ISBN: 9780217819961

Paulist Fathers, Paperback, English-language edition, Pub by General Books Books Catholic-World~~Paulist-Fathers General Books Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.mil… Plus…

Paulist Fathers, Paperback, English-language edition, Pub by General Books Books Catholic-World~~Paulist-Fathers General Books Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE MORAL EFFECTS OF MISGOVERNMENT UPON IRISH CHARACTER. My father?who burned his fingers smartly at amateur farming?had a herder in his employ named Claughessy?an interesting study. Truth lay in Claughessy's face-, deep as in a well, wherein whoso looked saw only his own reflection. Whatever you thought, Claughessy thought; and whatever you said, he echoed; not in the far-off and faint-hearted way of a natural echo, but with all the volume and reverberation wherewith your voice is returned to you in the whispering gallery of St. Paul's. But the singular and entertaining thing to me in my boyhood about this assentation of Pat's was its flexibility. With the exercise of ordinary caution and ingenuity I could make Claughessy within a few minutes blame what he had praised, curse what he had blessed, burn what he had adored, with a lawyer- like faculty and facility, and felicity also; for he was always happy in his choice of telling points of criticism and of plausible arguments in their support. One specimen of this special and specious pleading, which remains in my memory, I may perhaps cite in illustration. Having drawn him into voluble and vehement abuse of a field of oats, which was foul to suffocation with weeds, I affected distress at the poor prospect for my father of a harvest of tares; whereupon this sympathetic soul?after a momentary flutter, like that of a ship in stays?went off upon the opposite tack with bellying canvas. He explained to me that oats was a weak, clinging, feminine sort of cereal, needing support?like a vine, I suppose?and that there were hardly more weeds in the field than were indispensable for this sustaining purpose. I thought that good at the time; and though I have since heard or read the speeches of a whole generation of chief secretaries for Ire...<