S LOOKING GLASS.
If I ever leaned toward the doctrines taught by the Universalists, a contemplation of the system of Bantryism has entirely and completely convinced me that they are erroneous. If there is not a lake of fire and brimstone, a very wide and very deep, and very hot one there ought to be, and when the British House of Lords meet there, there will always be a quorum. And My Lord will lift up his eyes to the widow Flanagan and beg for a drop of water to cool his parched tongue. But he won’t get it. He don’t deserve it.
It is impossible to make an American comprehend the width, depth and breadth of Irish misery until he has seen it with his own eyes. No other man’s eyes are good for anything in this matter, for the reason that nothing parallel exists this side of the water. And besides this the writers for the stage and of general literature have most woefully misrepresented the Irish man and woman, and very much to his and her disadvantage.
The Irishman of the stage and novel is always a rollicking, happy-go-lucky sort of a reckless fellow, with a short-tailed coat, red vest and corduroy trowsers, woolen stockings and stout brogans; with a bottle of whisky peeping out of his pocket, a blackthorn shillelah in his fist; always ready for a dance, or a fight, or for love-making, or any other pleasant employment. There is always on his head a rather bad hat, worn jauntily, however, and though he may be occasionally rather short of food, he manages always to get enough to be fat, sleek, and rosy. And then he always has a laugh on his face, a joke on his lips, and he goes through life with a perpetual “Hurroo.”
