Impressions and Opinions (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. 1898 edition. Excerpt: ... dear to her heart. She will have told that the peasantry of her land, if poor and sorrow-smitten, are pure, honest, simple, religious and generous to a fault. When you have become apprized of her earnestness and sincerity you will not hearken to the caricatures of Lever, Lover or French, but you will believe her tale, knowing, as intrinsic evidence will teach, that her sole object is truth. In pursuit of this object she will not gloss over the faults of the peasantry, their recklessness, idleness. Even here she is too much of a philosopher to blame them unconditionally. The rackrenting system, absenteeism, the curious law of entail, the barrenness of the land, the absence of manufactures, etc., are shown to play no ordinary part in the recklessness and indifference of the Irish peasant. She is not a pessimist. Her belief is that with good land laws, a better understanding between landlord and tenant, Ireland, if not a paradise, would be a fair land to call one's own. The good qualities of the Irish peasant could be so utilized as to make Irish peasantry ideal. What strikes the reader is the graceful way with which the novelist illumes, if one may say so, her character sketching by glimpses of Irish scenery. These glimpses account for the home love so securely laid'in the Irish heart. Irish hills, clad in the blooming heath, casting their soft gloom on the wooded lakes; yellow corn bending its heavy ears to every nod of the racy Irish wind; green, sloping meadows, fringing, laughing, crystal rivers; valleys of primrose and violets; wild moors, glistening with furze; rocky coastland with the sea now softly kissing the worn, black rocks, now, in fury, spitting foam far above them, while the white bird of the tempest, with the bosom of snow and the...