“La sainte recueihnent la paisible innocence
Sembler de ces lieus habiter le silence.”
until almost wearied in the contemplation of the varying sublimities which the changes of the morning’s seasons shed over the ocean’s boundless expanse, from the first gray vapour that arose from its swelling wave, to that splendid refulgence with which the risen sun crimsoned its bosom, I turned away my dazzled eye, and fixed it on the ruins of Inismore. Never did it appear in an aspect so picturesquely felicitous: it was a golden period for the poet’s fancy or the painter’s art; and in a moment of propitious genius, I made one of the most interesting sketches my pencil ever produced. I had just finished my successful ebauche, when Father John, returning from matins, observed, and instantly joined me. When he had looked over and commended the result of my morning’s avocation, he gave my port-folio to a servant who passed us, and taking my arm, we walked down together to the seashore.
“This happy specimen of your talent,” said he, as we proceeded, “will be very grateful to the Prince. In him, who has no others left, it is a very innocent pride, to wish to perpetuate the fading honours of his family—for as such the good Prince considers these ruins. But, my young friend, there is another and a surer path to the Prince’s heart, to which I should be most happy to lead you.”
He paused for a moment, and then added:
“You will, I hope, pardon the liberty I am going to take; but as I boast the merit of having first made your merit known to your worthy host, I hold myself in some degree (smiling and pressing my hand) accountable for your confirming the partiality I have awakened in your favour.
“The daughter of the Prince, and my pupil, of whom you can have yet formed no opinion, is a creature of such rare endowments, that it should seem Nature, as if foreseeing her isolated destiny, had opposed her own liberality to the chariness of fortune; and lavished on her such intuitive talents, that she almost sets the necessity of education at defiance. To all that is most excellent in the circle of human intellect, or human science, her versatile genius is constantly directed; and it is my real opinion, that nothing more is requisite to perfect her in any liberal or elegant pursuit, but that method or system which even the strangest native talent, unassisted, can seldom attain (without a long series of practical experience) and which is unhappily denied her; while her doating father incessantly mourns that poverty, which withholds from him the power of cultivating those shining abilities that would equally enrich the solitude of their possessor, or render her an ornament to that society she may yet be destined to grace. Yet the occasional visits of a strolling dancing-master, and a few musical lessons received in her early childhood from the family bard, are all the advantages these native talents have received.
“But who that ever beheld her motions in the dance, or listened to the exquisite sensibility of her song, but would exclaim—‘here is a creature for whom Art can do nothing—Nature has done all!’
“To these elegant acquirements, she unites a decided talent for drawing, arising from powers naturally imitative, and a taste early imbibed (from the contemplation of her native scenes) for all that is most sublime and beautiful in nature. But this, of all her talents, has been the least assisted, and yet is the most prized by her father, who, I believe, laments his inability to detain you here as her preceptor; or rather, to make it worth your while to forego your professional pursuits, for such a period as would be necessary to invest her with such rudiments in the art, as would form a basis for her future improvement. In a word, can you, consistently with your present plans, make the castle of Inismore your headquarters for two or three months, from whence you can take frequent excursions amidst the neighbouring scenery, which will afford to your pencil subjects rich and various as almost any other part of the country?”
Now, in the course of my life, I have had more than one occasion to remark certain desirable events brought about by means diametrically opposite to the supposition of all human probability;—but that this worthy man should (as if infected with the intriguing spirit of a French Abbe reared in the purlieus of the Louvre) thus forward my views, and effect the realization of my wishes, excited so strong an emotion of pleasurable surprise, that I with difficulty repressed my smiles, or concealed my triumph.