The Molly O'Molly Papers.
No. I.
In addressing you for the first time, you will perhaps expect me to give some account of myself and my ancestry, as did the illustrious Spectator.
My remote ancestors are Irish. From them I inherited enthusiasm, a gun-powder temper, a propensity to blunder, and a name—Molly O'Molly. The origin of this name I have in vain endeavored to trace in history, perhaps because it belonged to a very old family, one of the prehistorics. As such it might have been that of a demigod, or, according to the development theory, of a demi-man. Or it might have been that of an old Irish gentleman, gentle in truth;—in the formative stage of society it is the monster that leaves traces of himself, as in an old geologic period the huge reptile left his tracks in the plastic earth, which afterward hardened into rock.
Then, too, I have searched in vain for anything like it in ancient Irish poetry, thinking that my progenitor's name might have been therein embalmed. 'The stony science'—mind you—reveals to us the former existence of the huge reptile, the fragmentary, mighty mastodon, and, imperfect, the mail-clad fish. But, wonder of wonders, we find the whole insect preserved in that fossil gum amber. And even so in verse, characters are preserved for all time, that could not make their mark in history, and that had none of the elements of an earthly immortality. Did I wish immortality I would choose a poet for my friend;—an In Memoriam is worth all the records of the dry chronicler.
But, it is not with the root of the family tree that you have to do, but with the twig Myself.
As for my physique,—I am not like the scripture personage who beheld his face in a glass, and straightway forgot what manner of man he was. I have, on the contrary, a very distinct recollection of my face; suffice it to say, that, had I Rafaelle's pencil, I would not, like him, employ it on my own portrait.