there are words which, although unnoticed in the delightful treatises of the dean of westminster 1 (may his fame increase!) have a strange power upon the heart,—words which can ring for us, listening by the brookside, and in arbours and meadow-haunts once more, the joy-bells of a former mirth, or toll above past sorrows and buried hopes their muffled and mournful peal. breathes there, for instance, a man with soul so dead, who can hear of a primrose bank, or a cowslip-ball, or a roly-poly pudding, or a sillabub, or a soap bubble, or a pantomime, or of robinson crusoe, and not feel himself, though it be but for a moment, a happy child again? and do we not realise, on the other hand, in all their brief intensity, our earliest sorrows, when memory suggests to us those solemn sounds of woe, measles, big-brother, ghosts, dentists, castor-oil?
1 dr. trench, afterwards archbishop of dublin.
and who (to pass on to boyhood) can ever hear of foot-ball, especially if tom brown speak, without longing for a kick to goal? who can be reminded of the river, and not remember those summer days, when, nude and jubilant, we took first a preliminary canter among the haycocks, and then “a header” into the deep, cold stream? or, again, those merry days of winter, when, from our slippery skates we took—well, anything but “a header” upon its glibly frozen surface? on the other hand, who does not felicitate himself that he has arrived at man's estate, when he recalls those awful impositions which he still believes have softened his brain, or when his memory (not to particularise) is tingling at the idea of birch, and contemplating a “visitation of arms and seats” long anterior to mr. bernard burke's?
chiefly, perhaps, when we come to shave, or, more wisely, to cherish instead of destroying (with many a grimace and groan), those healthful adjuncts to manly beauty, “quas natura sud sponte suggerit” is felt this great influence of words. i have seen the cheek of a pallid friend suddenly to assume the hues of a peony, the rich crimson tint of dining-room curtains, at mention of the name of “rose;” and i remember how a brasenose man, whose fresh ruddy countenance was much more suggestive of burton-upon-trent than it was of burton upon melancholy, and whom we called chief mourner, because he was always first after the bier, would become colourless, and “pale his ineffectual fire,” at the very sound of blanche. nor do i see any discredit in confessing my own inability to hear certain sweet christian-names (sixteen in all, but nine in particular), without emotions of a troublous, but delightful, character.
and as at this era, just as in the two preceding it, there are special words which bring joy and animation to man (let me briefly instance gone-away, mark-woodcock, sillery, deux-temps), so there are terms of terror (e.g. jilt, tailor, little-go, lurit-server, poacher, vulpicide), of potent and cruel import.
i might amplify for my readers this etymological treat. i might expatiate on the different effects produced by. the same word upon different minds, videlicet, by the word tally-ho, as heard at the covert-side by sportsman or by muff, by the man who rides with hounds, or the skirting path-finder who rides without them; but i have already travelled by a too circuitous route to my conclusion,—that it is sweet to hear the mere names of those things, which are pleasant and lovable in themselves, and that to those who have seen the irish lakes, the word killarney is “a joy for ever.”
coming so immediately from the wild grandeur of connamara to these scenes of tranquil beauty, i think that our first view of the lakes, as we left the victoria hotel, was rather a disappointment. the landscape (or waterscape?) was so calm and still, that it had somewhat of a dioramic effect, and one almost expected to see it move slowly onwards to an accompaniment of organ music. but as the olive lends a zest to generous wine, even so this tiny discontentment served but to enhance our subsequent and full fruition. for, once upon the waters, you become forthwith convinced, not only how impossible it is to exaggerate the beauties of killarney (as well might a painter essay to flatter or improve a sunset), but for pen or pencil to do them justice.
there is such infinite variety, from the white and golden lilies, (which, close to land, look like miniature canoes, from which fairy watermen have just sprung lightly ashore), to the towering heights and aeries; such diversity of tint and outline in the mountains, tree-clothed from crown to base; in those “islets so freshly fair;” and in those dancing waters, which raise their smiling waves to kiss the flowers and ferns; such contrasts, and yet such a perfect whole, of wood and water, “harmoniously confused;” such transformations, wrought by cloud and breeze, yet always such complete repose; that the eye can never weary.
we hired a boat, and set forth for innisfallen, just at that delightful time between sunset and moonrise,
“when in the crimson cloud of even
the lingering light decays,
and hesper, on the front of heaven,
his glittering gem displays.”
presently, the moon came up above those lofty hills, 1 and as bugle music from the returning boats was wafted over the shining waters, and lost itself among the mountains, we turned to each other, frank and i, at the same moment, with those thrilling lines,
“o hark! o hear! how thin and clear;
and thinner, clearer, farther going.
o, sweet and far, from cliff and scar,
the horns of elf-land faintly blowing.
blow! let us hear the purple glens replying.
blow, bugle; answer echoes, dying, dying, dying!”
