Essay on Love by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Memoir
ISBN: 4064066396862
Publisher: Musaicum Books
Published: 2020-12-17T05:00:00+00:00

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CHAPTER XLVI

ENGLAND—(continued)

Table of Contents

I love England too much and I have seen of her too little to be able to speak on the subject. I shall make use of the observations of a friend.

In the actual state of Ireland (1822) is realised, for the twentieth time in two centuries,[1] that curious state of society which is so fruitful of courageous resolutions, and so opposed to a monotonous existence, and in which people, who breakfast gaily together, may meet in two hours' time on the field of battle. Nothing makes a more energetic and direct appeal to that disposition of the spirit, which is most favourable to the tender passions—to naturalness. Nothing is further removed from the two great English vices—cant and bashfulness—moral hypocrisy and haughty, painful timidity. (See the Travels of Mr. Eustace(32) in Italy.) If this traveller gives a poor picture of the country, in return he gives a very exact idea of his own character, and this character, as that of Mr. Beattie(32), the poet (see his Life written by an intimate friend), is unhappily but too common in England. For the priest, honest in spite of his cloth, refer to the letters of the Bishop of Landaff.[2](32).

One would have thought Ireland already unfortunate enough, bled as it has been for two centuries by the cowardly and cruel tyranny of England; but now there enters into the moral state of Ireland a terrible personage: the Priest. …

For two centuries Ireland has been almost as badly governed as Sicily. A thorough comparison between these two islands, in a volume of five hundred pages, would offend many people and overwhelm many established theories with ridicule. What is evident is that the happiest of these two countries—both of them governed by fools, only for the profit of a minority—is Sicily. Its governors have at least left it its love of pleasure; they would willingly have robbed it of this as of the rest, but, thanks to its climate, Sicily knows little of that moral evil called Law and Government.[3]

It is old men and priests who make the laws and have them executed, and this seems quite in keeping with the comic jealousy, with which pleasure is hunted down in the British Isles. The people there might say to its governors as Diogenes said to Alexander: "Be content with your sinecures, but please don't step between me and my daylight."[4]

By means of laws, rules, counter-rules and punishments, the Government in Ireland has created the potato, and the population of Ireland exceeds by far that of Sicily. This is to say, they have produced several millions of degenerate and half-witted peasants, broken down by work and misery, dragging out a wretched life of some forty or fifty years among the marshes of old Erin—and, you may be sure, paying their taxes! A real miracle! With the pagan religion these poor wretches would at least have enjoyed some happiness—but not a bit of it, they must adore St. Patrick.

Everywhere in Ireland one sees none but peasants more miserable than savages.

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