“Love of country, that variety of feelings which all together constitute what we properly call patriotism, consists in part, of the admiration and of veneration for ancient and magnificent proofs of skill, and of opulence.
“The monks built, as well as wrote, for posterity. The never-dying nature of their institutions set aside in all their undertakings every calculation as to time and age. Whether they built, or whether they planted, they set the generous example of providing for the pleasure, the honour, the wealth and greatness, of generations upon generations, yet unborn. They executed everything in the best possible manner. Their gardens, their fish-ponds, farms; in all, in the whole of their economy they set an example tending to make the country beautiful—to make it an object of pride with the people, and to make the nation truly, and permanently great.”
Full of these different thoughts, I walked beneath arch and column, and so away from the old world and its belongings, until I stood before my aviary of canaries. I entered the cage. As I watched my birds I heard a pitter-patter overhead, and, looking up, I saw, leaning against a rail, my little friend Thady Malone.
“Well, Thady,” I said, “what has brought you here? I missed you this morning during the May Dance.”
“’Deed,” said Thady, slowly, “it was sorry I was not to be wid you, for I hear the little leddy danced like a cat in the moonlight, and shone like a glow-worm at the point of day.”
“Oh, but Bess didn’t dance,” I answered laughing.
“But, ’deed, if she had,” replied Thady, enthusiastically, “there’s not a fairy in auld Oireland that would have kept pace with her, or looked half the darlint.”
“Have it your own way, Thady,” I said, for I knew that Thady had long since kissed the Blarney Stone. “And now tell me why you didn’t come. There were cakes, and singing.”
“My mother,” answered Thady, solemnly. “It was my mother that was the prevention of my best intentions. My mother,” he continued, “is as full of pride as an egg is full of meat. And ‘Thady,’ she said, in a voice as deep as death, yer leddyship knows her way of speakin’, ‘’yer must never,’ she said, ‘give the name of your father a downfall. When yer go to her leddyship’s sports it must be clad as the best of ’em,’ and where were my boots to begin with?” And Thady sighed, and looked down rather piteously at his bare feet.
But a minute later, with the grace of an Irish lad, his face became wreathed in smiles, and he turned to me saying, “Well, though I stayed at home I gave yer all the good wishes in the world, and as I couldn’t be here in the morning, ’tis here I am in the evening.”