1 in a trip to ireland, by a cambridge m. a. (1858), there
is written, gravely written, at page 18, the following most
original simile: “just over yon steep acclivity hangs a
crescent moon, like a silver knocker on the star-studded
gate of heaven, and one can almost fancy some angel-warder
will, ere long, break the silence with the gracious
invitation, 'come up hither.'”
indeed, you would suppose that tennyson must have written this heart-stirring song at killarney, did not the engraving prefixed to it, represent so different and dismally inferior a scene. to look and listen, as we rowed slowly onwards, seemed to be more happiness than we, undeserving, could at once enjoy; and it required a contemplation of meaner things, to convince us that the whole scene was not, in the words of ireland's poet, writing at killarney, and of it,—
“one of those dreams, that by music are brought,
like a light summer-haze, o'er the poet's warm thought.”
so we lit our pipes, and then the boatmen, whose colloquial powers we generally evoked, as we tendered the calumet, or rather the tobacco-pouch, of friendship, began to tell us, how, once upon a time, it was all dry land about here; how some indiscreet, but anonymous individual had removed the lid from an enchanted well; and how the enchanted well had set to work, in consequence, and had flooded the valley in which stood the palace of king o'donoghue, so suddenly, that a facetious sentinel had only just time to shout “all's well!” at the top of his voice, when the waters, rising above his chin, and entering his vocal orifice, put a stop to further elocution.
it does not appear, as ordinary minds might have expected, that the prospects or spirits of the donoghue were at all damped by this proceeding; and though his property seemed to be hopelessly “dipped,” and his capital to be sunk beyond all recovery, he contrived not only to get his head above water, but even to ride the high horse afterwards. for the boatmen say, that the royal edifice still remains, with all its inmates, unaltered and unalterable, at the bottom of the lake, and there the king entertains his court, with fish-dinners and aquatic fêtes on an unprecedented scale of magnificence, save when requiring air and exercise, he rides over the waters on a snowy steed, and turns the whole locality into an irish “vale of white horse.”
“and there's plinty as has seen him, your 'onnour,” (so said the bow-oar historian), “and will take their swear of it—glowry to god!” very little glowry, thought i, from the perjury of these delectable witnesses, who must have seen this quaint display of horsemanship through a “summer haze” of whiskey, and been very deliriously drunk. but our boat touches innisfallen.
everyone falls in love with this sweet little island. it has such grand, old, giant trees, such charming glades and undulations, “green and of mild declivity,” that here, childhood might play, manhood make love, and old age meditate, unwearied, from morn to night. mr. grieve would, in spite of his name, be joyful, to wander through its vistas and alleys green, and find fresh scenes for his canvas. what dear little glens, what “banks and braes” for the fairies. can this be titania coming towards us over the moonlit sward, and leaning upon the arm of oberon? no; it is a couple of nuptial neophytes, looking so happy, that, as they pass, i could take off my hat and cheer. ah, if fair lnnisfallen is so beautiful to us poor bachelors by ordinary moonlight, what must it be to benedict, to the man in the moon of honey? what must be the happiness of my lord castlerosse, the eldest son of the lord of the isles of killarney, who has just brought home his bride? 1
1 august, 1858.
were i ever constrained to be a monk and celibate, i should wish my monastery to be at lnnisfallen, and i admire the taste of st. finian (an ancestor, i presume, of mr. finn, our estimable host at the victoria hotel), who, some thirteen hundred years ago, selected this island for his retreat. the picturesque ruins of an ancient abbey still attest, that long after his time, men sought, in this sylvan solitude, that peace which they found not in the world.
sweet innisfallen! “thy praise is hymned by loftier harps than mine,” so lofty indeed, that my obtuse understanding is unable to read some of their music, as, for instance, where moore sings,
“the steadiest light the sun e'er threw
is lifeless to one gleam of thine.”
and, therefore, in plain prose, but with a full heart, good night!
