An Englishman, in the witless way in which Saxons do address Irishmen, asked a labourer by the wayside:—
'If the devil came by, do you think he would take me or you?'
The labourer never hesitated, but replied:—
'He'd take me, your honour.'
'Why do you say that?'
'Oh, he would,' says he, 'because he's sure of your honour at any time.'
The Irishman is not so black as he may seem to the Saxon, who reads with disgust the horrors that mar the beauty of the Emerald Isle, and I should say that his finest trait is patience under adversity. No nation, for example, could have more calmly endured the terrible sufferings of the famine, more especially as the high-strung nerves of the Celt render him physically and mentally the very reverse of a stoic.
Again, in no other nation are the family ties closer.
The first thought of those who emigrate to America is to remit money to the old folk in the cabin at home. So soon as the emigrants have obtained a reasonable degree of comfort they will send home the passage money to pay for bringing out younger brothers or sisters to them.
Did you ever hear the story of the homesick Kerry undergraduate at Oxford, at his first construe with his tutor, translating contiguare omnes as 'all of them County Kerry men'?