The Refugees, an Irish Tale Volume 1 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1822 Excerpt: ... neck, no doubt but, like Nero, she would have chopped that one off'; but more to be rid of an annoyance, than from cruelty of disposition. That her husband should join himself to the enemies of monarchy, was an event that mortified and enraged her to such a degree, that it is to be feared she would, without remorse, have included him in the aforesaid one neck. The murder of her son was the first thing that convinced her the people really were to be feared. She was then like one hastily awakened from a dream, and frightened into delirium. She almost abhorred her husband and remaining son; and in the horrors that succeeded, drew on herself and them numberless ills, from want of prudence, and being overtaken by misfortune perfectly unprepared. Thus every trouble seemed heavier than the last, until the wretchedness of Clair, foyne exceeded every thing she had ever experienced, since every other dif. ficulty was passed, except the present one; and Lady O'Brien felt only the present. The mind of Calista was not constituted like her mother's;, but it was equally unprepared to meet an overthrow of what she had looked forward to. Educated in a convent, and accustomed to see the world through the garbled, inflated representations of French novels or plays, or the chit-phat of a dozen other boarders, and taught to expect early marriage, and unbounded admiration; she had never heard or thought of setting a curb on her imagination; of learning to doubt the infallibility of her own opinion, of self-control, or humility. Of the latter, her ideas were confined to that species professed by the nuns of her convent; and religion being by her father particularly forbidden, either in precept or practice, of course Christian virtues made no part of her studies. The violent manne...