But we must pull up in our own course, and not run Paddy down. Let us however add, for he is a favourite with us, that Paddy is a temperate as he is a prudent man. We came to this conclusion, from the healthiness of his appearance and the equanimity of his manner, in five minutes after we first saw him. “You don’t drink hard, Paddy,” we remarked to him. “No, Sir,” he replied; “I did once, but I found it was destroying my health, and that if I continued to do so, I would soon leave my family after me to beg; so I left it off three years ago, and I have never tasted raw spirits since, or taken more than a tumbler, or, on an odd occasion, a tumbler and a half of punch, in an evening since.”
We only desire to add to this slight sketch, that Paddy appears to be in tolerably comfortable circumstances—he farms a bit of ground, and his cottage is neat and cleanly kept for one in his rank in Galway. He has a great love of approbation, a high opinion of his musical talents, and a strong feeling of decent pride. He will only play for the gentry or the comfortable farmers. He will not lower the dignity of his professional character by playing in a tap-room or for the commonalty—except on rare occasions, when he will do it gratuitously, and for the sole pleasure of making them happy. We have ourselves been spectators on some of these occasions, and may probably give a sketch of them in a future number.
P.
A BIT OF PHILOSOPHY.
Disappointment—pho! What is disappointment, I should like to know? Why should any body feel it? I don’t. I did so at one time, however, certainly, and have a vague recollection of it being a rather unpleasant sort of feeling; but I am a total stranger to it now, and have been so for the last twenty years.
“Lucky fellow!” say you; “then you succeed in every thing?”
Quite the reverse, my dear sir; I succeed in nothing. I have not the faintest recollection of having ever succeeded in any single thing, where success was of the least moment, in the whole course of my life. I have invariably failed in every thing I have tried. But what has been the consequence? Why, the consequence has been, that I now never expect success in any thing I aim at; and this again has produced one of the most delightful states of feeling that can well be conceived. In fact, the reader can not conceive how delicious is the repose, the placidity of mind, the equanimity of temper, the coolness, the calmness, the comfort, arising from this independence of results—this delightful quiescence of the aspirations. It is a perfect paradise, an elysium. You recline on it so softly, so easily. It is like a down pillow; a bed of roses; an English blanket. I recollect the time when I used to fret and fume when I attempted any thing. How I used to be worried and tortured with hopes and fears, when I commenced any new undertaking, or applied for any situation! What folly! what absurdity!—all proceeding from the ridiculous notion that I had some chance of success!
Grown wiser, I save myself a world of trouble now. I know that I need not look for success in any thing I attempt, and therefore never expect it. It would do you good, gentle reader, to see with what calmness, with what philosophy, I now wait the result of any effort to better myself in life. It is truly edifying to behold.
Notwithstanding, however, this certain foreknowledge of consequences as regards the point in question, I deem it my bounden duty, both to myself and family, to make every effort I can for their and my own advancement; to try for every situation to which I think myself competent, and, therefore, I do so; but it is merely in compliance with this moral obligation, and from no hope whatever of succeeding; and the result has invariably shown, that to have given myself any uneasiness on the subject, to have entertained the most remote idea of success, would have been one of the most ridiculous things conceivable.
What a triumph is mine in such cases! I suffer nothing—no distress of mind, no uneasiness, not the least of either: I am calm and cool, and quite prepared for the result, and sure as fate it comes—“Dear Sir, I am sorry to say,” &c., &c. I never read a word beyond this.