‘Because you,’ continued the holy man, ‘have violated the sanctity of the place consecrated to God, you and your race shall wander homeless vagabonds, and your devoted heads, as a sign and a warning to future times, shall abide the pelting of every storm, and the severity of every changing season, unprotected by the defence which nature has bestowed upon all men, till your name and race be faded from the land.’
At this wrathful denunciation the terrified man falls prostrate to deprecate the fearful malediction, and awakes with a cry of terror which alarms the listeners. As he proceeds to reveal the terrible vision which his sleeping eyes beheld, the crash of thunder, the flash of lightning, and the sweep of the whirlwind, envelope them. As the day dawns, they are found senseless, at a considerable distance from the spot where they had lain the preceding night to guard the fatal tree. The thorn had likewise disappeared; and, strange to relate, the raven hair which clustered in long ringlets, that any wearer of the ancient coolin might well have envied, no longer adorns their manly heads. The fierce whirlwind, that in mockery of human daring had tossed them, like the stubble of the field, had realized the dream of the sleeper, and borne off their long profuse hair in its vengeful sweep.”
Such was the narrative of the last representative of the “Bald Barrys.” I bequeath it to the reader without note or comment. He of course will regard it according to his particular bias—will wonder how an imaginative people will attribute the downfall of families, or the entailment of hereditary disease, to the effect of supernatural intervention; or exclaim, as some very pious and moral men have done, that
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
E. W.
[3] Dr Smith, in his History of the County of Cork, thus mentions Colonel Barry:—“The town of Rathcormack also belongs to this gentleman, who is descended from an ancient branch of the Barry family, commonly called M’Adam, who have been seated here 500 years, and formerly sat in parliament; particularly David de Barry of Rathcormack, who sat in the upper house, in a parliament held 30th Edward I., 1302. South of Rathcormack is a fair stone bridge over the Bride, upon which is this inscription,—‘The foundation of this bridge was laid June 22, 1734; Colonel Redmund Barry, Jonas Devonshire, and James Barry, gentlemen, being overseers thereof.’”
The Influence of Women.—How often have I seen a company of men, who were disposed to be riotous, checked all at once into decency by the accidental entrance of an amiable woman; while her good sense and obliging deportment charmed them into at least a temporary conviction that there is nothing so beautiful as female excellence, nothing so delightful as female conversation. To form the manners of men, nothing contributes so much as the cast of the women they converse with. Those who are most associated with women of virtue and understanding will always be found the most amiable characters. Such society, beyond everything else, rubs off the protrusions that give to many an ungracious roughness; it produces a polish more perfect and pleasing than that which is received by a general commerce with the world. This last is often specious, but commonly superficial; the other is the result of gentler feelings, and a more elegant humanity: the heart itself is moulded, and habits of undissembled courtesy are formed.—Fordyce.
Our Attachment to Life.—The young man, till thirty, never feels practically that he is mortal. He knows it indeed, and if needs were, he could preach a homily on the fragility of life; but he brings it not home to himself any more than in a hot June we can appropriate to our imagination the freezing days of December. But now—shall I confess a truth? I feel these audits but too powerfully. I begin to count the probabilities of my duration, and to grudge at the expenditure of moments and shortest periods, like misers’ farthings. In proportion as the years both lessen and shorten, I set more count upon their periods, and would fain lay my ineffectual finger upon the spoke of the great wheel. I am not content to pass away “like a weaver’s shuttle.” Those metaphors solace me not, nor sweeten the unpalatable draught of mortality. I care not to be carried with the tide that smoothly bears human life to eternity, and reluct at the inevitable course of destiny. I am in love with this green earth—the face of town and country—the unspeakable rural solitudes—and the sweet security of streets. I would set up my tabernacle here. I am content to stand still at the age to which I am arrived—to be no younger, no richer, no handsomer. I do not want to be weaned by age, or drop, like mellow fruit, as they say, into the grave! Any alteration on this earth of mine, in diet or in lodging, puzzles and discomposes me. My household gods plant a terribly fixed foot, and are not rooted up without blood. They do not willingly seek Lavinian shores. A new state of being staggers me. Sun and sky, and breeze and solitary walks, and summer holidays, and the greenness of fields, and the juices of meats and fishes, and society, and the cheerful glass, and candle-light, and fire-side conversations, and jests and irony—do not these things go out with life? Can a ghost laugh, or shake his gaunt sides when you are pleasant with him?—Life and Remains of Charles Lamb.
A man cannot get his lesson by heart so quick as he can practise it: he will repeat it in his actions.