So far is this from being the case, as it must have been represented to Mr. Maguire, that it was, and is, the constant complaint of the Fenians themselves, precisely that the "cream of the Irish population" kept widely aloof from them.
The concluding pages of the book are devoted exclusively to the strange phenomenon presented by the fondly-cherished, never-dying, hatred of England found among the Irish in every part of America; the deep-seated, burning thirst for vengeance on the power whose baneful influence has for many ages blighted the genius, the hopes, the energies of the Irish at home—whose colossal shadow has thrown into the shade the fairer and more graceful genius of the Celtic race, and made "the oldest Christian nation of Western Europe," the proud Celto-Iberian race, the poorest, the most abject of European nations, with all its wealth of genius, of poetry, of energy, of all that gives historic fame.
Mr. Maguire has given a good "bird's-eye view" of the Irish in America; he has shown them in various lights, and under various aspects; still his book has left much untold, much that would have interested the Irish and the friends of the Irish everywhere. There is, moreover, a want of method in the arrangement of this book—a certain haziness and indistinctness, that detracts considerably from its value as a book of reference. Too much is said of some things and some persons, too little of other things and persons; and these omissions unfortunately include what we here consider most honorable to "The Irish In America."
The Double Marriage.
[Footnote 69]
[Footnote 69: From The Diary of a Sister of Mercy. By Mrs. C. M. Brame. Now in press, by the Catholic Publication Society.]
Chapter I.
Just before vespers, as I came in from a visit to the hospital, Mother Frances, our superioress, called me to her, and said:
"Dear sister, you have been out nearly all day, and were up last evening; you can go into the church for vespers, and then you had better go to your cell."